Ceefax is dead...

Wow, and just like that, Ceefax is dead...

I had thought that this had all come to an end with terrestrial switch off back in 2012, but actually a couple of little bits kept on pinging out content - it's still not (quite) the end...

Back in the day, when teletext (with a small "t") launched, you needed a set-top box to decode it from the terrestrial signal waving around over our heads - I remember hopping into (probably) our Renault 4 with my Dad, with it's lovely creaky campsite style seats and heading somewhere into suburban London to find an independent retailer who actually had one of these strange new decoder boxes (you could also buy a decoder box for the BBC A I seem to remember)...

Anyway, even though this was in the days before tape-based video recorders became established in the mainstream (so I couldn't at the time have drawn the comparison) it was roughly the size of a VHS player. The RF/Coax cable went in the back from the aerial on the roof and another one hooked you up to the TV.  The "remote" control was on a 2 or 3 meter wire that plugged in at the back, so it almost reached all the way to the sofa.  Press a combination of 2 magic buttons and slide a big buff slider or two into "teletext mode" and suddenly words appeared out of thin air...!

I can only really liken it to a very, very early version of the internet (but all done with UDGs in migraine inducing primary colours held in a rigid format)...you could interact with the content in two marvellous ways - either type in a new page number, or hit "Reveal" to make invisible content appear. Amazing! There was one very nice feature though, pick a channel, invoke the decoder, then going to page 888 would "minimise" the "browser" window and display subtitles (where available)...

Even back then though I remember finding it such a pain to browse, if you wanted to go and visit, say, page 800 on Teletext to get some funny jokes or hidden pictures behind a riddle you had to wait while it ticked through *every* *other* *page* of the 999 available on the way before it would (hopefully) load...

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, it's not quite the end...a few cable channels are still (apparently) keeping up text pages (Channel 5, Nickelodian, Syfy channel to name but a couple), and some bright spark has figured out that the teletext signals got recorded on VHS tapes and has worked out how to decode them from old recordings of It Ain't Half Hot Mum and Benny Hill. There is also the teletext archive here...if you are feeling particularly sentimental...bye bye teletext, gone, but not forgotten...  ;)