![]() ![]() Their replacement was the boldly-named Teletext Ltd, and after a rocky start – Oracle had accrued a loyal audience, who were less than impressed by Teletext’s launch day problems – it soon became apparent the new service was more akin to a breezy magazine than a dry informational feed. ![]() ORACLE, who had provided content for their teletext service since its launch, failed to renew their claim to the franchise. That all changed on New Year’s Day of 1993. There were a couple of comic strips aimed at the very young and a half-hearted music section to be found here and there, but the various services were sorely lacking in entertainment value. Ceefax in particular, while praiseworthy for managing to achieve a clear and informative voice in a hugely limited space, usually felt like an extension of the evening news. If you were of a certain age and didn’t care about share prices or discount holidays, there was another problem: teletext was a bit boring. ![]() Since the whole affair was being carried on the airwaves, it was also possible that a dodgy TV signal could introduce corrupted characters or even scramble a page entirely – a minor inconvenience when reading a news headline, but a frustration when checking information like stocks or timetables. Not all pages were broadcast simultaneously, so reaching them could be swift or slow depending on how long it took them to cycle back around. The system was not without its flaws, of course. With millions of televisions limited to the immensely-popular original standard, however, only a few providers elected to take the upgrade.īlocky and gaudy as it was, teletext was here to stay. The standard had always been seen as extensible, with older versions simply able to ignore elements they didn’t understand, and broadcasters around the world experimented with enhanced versions of teletext that were able to provider sharper text and more colourful images. Less successful were attempts to update teletext itself. ![]() While much of the software is obscure by today’s standards (including a slightly dubious Star Trek game) the service endured into the late 1980s. Enthusiasts could buy an adaptor containing tuning dials and a TV aerial, using it to download utilities and games using the same TV signals that carried teletext. Teletext’s popularity saw the technology used in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways – not least of which was telesoftware, an initiative by the Beeb itself using Acorn’s BBC Micro computer. By 1982 over two million TVs – mostly portable ones, as it would take longer for larger sets to catch up – could access both Ceefax and ORACLE, which had launched as ITV’s teletext service and presented itself as a novel new advertising platform. Though take-up was initially somewhat limited since a set-top box was needed to access the service, TV sets with in-built decoders gradually trickled onto the market and the audience swelled. The race to be King of the Teletext Hill had officially begun.Ĭeefax was launched formally in 1976. All were originally incompatible, which would have been a nightmare for TV manufacturers and consumers alike, but a specification was eventually agreed that would later be taken up worldwide. Not to be outdone, competing companies promptly announced their own endeavours in the form of rival services like ORACLE and Prestel. ![]()
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