I have just been reading a couple of articles online which indicate that today would have been the fiftieth birthday of Ceefax, which was the first teletext service.
You would be able to use teletext on television sets to find out things like the latest news, weather updates and other things. I suppose you could say it was like the Internet. But not as advanced.
A lot of the articles have suggested it was the Internet which led to the demise of Ceefax in 2012. But, it could be argued that - considering other countries, with Internet, still have teletext services - that is a cop out.
In my opinion, the decision to kill off Ceefax was due to the BBC moving to digital content around that period of time.
For today's post, I found a website which replicates what Ceefax was like. It's actually quite nifty because it contains all of the current news both domestic and worldwide. It can be found by typing 'Nathan Media Service Ceefax' into a search engine.
Whenever I think back to Ceefax, or its ITV rival: Oracle (and others), I think of the following. Not in any particular order.
- In the morning haze following Owen Hart's death, which kind of played out on our TV screens in the early hours of May 24 1999 (UK time), I looked up the news to see if the story had made it to either Ceefax or Oracle. It had
- Actually, this one doesn't even involve Ceefax or Oracle. I recall visiting the teletext page for the Turner channels in the UK in 1996 and reading the WCW news. It was on this very service I learnt that Hulk Hogan had turned heel by joining Kevin Nash and Scott Hall at the Bash at the Beach event. This move lead to the New World Order forming and becoming one of the hottest storylines in pro wrestling at that time
- Possibly the October half-term holiday of 1987 and Oracle had a daily competition to win spooky prizes all about The Trap Door series. I entered the comp every day by having to send a postcard. That's where this story ends because I didn't win anything.
- I suppose the story most people will reminisce about teletext services is the access to the latest sports scores. My own personal memory is of going onto the Ceefax or Oracle the mornings before school to find out which team had won the Super Bowl. This would have been at a time when I was obviously too young to stay up in order to watch the games. I recall one of those mornings was hours after the Washington team had claimed the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Looking at the list of Super Bowl winners in front of me, I surmise it was the Super Bowl in 1988 when that particular memory of mine took place. There were other years, but the Washington one stands out the most because - at that time - was kind of rooting for them (and even had Washington pyjamas around that time although they ended up running in the wash and we had to take them back to the shop!)
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