I've just watched this fascinating excerpt from a 1983 episode of BBC's Micro Live, in which they cover the broadcasting of computer software by radio and television!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtTVczVmV8w

A few things stood out to me:

• 2m35s: I always wondered what these dots were above the video. That I remember seeing them all the time (before the switchover to fully digital TV signals in around 2010) implies that the picture must never have been properly adjusted on the television sets I used!
• 5m17s: This is very cool! Being able to parse real live data from Ceefax must have seemed very exotic before domestic connections to the Internet became generally available.
• 6m29s: I don't agree with the interviewee Lawson Brown here at all! There's no reason you couldn't have error checking of a digital radio broadcast. I'm sure he knew that, but it's still a weak argument IMHO.
• 7m48s: The interviewer Ian McNaught-Davis touches upon some really interesting questions about the quality of free software. The topic doesn't really get fleshed out in this video, but it's fascinating to think that this episode aired literally five days before the GNU project was announced, which, after a bit of time, would essentially demonstrate the answer to those questions!

#retrocomputing #bbcmicro #teletext #ceefax

BBC Archive: "1978: How Ceefax Changes Everything"

https://youtu.be/cCZEHoolBCg

#1970s #Technology #BBC #Teletext #Ceefax #Computing

Интернет нашего детства. История и технология телетекста

- Мы телек купили! - Круто! Телетекст есть? Если диалог выше для вас имеет смысл, значит вы, как и я, застали технологии девяностых. Многие из этих технологий были весьма причудливы. Но даже среди них телетекст – это нечто особенное. Если ваш телевизор его поддерживал, то для вас открывался удивительный мир текстовой информации, которую вы могли (как казалось) выбирать сами. Свежий прогноз погоды, программа передач, результаты матчей и, конечно же, сказки. Почти Интернет в телевизоре! Но как это работало, почему выбор контента был иллюзорным, и кто вообще додумался снабдить ТВ-каналы таким удивительным расширением? Давайте разбираться!

https://habr.com/ru/companies/beget/articles/1009308/

#телевизор #телевидение #ТВ #телетекст #ceefax #oracle #приставка #вещание #история_технологий #teletext

Here's the link to the in-vision Pages From Ceefax I captured from videotape:
https://youtu.be/VKlRJ18tGNQ

Remember, Pages From Ceefax is still a thing in 2026 thanks to Nathan Dane:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8OUAiWH_jc

#PagesFromCeefax #Ceefax #Teletext #VHS #History #Retro #Nostalgia

Checked in on the latest tape going through the teletext recovery setup, and discovered I was capturing teletext from the VBI while teletext was also in-vision on Pages From Ceefax. Very meta.

(Yes, I'll rewind when it's done and capture that, too, before you ask.)

#VCR #Ceefax #Teletext

Now on BBC2, a selection of biscuits from Sainsbury’s.

#Ceefax