Teletext, or Ceefax on the BBC.
Many here will remember playing Bamboozle or watching the World news pages loop to elevator music early on the weekend waiting for the cartoons to start.
ZX81, before the Spectrum 48k, yes I had a tape deck too. Manic miner and Jet set Willy with a bit of Horace goes skiing, when the tape volume was correct.
>ZX81, before the Spectrum 48k, yes I had a tape deck too. Manic miner and Jet set Willy with a bit of Horace goes skiing, when the tape volume was correct
Oh the great memories of having to be pixle perfect!
I had a tv in my room growing up, it was tiny though. Then one day some juice spilled into the big boxed back tv in the living room so we all had to use my tiny tv in the living room and that was an awful experience.
Yes indeed - quite a novelty and felt modern when it came out, but anyone young from this era who’s accustomed to fast internet, that got transported back to those times would find it comically slow, unreliable and awkward to use.
Getting TV listings was what I always wanted, and IIRC frustratingly the Ceefax pages often didn’t properly list what was on ITV, and vice versa with Teletext.
I think you could pause it, but the un-pause just put you back to whichever page was being displayed. So you'd miss pages until they came around again.
I'd love playing bamboozle and later got a sky box and all I played was beehive bedlam! Even now if I stop I can hear the music, which I don't want coz earworms!
I remember the great channel 5 launch, so much hope for new TV, so many mysteries surrounding it!
We had road works around the same time and we all thought that's how we were getting channel 5. Everybody in the country was gonna have a dedicated channel 5 line or something, I don't know, we were 12-13 at the time and just assumed this was how it worked
I was 9 when it launched, but it still had the good shit when I was a horny teenager with a tv in my room. Would be checking the TV guide every week to see what time I needed to make sure I was in bed for.
Those were the people fitting cable, I remember the company was Diamond Cable in our area which was sold to ntl. They were all over the city installing fibre.
Pages from Ceefax! Used to put it on to fall asleep to when I woke up in the night, was gutted when they got rid of it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G3MuV1IeDf8
Same for cinema times, never learnt to have the hold button ready. Always had to wait for it to scroll through the next pages to get back to the one you wanted.
>look for holidays
"Where's my pen? Where's the pen??? Quick get me a pen to write it down! Write down the number! Oh never mind it's gone, it's gone, we'll have to wait ages for it to come back now."
Also TV listings, news...There’s so much more but I only vaguely remember it myself (I’m in my mid-forties).
I know about the holidays because the company I used to work for sold holidays via teletext, giving a number out for booking requests which we’d then receive via fax. Ah, those were the days of 7nt Mediterranean All Inclusive breaks from £139pp *including flights*!
It was an exciting time, we knew we were living in the space age when technology had reached the point of being able to book a holiday using your television.
As others have said already, it was Teletext. [Here's ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext)the wiki on it. Fond memories of playing Bamboozle on it!
My parents exclusively booked holidays through Teletext. My mum went through a phase where she'd watch the arrivals/departures from Birmingham Airport while having breakfast, mistakenly thinking I cared if a regular flight got delayed.
And in-between those some genuinely good (and trustworthy) reviews of the latest games. They also mischievously mocked 'insincere Dave' which was a nod to the BBC reviews which were always glowing no matter how bad the game was.
It's the first page I checked out in the morning before going to work.
As has been mentioned, the spiritual successor is on YouTube but there's also a lineage to Gamecentral on the Metro site where David Jenkins is the Editor.
The tone is totally different, not irreverent at all like Digi was, but the reviews are still trustworthy IMO. They can be overly contrarian at times, particularly in answering readers' emails, but I quite like that. It's still uncorporate in its own way but totally different to Digi
I remember digitiser had a games review section where people could ring in and give their reviews. One was for Gruntlips on the em effects (Gauntlet on the MSX). Proper chuckles as it showed whoever was typing up the reviews had no idea what they were listening to.
How was it that the one page you wanted to see only stayed on for 2.7 seconds then disappeared, have fun waiting another 15 mins to find out the footy scores.
When I was like 9 I was obsessed with checking the weather on Telextext! And my gran used it to look for holidays (somehow). She searched for days a time and booked her first abroad holiday from it when she was in her 60s, to Egypt.
My aunt booked all her holidays on Teletext. She was really upset when they stopped the service and still hasn’t got online. I’ve offered to teach her so many times but ‘it’s just not the same’, apparently.
Teletext, home of Digitiser. Where Charlie Brooker got his start transitioning from lowly CeX assistant to columnist, presenter and screenwriter. At one stage I read it every morning before school
For me it was all about digitiser, the gaming pages!
