Goodbye Ceefax

[julesjones]

Ceefax is no more, with the last UK TV region switching from analogue to digital this week. There's a nice little 4 minute retrospective clip on the BBC website, which points out that Ceefax was the world's first broadcast of digital information into the home. Lots of nostalgia packed into it, with station ID logos many of you will recall fondly. And the item at 1:17 chosen to illustrate the use of Ceefax for subtitles will be *very* familiar to a large chunk of my flist, who will readily date it to late 1981. :->

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19996372

Comments

[vatine]

Looks like Ceefax had a long life (I make it around 3040 years). Seems as if it predated the Swedish version ("texttv", 'text on television') by about seven years.

[julesjones]

It was the world's first teletext service, and at its peak had several hundred pages available. Brilliant piece of technology, and was still heavily used for a quick check of news headlines, weather etc by people in rural areas with slow internet access.

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

Ceefax used to amuse me for hours on end when I was a wee'en. It was kind of like My First Wikipedia. Only not.

A service who's time came and went, I guess. Oh well! Thanks for the link!

[julesjones]

Even after I got my first modem (28.8K!), I used Ceefax a lot as a quick check on news/weather/tonight's telly. Its time may have been and gone, but its time was nearly 40 years. :-)

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

I used to love Ceefax.

[julesjones]

It was brilliant. A proto-Web.