As Ceefax is trending today let's take a quick look back at the 1970s analogue internet on your telly!
Just waiting for the right page...
Teletext is a way of sending text and very blocky graphics alongside a traditional TV signal, to be decoded and displayed by a suitably equipped telly.
Rumbelows can sort you out with a Ferguson or ITT set if you need one...
And on 23 September 1974 the first teletext service started in the UK: Ceefax on BBC, and Oracle on ITV!*
(*assuming your parents let you watch ITV. Not all did.)
Soon Britain became obsessed by this slightly strange technology. Information on the telly? Whatever next!
And it wasn't long before Blue Peter came along to explain how the magic worked in 1975:
Over to you Lesley...
BBC News soon saw the advantages of Ceefax, and began using it for breaking news: bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-…
And no trip back from the pub was complete without plonking down on your favourite armchair to watch Pages From Ceefax accompanied by some soothing music!
From 1979 onwards the BBC began using Ceefax to provide subtitles, helping to make TV more accessible.
And by the early 1980s you could also get Ceefax on your computer, allowing you to download software for free!
Not quite a torrent, but near enough...
Teletext seemed to have it all and for many years it was a staple part of our news and entertainment diet.
But new technology aways usurps the old and Ceefax came to an end on 22 October 2012, when 625-line analogue TV broadcasts in the UK ended.
Its job was done...
If you were a fan of Ceefax you'll certainly want to check out the online Teletext Museum: teletext.mb21.co.uk
Anyway I hope this thread has helped answer your many questions about what we did before the internet arrived.
Basically we stared at a screen all day for fun...
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Lockdowns are mentally tiring, so you may not be in the mood to finish all those classic novels you started to read. Fortunately I have an alternative for you: Classics Illustrated!
Let's take a look at a few...
Homer eroticism: The Odyssey. Classics Illustrated, 1951.
Wrestling with issues of state: The Life of Abraham Lincoln. Classics Illustrated, 1958.
Today in pulp I'm looking back at a very popular (and collectable) form of art: micro leyendas covers!
Micro Leyendas (mini legends) are a Mexican form of fumetto, small graphic novels normally pitting the everyday hero against the weird, the occult and the unfathomable.
The art of micro leyendas is bold, macabre and very funny. The books often tell a cautionary tale of revenge or humiliation, much like a modern folk tale.
It was a food revolution with a shelf life measured in years, changing how Britain cooked as well as what we ate. The staple diet of a generation, whose very name could conjure up the flavours of the faraway east.
Today in pulp I look back at Vesta ready meals...
Batchelors Foods had been in business since Victorian times and specialised in dried produce and soups. And by 1959, inspired by the American 'TV dinner', they decided to bring the idea of ready meals to the UK.
There was a problem however: in 1959 only 13% of UK households had a fridge, compared to 96% in the US. The American frozen TV dinner wouldn't work in Britain.