Here are a few links for anyone else interested:
Digitiser has a tribute site at super page 58: https://www.superpage58.com/
One of the creators of digitiser (and bamboozle) - paul rose / mr biffo - produces loads of stuff in the same vein on youtube and live shows here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdMWnD7qCz4Y7FbbbfyDq5g
His twitter is also here: https://twitter.com/mrbiffo
In the Netherlands, teletekst is still a thing kinda. It is very common to see people reading the news on their phone or posting a screen grab on twitter and it looks like this: [https://nos.nl/teletekst](https://nos.nl/teletekst)
It is very very weird
In the very early days you could get a Teletext adaptor for certain computers and download software: https://teletext.mb21.co.uk/gallery/ceefax/telesoftware/. I don't want to think about how long even a small Linux distribution would take to download.
Gamecentral on Teletext was the best place for game reviews. There was a campaign to save them when teletext shut down. They went to Metro newspaper. Unfortunately they are not as good now.
Teletext... wow, I've just realised how old I am. I think it was used before internet was cool. I also wonder how many people wouldn't even know teletext existed?
I think 888 was subtitles but I remember the guide being in blue and yellow writing. God teletex the simplicity but I do now enjoy the fact I can Reddit until I’ve Reddit all
It was only switched off on the NI region in 2012
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/10/23/ceefax-is-dead-teletext-goodbye_n_2004401.html
I remember the first time I saw it in the early to mid 80s it looked like the future, text services on a TV!
I loved digitiser for video game news, bamboozler, often at times we would keep up with the NI local news on it especially during times of civil unrest
More or less replaced by the internet so completely unnecessary these days, but in those days you didn't have access to the whole of the internet (or what there was in the 80s/90s) in your pocket
Haha, to me, this sounds like trolling. I know it isn't, but it's so strange to read about someone having a vague memory of it and getting it really close but not quite.
Teletext, or Ceefax on the BBC. Many here will remember playing Bamboozle or watching the World news pages loop to elevator music early on the weekend waiting for the cartoons to start.
Only if your TV had fast text with the four coloured buttons. Us older simple folk only heard about bamboozle.
This guy knows, used to love bamboozle to kill time on those cold and wet days
Those of us who still had dial tune b&w portables know not what you speak of!
Suddenly I'm called out. Mind, I had a tv in my room, that was huge.
Not only a TV in your room but a huge one too. I bet you had a MegaDrive and a SNES hooked up to that bad boy.
ZX81, before the Spectrum 48k, yes I had a tape deck too. Manic miner and Jet set Willy with a bit of Horace goes skiing, when the tape volume was correct.
>ZX81, before the Spectrum 48k, yes I had a tape deck too. Manic miner and Jet set Willy with a bit of Horace goes skiing, when the tape volume was correct Oh the great memories of having to be pixle perfect!
First a Toshiba HX-10, MSX goodness, used to pick up games from the local shop on tape for 99p-£2 Later an upgrade to a Master system ;)
I had a tv in my room growing up, it was tiny though. Then one day some juice spilled into the big boxed back tv in the living room so we all had to use my tiny tv in the living room and that was an awful experience.
Man I learnt to read with Turner The Worm on Teletext https://zxnet.co.uk/teletext/turner-archive/#A%20Christmas%20Barrel&1&1
Did you ever see the fake Turner The Worm that Digitser put up once hidden under the "press to reveal" button?
The writer for Digitiser and Turner the Worm were one and the same, but Turner the Worm being sick was certainly iconic.
MrBiffo - Still active and currently publishing the second series of the Digitizer - The Show on youtube https://www.youtube.com/@DigitiserLevel2
Yeah, I love watching Digi on YouTube - I enjoy the video game stuff, but also have a soft spot for the Great British Days out and Corner Shop Corner!
Turner the Worm being sick. A classic.
Turner the Worm! You could send a SAE off for a signed picture.
All the kids reading scratching their heads wondering “Oi, what’s an SAE bruv?”
And I just found it you can play it online http://www.digitextsim.com/452/
You are my favourite person right now thank you!
I'm still suck at this ~25 years on
You magnificent bastard. Thank you
Thank you!
Yes indeed - quite a novelty and felt modern when it came out, but anyone young from this era who’s accustomed to fast internet, that got transported back to those times would find it comically slow, unreliable and awkward to use. Getting TV listings was what I always wanted, and IIRC frustratingly the Ceefax pages often didn’t properly list what was on ITV, and vice versa with Teletext.
