Ceefax is 35 Years old today!

...or indeed none at all, if you live in a DSO'd area like me!

We didn't get a Teletext TV until about 1994 or so, and I remember we looked all over Ceefax for Bamboozle, only to find later on that it was on Teletext on Channel 4.

I'm pretty certain on BBC TWO on Virgin you can still get a Ceefax front page and 888 subtitles, but I think this must be rebroadcast from Sky, as there's no Teletext signal at all on DTT.

Although I watch Digital all the time and have done for years now, it'll be weird to think that for us from November/December there will be no Analogue TV and no Analogue Teletext at all.

I'm the same. I've had Sky in Plymouth since 1998, and before that I had Comcast cable in Stockton-on-Tees.

It is quite odd after DSO because when I turn on the TV the default is analogue channel 1 (BBC One) and of course nothing is there.

I wonder whether I can change that so the default is the internal DTV?

I remember saying that on a popular Pres mailing list back in 1999 along the lines of "Teletext is a poor man's internet" and I got lynched for that!

I share your views, being a 80s child and a 90s teen, I loved Ceefax prior to the 1989 "horror" makeover, gone were the fun parts like the kids sections, Telecred section etc even Reg The Octopus (as you mentioned in another post, he did exist!) were long gone.

I'm not sure if it was part of 1989 rebrand or if this happened during the 90s but they also rebranded Ceefax into two parts. BBC 1 Ceefax was At Speed service which was basically a stripped down service, more stripped than it is now and BBC 2 was a In Depth service which was basically every page. I'll guess they did this so the BBC1 service was just quicker to load.

Ceefax didn't chill out as you say until November 1996 when the service became more friendly to the normal folk!

That was the 1992 relaunch, when they had the blue border around all the news stories - http://teletext.mb21.co.uk/gallery/ceefax/bbc1-100-0394.gif

The distinction is still there, just, I think, certainly BBC2 is still a bit slower than BBC1. I didn't get a teletext telly until 1993 and before that I could only see it at my grandparents. Breakfast Ceefax was demented, it was in the same style as the newsflash but had all the day's news, weather and sport on it, seemingly so you could watch Ceefax and Breakfast News at the same time. But it changed so slowly, and had so little information, it was quicker just to go to the normal Ceefax pages.

Reg The Octopus, that's it! god knows why they decided on that particular creature for a character, it can't be the easiest to produce with teletext's limited graphics!

I always thought Telecred was a rubbish name

This is where having an IDTV is great, if you leave it on Digital which I do about 99% of time, it'll start up on Digital mode, so I'm at no loss, but as you say it'll be strange when you flip on Analogue 1-5 all you see is galloping dandruff.

I'll miss easily picking up channels from Moel-Y Parc, ie getting Analogue S4/C, but they switch off before we do in Granadaland.

They liked their blue didn't they? The 1989 relaunch was mainly blue too.

the border was a bit of a retrograde step, the 1989 look, although dull did increase the space for text on a page

Until a year or so ago Virgin used to provide a full Ceefax/Teletext service on BBC1/2/ITV/C4 despite there it not being broadcast on those channel's digital services. I assume they took the teletext from analogue and broadcast it alongside the digital versions of the channels.

We've had what was NTL Digital since 2000 and I can't say I never noticed Teletext appearing on ITV and Channel 4, was this on Telewest by chance? Digital Teletext used to be available via NTL Interactive, although I can't say whether it still is.

One thing I do notice flicking through on Virgin is that a lot of channels including the BBC's do carry p888 for subtitles, even though the digital version is available. One flaw with Digital Cable, it's been around 10 years now and they still haven't sorted the Text button out on the remotes.

If you use it on Virgin Media Scientific Atlanta boxes it brings up BBC News (On BBC Channels) and a slide with "Digital Text arriving soon" on it for other channels.