So long CEEFAX

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Rum
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So long CEEFAX

Post by Rum » Tue Oct 23, 2012 12:31 pm

It has been going for 38 years and though I haven't looked at it in years I have a certain nostalgia for the thing. Now they are switching it off!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20032882

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klr
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Re: So long CEEFAX

Post by klr » Tue Oct 23, 2012 12:33 pm

The younger generation just wouldn't understand things like this. :cranky:
God has no place within these walls, just like facts have no place within organized religion. - Superintendent Chalmers

It's not up to us to choose which laws we want to obey. If it were, I'd kill everyone who looked at me cock-eyed! - Rex Banner

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Re: So long CEEFAX

Post by Clinton Huxley » Tue Oct 23, 2012 12:38 pm

Sob. I used to love watching the cricket on ceefax.
"I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled"

AND MERRY XMAS TO ONE AND All!

Imagehttp://25kv.co.uk/date_counter.php?date ... 20counting!!![/img-sig]

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Re: So long CEEFAX

Post by klr » Tue Oct 23, 2012 12:41 pm

Clinton Huxley wrote:Sob. I used to love watching the cricket on ceefax.
Now if that doesn't baffle our Yankee cousins, nothing will. :lol:
God has no place within these walls, just like facts have no place within organized religion. - Superintendent Chalmers

It's not up to us to choose which laws we want to obey. If it were, I'd kill everyone who looked at me cock-eyed! - Rex Banner

The Bluebird of Happiness long absent from his life, Ned is visited by the Chicken of Depression. - Gary Larson

:mob: :comp: :mob:

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Clinton Huxley
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Re: So long CEEFAX

Post by Clinton Huxley » Tue Oct 23, 2012 12:47 pm

klr wrote:
Clinton Huxley wrote:Sob. I used to love watching the cricket on ceefax.
Now if that doesn't baffle our Yankee cousins, nothing will. :lol:
As a nipper I would dream of CEEFAX headlines like "Huxley Run Blitz Puts Aussies To Sword"

It was the future once.
"I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled"

AND MERRY XMAS TO ONE AND All!

Imagehttp://25kv.co.uk/date_counter.php?date ... 20counting!!![/img-sig]

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Re: So long CEEFAX

Post by Thinking Aloud » Tue Oct 23, 2012 12:51 pm

I used to dial page 000 on the remote, wait about a minute, then get the most amazing page of broken characters and flashing half-formed text. The other trick was to dial up whichever page they were actually broadcasting on BBC1 for three hours in the morning and flick between the TV and Ceefax to compare character fonts.

Yup - today's generation is truly missing out. Farewell Ceefax.

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Re: So long CEEFAX

Post by klr » Tue Oct 23, 2012 12:53 pm

Thinking Aloud wrote:I used to dial page 000 on the remote, wait about a minute, then get the most amazing page of broken characters and flashing half-formed text. The other trick was to dial up whichever page they were actually broadcasting on BBC1 for three hours in the morning and flick between the TV and Ceefax to compare character fonts.

Yup - today's generation is truly missing out. Farewell Ceefax.
Truly, this is ancient geekdom. I approve. :ugeek:
God has no place within these walls, just like facts have no place within organized religion. - Superintendent Chalmers

It's not up to us to choose which laws we want to obey. If it were, I'd kill everyone who looked at me cock-eyed! - Rex Banner

The Bluebird of Happiness long absent from his life, Ned is visited by the Chicken of Depression. - Gary Larson

:mob: :comp: :mob:

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Re: So long CEEFAX

Post by Thinking Aloud » Tue Oct 23, 2012 12:54 pm

klr wrote:
Thinking Aloud wrote:I used to dial page 000 on the remote, wait about a minute, then get the most amazing page of broken characters and flashing half-formed text. The other trick was to dial up whichever page they were actually broadcasting on BBC1 for three hours in the morning and flick between the TV and Ceefax to compare character fonts.

Yup - today's generation is truly missing out. Farewell Ceefax.
Truly, this is ancient geekdom. I approve. :ugeek:
I am honoured, sir.

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Re: So long CEEFAX

Post by klr » Tue Oct 23, 2012 12:58 pm

Thinking Aloud wrote:
klr wrote:
Thinking Aloud wrote:I used to dial page 000 on the remote, wait about a minute, then get the most amazing page of broken characters and flashing half-formed text. The other trick was to dial up whichever page they were actually broadcasting on BBC1 for three hours in the morning and flick between the TV and Ceefax to compare character fonts.