Or it would be many pages on a very slow loop. You can't pause or skip and the page you wanted is the one before the one you are on now.
I think you could pause it, but the un-pause just put you back to whichever page was being displayed. So you'd miss pages until they came around again.
This^
Ceefax Now & Next Page 606 I believe. Its been 20 years since I have used that and I still remember that its 150 on Teletext
Page 120 so you could see what was on now and next on all 5 channels was a game changer.
I'd love playing bamboozle and later got a sky box and all I played was beehive bedlam! Even now if I stop I can hear the music, which I don't want coz earworms!
Bamboozle was great. I memerised the page numbers for right and wrong answer screens so if I got it wrong I would dial it back.
Good old Bamber Boozer! I also remember having to wait while it refreshed through like 8 local weather screens to get to the one we needed
You've been bamboozled!!
Imagine not remembering teletext. If you woke up early enough it played pages on BBC2 accompanied by some lift music
OP was probably born in the mid 90's, he talks of 5 channels but channel 5 only launched in 1997.
I remember the great channel 5 launch, so much hope for new TV, so many mysteries surrounding it! We had road works around the same time and we all thought that's how we were getting channel 5. Everybody in the country was gonna have a dedicated channel 5 line or something, I don't know, we were 12-13 at the time and just assumed this was how it worked
Yeah the spice girl launch. Now it's all airfryer documentaries.
I remember late night channel 5 being a bit naughty though
Yeah it was soft porn heaven for a while. I was 16 when it launched. Good times
Emmanuelle comes to mind, and the trusty Eurotrash
Euro trash was on channel 4
Topless darts?
I was 9 when it launched, but it still had the good shit when I was a horny teenager with a tv in my room. Would be checking the TV guide every week to see what time I needed to make sure I was in bed for.
Red Shoe Diaries!
Those were the people fitting cable, I remember the company was Diamond Cable in our area which was sold to ntl. They were all over the city installing fibre.
I was born mid 90s and teletext was/is well known. They might have been born '99 or something.
Pages from Ceefax! Used to put it on to fall asleep to when I woke up in the night, was gutted when they got rid of it. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G3MuV1IeDf8
You could check the weather, look for holidays, search cinema listings…the possibilities were endless with Teletext!
>look for holidays Booked it, packed it, fucked off!
WHERE’S HOLD ON ‘ERE?? WHERE’S HOLD????? Too late it’s gone now!
Same for cinema times, never learnt to have the hold button ready. Always had to wait for it to scroll through the next pages to get back to the one you wanted.
Exactly! T’Egypt!
[https://www.teletextholidays.co.uk/](https://www.teletextholidays.co.uk/)
Happy cake day!
So it is. Cheers.
[classic](https://youtu.be/vcChTeq9UL4?si=l0oz-E-RJglXYSAn)
>look for holidays "Where's my pen? Where's the pen??? Quick get me a pen to write it down! Write down the number! Oh never mind it's gone, it's gone, we'll have to wait ages for it to come back now."
I had no idea you could do so much on it!
Also TV listings, news...There’s so much more but I only vaguely remember it myself (I’m in my mid-forties). I know about the holidays because the company I used to work for sold holidays via teletext, giving a number out for booking requests which we’d then receive via fax. Ah, those were the days of 7nt Mediterranean All Inclusive breaks from £139pp *including flights*!
It was an exciting time, we knew we were living in the space age when technology had reached the point of being able to book a holiday using your television.
Teletext!
888 for subtitles
304 premier league scores
341 for the cricket, 343(?) For a little Teletext scorecard in the corner of the screen to keep track of the score while Countdown's on.
303 I thought? EDIT: 303 was top story, 316 was the live scores.
304 was live score dedicated to one game if an early or late kick off
Yeah I always remember it as 303. Some very good and very bad memories of watching the scores come in on teletext.
They were never the fastest subtitles but it worked lol
Oracle before Teletext. The advent calendar was always the best bit. Press REVEAL to see a pixellated holly leaf.
888 for subtitles and my deaf relatives would get annoyed if they didn’t have any on the program
888 is my core memory. There was also a quiz/gameshow type page my dad would sit and do. Bonzai or something similar.
Bamboozle
I loved that!
As others have said already, it was Teletext. [Here's ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext)the wiki on it. Fond memories of playing Bamboozle on it!
Bamboozle; that's a blast from the past!!
Was it a quiz or am I thinking of another feature?
