NationStates

What's Teletext?

Teletext (or "broadcast Teletext") is a television information retrieval service developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. It offers a range of text-based information, typically including national, international and sporting news, weather and TV schedules. Subtitle (or closed captioning) information is also transmitted in the teletext signal, typically on page 888 or 777.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext

I still use it a lot. In many countries the Teletext content is feed by the news department and often the earliest source of information.

But what about you?

* snigger

I do. In Italy we call it "Televideo".

Risottia wrote:I do. In Italy we call it "Televideo".

One day, my nephew (he's 17 years old) was around while I was watching Teletext.

Nephew: What's that? It's looks so old. It have to be boring.

Ah, teletext, a fine classic of 20th century technology.

I use it, mostly for checking the results of ongoing soccer matches.

As the article indicated, this never caught on in the States. We've moved in different directions, with more closed captioning and web-TV integration (my AT&T U-verse service can function in something akin to a web-surfing mode using the TV controller instead of a mouse).

The Blaatschapen wrote:Ah, teletext, a fine classic of 20th century technology.

I use it, mostly for checking the results of ongoing soccer matches.

Hey Blaatschapen, wat doe jij nou hier met een Belgiesche vlag, man? Doe zoals ik en kom nou hier gewoon even wonen. Is goed voor je belastingen ook.

@HK: I won't respond to that question, since all threads where I start speaking dutch end up in forum 7

I used it last Sunday for election results at my parents. I have no TV at home, so normally, I don't use it.

So sad it is being scrapped.

Glad you brought this up, Hairless Kitten II: I have loads of memories.

The use of Ceefax has been very very influential since it's like a early form of the internet on your TV. The travel news on Page 162 (ITV) used to have a simplified map of the M25 motorway with the type of problems coloured into it. 888 must be the most memorable number because that was where the subtitles were, and very helpful for the hearing impaired. Pages 700-799 only got used for the General Election results back in '05 since there were too many constituencies to fit into the news service between 101-199. Channel 4 used to run a game called Bamboozle which used pages with letters (such as 14A). In 2002 there were also a few test pages I came across on ITV pages 699, 704, 705 and 799.

bubblegun comedy pages were the only thing i ever used teletext for. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitiser


other than that, no... grew up with the internets instead. my dad's going to miss it though

yeah use it just for the footy letters page there a good laugh sometimes

Oh yeah, Videotext is very nice to have.

To be absolutely honest, it looks like MS Paint.

Charlotte Ryberg wrote:Glad you brought this up, Hairless Kitten II: I have loads of memories.

The use of Ceefax has been very very influential since it's like a early form of the internet on your TV. The travel news on Page 162 (ITV) used to have a simplified map of the M25 motorway with the type of problems coloured into it. 888 must be the most memorable number because that was where the subtitles were, and very helpful for the hearing impaired. Pages 700-799 only got used for the General Election results back in '05 since there were too many constituencies to fit into the news service between 101-199. Channel 4 used to run a game called Bamboozle which used pages with letters (such as 14A). In 2002 there were also a few test pages I came across on ITV pages 699, 704, 705 and 799.

Oh... teletext memories... I can contrubute as well. Did anyone else love to find out the text pages on the last pages? I liked to do that as a child. Or read the subtitles on 150 in the state owned stations and noticed how they differed from what was actually said.

My girlfriend is originally from Germany, and I remember her mentioning teletext a couple of times when we would talk about tv related stuff. I never had any idea what the hell she was talking about until we went to visit her family for Christmas in Germany, and I finally saw it. I guess it gets the job done, but I couldn't believe how ancient it looked. It reminded me of our first computer, an Apple II I think, but with a little more color variety. Good times.

Meh, I has the Interwebs, and I dont think its available in the United States, besides, as your nephew so eloquently put, it looks boring,

They don't have it in Canada, to my knowledge. I did use those telephone information services, though, where you dial codes for weather, election results, sports scores, exchange rates, etc. Environment Canada also used to have a weather line where you could get the temperature, current conditions, short- and long-term forecasts, etc. Now they've scrapped it along with the free "dial a live meteorologist" line, which you now have to pay for.

I still have a look for cheap holidays but other than that it's been wholly superseeded by the internet.

Rejistania wrote:

Charlotte Ryberg wrote:Glad you brought this up, Hairless Kitten II: I have loads of memories.

The use of Ceefax has been very very influential since it's like a early form of the internet on your TV. The travel news on Page 162 (ITV) used to have a simplified map of the M25 motorway with the type of problems coloured into it. 888 must be the most memorable number because that was where the subtitles were, and very helpful for the hearing impaired. Pages 700-799 only got used for the General Election results back in '05 since there were too many constituencies to fit into the news service between 101-199. Channel 4 used to run a game called Bamboozle which used pages with letters (such as 14A). In 2002 there were also a few test pages I came across on ITV pages 699, 704, 705 and 799.

Oh... teletext memories... I can contrubute as well. Did anyone else love to find out the text pages on the last pages? I liked to do that as a child. Or read the subtitles on 150 in the state owned stations and noticed how they differed from what was actually said.

Well, over here 888 was the subtitles. Allthough I find out that the commercial channels didn't have subtitling in the beginning. And yes, I loved to scan through all pages to see if something weird pops up... And that also sums up my addiction to NSG

The Blaatschapen wrote:Well, over here 888 was the subtitles. Allthough I find out that the commercial channels didn't have subtitling in the beginning. And yes, I loved to scan through all pages to see if something weird pops up... And that also sums up my addiction to NSG

It is indeed very regretful that such a useful feature has been replaced by "refer to your manufacturer's instructions", which can vary between brands.