Yup - today's generation is truly missing out. Farewell Ceefax.
Truly, this is ancient geekdom. I approve. :ugeek:
I am honoured, sir.
At age 10 or so, I worked out how the Airfix product coding system worked. I was born to work with databases. :dance:
God has no place within these walls, just like facts have no place within organized religion. - Superintendent Chalmers

It's not up to us to choose which laws we want to obey. If it were, I'd kill everyone who looked at me cock-eyed! - Rex Banner

The Bluebird of Happiness long absent from his life, Ned is visited by the Chicken of Depression. - Gary Larson

:mob: :comp: :mob:

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Re: So long CEEFAX

Post by Clinton Huxley » Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:01 pm

A forgotten hero....
Video on the web... what's the big deal? Ceefax was there first, in the 1980s, when it experimented with some revolutionary coverage of the annual University Boat Race between Cambridge and Oxford. A journalist decided to construct a page showing the route of the course using the graphics usually used for building the weather maps.
Two dots represented the boats and they were moved across the screen to track the crews once the race got under way. What is not recorded is how many people decided to watch this instead of the actual live race coverage on TV at the same time.
From here...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8260196.stm
"I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled"

AND MERRY XMAS TO ONE AND All!

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Re: So long CEEFAX

Post by Bella Fortuna » Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:03 pm

klr wrote:
Thinking Aloud wrote:
klr wrote:
Thinking Aloud wrote:I used to dial page 000 on the remote, wait about a minute, then get the most amazing page of broken characters and flashing half-formed text. The other trick was to dial up whichever page they were actually broadcasting on BBC1 for three hours in the morning and flick between the TV and Ceefax to compare character fonts.

Yup - today's generation is truly missing out. Farewell Ceefax.
Truly, this is ancient geekdom. I approve. :ugeek:
I am honoured, sir.
At age 10 or so, I worked out how the Airfix product coding system worked. I was born to work with databases. :dance:
FREAKS. :freak:


Loveable, loveable freaks. :swoon:
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Re: So long CEEFAX

Post by Red Celt » Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:06 pm

Clinton Huxley wrote:Sob. I used to love watching the cricket on ceefax.
How does your mind work? Cricket... the most boring "sport" ever invented... "watched" on Ceefax? It's like, take a trainspotter and make them even duller than they were before. Then take their trains away. And their notebook. But let them keep their pen.
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Re: So long CEEFAX

Post by Clinton Huxley » Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:08 pm

Red Celt wrote:
Clinton Huxley wrote:Sob. I used to love watching the cricket on ceefax.
How does your mind work? Cricket... the most boring "sport" ever invented... "watched" on Ceefax? It's like, take a trainspotter and make them even duller than they were before. Then take their trains away. And their notebook. But let them keep their pen.
Doesn't it sound divine? A close to the numinous as I've ever been...
"I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled"

AND MERRY XMAS TO ONE AND All!

Imagehttp://25kv.co.uk/date_counter.php?date ... 20counting!!![/img-sig]

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Re: So long CEEFAX

Post by Clinton Huxley » Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:15 pm

A comment on the BBC new website....


Ceefax is what the internet could be.
Ernest Hope Stephenson, UK

Well said, Ernest!
"I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled"

AND MERRY XMAS TO ONE AND All!

Imagehttp://25kv.co.uk/date_counter.php?date ... 20counting!!![/img-sig]

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Re: So long CEEFAX

Post by Red Celt » Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:18 pm

Clinton Huxley wrote:
Red Celt wrote:
Clinton Huxley wrote:Sob. I used to love watching the cricket on ceefax.
How does your mind work? Cricket... the most boring "sport" ever invented... "watched" on Ceefax? It's like, take a trainspotter and make them even duller than they were before. Then take their trains away. And their notebook. But let them keep their pen.
Doesn't it sound divine? A close to the numinous as I've ever been...
When I relocated to Scotland, one of the motivating factors was the fact that my exposure to cricket would be reduced to nil. Sadly, that fact wasn't a fact, because some people in the BBC actually think that anybody in the rest of the UK gives a flying fuck about the England cricket team.

In all of my time in England, I think that I met 2 actual fans of cricket. Lots of people who were interested in football. Almost zero interested in cricket. Apart from Yorkshire, the whole of England is disinterested in it... apart from those who subscribe to the class system. Some self-assessed "middle class" people like cricket; those considered "working class" don't. But to the BBC, the first B in that corporation isn't short for "British", it's short for "Bloody English".

So everyone is Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are forced to endure regular updates about cricket. I'd like to see the BBC give regular updates on a similarly unloved Scottish sport. See how that plays out in the Home Counties when they are constantly told about the Scottish Curling Captain getting caught with a prostitute.

The message might finally sink in.
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