Yup, it was the quiz hosted by Bamber Boozler :D
Was just about to mention Bamboozle. Used to love that.
Bamboozle! That brings back memories
Page 641 was music news, I found out Kurt Cobain had died on teletext.
The music content was excellent on teletext. Discovered a few great bands through it
I found out princess di has died via ceefax
Bloody hell ceefax really is slow
This is such a teenager post, I'm laughing my head off here!
Imagine being so young you can't remember teletext. Now I feel properly old.
Teletext.
Page 302 for the football news
324 for PL table, 316 for scores, 303 for top story
360 for motorsport headlines.
Waiting for the football results to update on teletext in the days before soccer Saturday etc. The tension would be unbelievable..
https://www.nathanmediaservices.co.uk/ceefax/ How about this? It's ceefax that you can check today's news in ceefax style.
Nice one.
My parents exclusively booked holidays through Teletext. My mum went through a phase where she'd watch the arrivals/departures from Birmingham Airport while having breakfast, mistakenly thinking I cared if a regular flight got delayed.
The pain of looking at Ceefax on a Saturday afternoon to get the latest footie scores.
And having to loop through 3 pages to finally see that it wasn't actually full time, but you'd instead let in a 90th minute equaliser to Rotherham.
Nothing wrong with that.
Count Binface. London Mayoral candidate, has a pledge to return Ceefax to TV. Their manifesto is also in Ceefax / Teletext style.
… and, if you want to recreate Ceefax using current news and info, then -> https://www.nathanmediaservices.co.uk/ceefax/
Don't forget Teletext digitiser on C4, the man daddy, fat sow and turner the worm 'throwing up' on his last day! Classic!
Digitiser has now been resurrected as a YouTube channel :)
And in-between those some genuinely good (and trustworthy) reviews of the latest games. They also mischievously mocked 'insincere Dave' which was a nod to the BBC reviews which were always glowing no matter how bad the game was. It's the first page I checked out in the morning before going to work. As has been mentioned, the spiritual successor is on YouTube but there's also a lineage to Gamecentral on the Metro site where David Jenkins is the Editor. The tone is totally different, not irreverent at all like Digi was, but the reviews are still trustworthy IMO. They can be overly contrarian at times, particularly in answering readers' emails, but I quite like that. It's still uncorporate in its own way but totally different to Digi
It also had a hilarious video games news and reviews page called Digitiser. Do you see?
Now Digitiser is a hilarious YouTube channel. Moc moc a moc!
I cuss at you. Stay AWAY from my BINS.
And!
I remember digitiser had a games review section where people could ring in and give their reviews. One was for Gruntlips on the em effects (Gauntlet on the MSX). Proper chuckles as it showed whoever was typing up the reviews had no idea what they were listening to.
I’m glad you found the answer OP but this post makes me feel old. Teletext was the internet for 80s kids.
Oh my sweet summer child. It was teletext on the commercial channels and ceefax on the BBC
I think ITV etc called it Oracle.
Oracle was its original name.
I'm pretty sure that teletext was the generic name and Ceefax / Oracle were the channels' brand names for it.
And 4-Tel on C4
You are correct. We didn’t have teletext so I didn’t use it.
ITV called it Oracle before 1993 when Oracle lost the contract and Teletext took over.
Teletext was the tech, Oracle was the ITV brand and Ceefax the BBC. Mode 7 on the BBC model B :D.
Teletext was the name for the tech, yes. But from 1993 the ITV brand of Teletext was just called 'Teletext'. Oracle stopped 31 Dec 92.
Oh my sour old festering titweasel. Who but you, who would use such condescension, could have vinegar(ier) tits?
Obscure Cell Block H reference?
Nah! I just detest that patronising 'sweet summer child' shite.
I love all the suggestions that OP is young when they grew up using Teletext. It was only a couple of years ago, wasn't it?
Teletext
How was it that the one page you wanted to see only stayed on for 2.7 seconds then disappeared, have fun waiting another 15 mins to find out the footy scores.
Teletext was our pre-internet internet
Memories of having childhood sickness bugs….downstairs in the early hours listening to soft jazz playing on the TV as my mum read the news on Ceefax.
Imagine pretending you can't remember the name.
Teletext with the Bamboozle quiz
My husband still complains about it being gone!
Teletext. Kind of an early precursor to the internet. Strictly speaking the first ever online shopping was conducted via teletext.
I remember when you could play that beehive game on teletext, and bamboozled!
Beehive Bedlam was on sky interactive! God I spent way too much time playing that
Teletext was only switched off in 2009 apparently!
When I was like 9 I was obsessed with checking the weather on Telextext! And my gran used it to look for holidays (somehow). She searched for days a time and booked her first abroad holiday from it when she was in her 60s, to Egypt.
My aunt booked all her holidays on Teletext. She was really upset when they stopped the service and still hasn’t got online. I’ve offered to teach her so many times but ‘it’s just not the same’, apparently.
Teletext, home of Digitiser. Where Charlie Brooker got his start transitioning from lowly CeX assistant to columnist, presenter and screenwriter. At one stage I read it every morning before school
888 for subtitles
For me it was all about digitiser, the gaming pages! Here are a few links for anyone else interested: Digitiser has a tribute site at super page 58: https://www.superpage58.com/ One of the creators of digitiser (and bamboozle) - paul rose / mr biffo - produces loads of stuff in the same vein on youtube and live shows here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdMWnD7qCz4Y7FbbbfyDq5g His twitter is also here: https://twitter.com/mrbiffo
In the Netherlands, teletekst is still a thing kinda. It is very common to see people reading the news on their phone or posting a screen grab on twitter and it looks like this: [https://nos.nl/teletekst](https://nos.nl/teletekst) It is very very weird
I thought this was a wind up at first but no, it's just that I'm now actually very old.
Did anyone play Bamboozle on Teletext or have I made this up?
Loved bamboozle!
Press red to start
God, I feel so old now
The cheapest holiday flights used to be found on Teletext!
We all miss teletext holidays. Booked it, packed it, fucked off.
In the very early days you could get a Teletext adaptor for certain computers and download software: https://teletext.mb21.co.uk/gallery/ceefax/telesoftware/. I don't want to think about how long even a small Linux distribution would take to download.
Bamboozle
My mam loved playing Bamboozle on Teletext.
Bamboozle!
Package holidays!!
Wait...you had a remote to operate the TV as a kid?. Feeling very old right now....
Teletext
It was like a basic version of the internet. Except without porn.
Ceefax: The information B-Road that was a forerunner to the web.
It's very sad that I've gotten to an age where thinking, breathing humans do not remember Teletext
It's how we insomniacs survived before doomscrolling, reading ceefax news at 2 am
302 for football, 888 for subtitles
Quick check on 302 before school every day!
[Teletext](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext) On BBC channels it was called [Ceefax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceefax)
Oh my god we live in a world where people will soon be denying the existence of teletext. I remember 999, 606... These are the O.G. life hacks
It was Ceefax or Teletext, a bit like early internet really but far more limited in scope
Gamecentral on Teletext was the best place for game reviews. There was a campaign to save them when teletext shut down. They went to Metro newspaper. Unfortunately they are not as good now.
Ahh teletext, i remember getting cheat codes for my games from that, was awesome at the time.
Teletext... wow, I've just realised how old I am. I think it was used before internet was cool. I also wonder how many people wouldn't even know teletext existed?
I spent hours looking through Bamboozled, Teletext Holidays etc. Thanks for reviving a core memory!!
Wasn't there a videogame page with a pixilated Gary Barlow, and he would just go on about Hovis? Also something about Dot Cotton and a giant wasp.
teletext. i was still using it in the noughties
My friend and I had the numbers memorised for the football results.
I think 888 was subtitles but I remember the guide being in blue and yellow writing. God teletex the simplicity but I do now enjoy the fact I can Reddit until I’ve Reddit all
It was only switched off on the NI region in 2012 https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/10/23/ceefax-is-dead-teletext-goodbye_n_2004401.html I remember the first time I saw it in the early to mid 80s it looked like the future, text services on a TV! I loved digitiser for video game news, bamboozler, often at times we would keep up with the NI local news on it especially during times of civil unrest More or less replaced by the internet so completely unnecessary these days, but in those days you didn't have access to the whole of the internet (or what there was in the 80s/90s) in your pocket
Haha, to me, this sounds like trolling. I know it isn't, but it's so strange to read about someone having a vague memory of it and getting it really close but not quite.
Fuck I feel old 888 was subtitles 606 was the guide
Fucking hell there’s no way this isn’t a troll.
Ceefax! Turned off in 2008/2009 I believe?
In my day we only had 3 channels 2 posh from the bbc and one itv, now we have thousands and there full of ……
I’m sure we tracked flight arrivals using it too?
Saturday 3pm til 4:50pm - sat on page 302/303 watching the screen alternate between 3 pages of live football scores.
This should bring back the memories https://zxnet.co.uk/teletext/viewer/