See a genuine BBC globe in the flesh - this weekend only

Can;t imagine why I'm dignifying this with a response, but actually I don't have any tapes of Play School. Nor do I have any of the aforementioned clips which can all be seen at MHP.

There's something I've always been curious about regarding the globe/COW.

We all know that BBC1 and 2's clocks were 'digitized' c.1979-81, but I often wonder whether a BBC Executive ever overhead a conversation about the new fangled "artificial clock" and asked...

"Hey guys, does that electronic box of yours make an artificial 'world' aswell?"

To which they would reply,

"No, it can only do a clock at the moment."

"Could you look into it guys? Have a few extra thousand pounds to spend if you like - I'd really like to see the world done that way".

Moving forward 2 and a half years thence, a prototype is shown to the execs. It produces a green globe on a blue background, with the stripey BBC1 logo.

"Well done", say the execs. "But what if we ever want to update our look?"

"Ah", the technicians say, "we've thought of that. We've made it customizable, and here's a few variations we've tried" - they go on to demonstrate the globe with different colour schemes, but basically the same mirror globe they all knew and loved. However, different veridians (lower straps) are demonstrated. One of which is in the olde-worlde "Bush House" Corporation lettering.

"That's nice," say the execs, all looking at each other and nodding. "Don't know about the mirror images, though".

"No, we thought they were a bit old hat, actually."

"Well, is there some other way we could illustrate the countries reaching around the other side of the globe?"

"I don't know".

So, the technicians go away having pleased the execs. Various ideas are thrown around. The idea of making the globe semi-transparent and having countries visible as they rotate around the back is drawn up, but using the existing circuitry cannot be done convincingly. Also, the BBC1 lettering looks too spindly and 'pixelly'. They realise they need chips that can handle more colours, more pixels and faster.

A year later, the globe generator is demonstrated again. "We think we've cracked it" says the proud white-coat, pulling a cord which opens a mini-curtain hanging over a 28" SONY Trinitron. Gasps fill the room.

"This," explains the proud techie, "is what we like to call the 'Computer Originated World'. This is the future of television graphics."

Excited execs file away from the room and commission graphic designers to create programme captions and other paraphernalia based on the new look.

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i.e. Is THAT the way the COW may have been developed? If so, is there any "test" or "mock" footage showing the COW in its early stages of development? Was it originally designed to replicate its predecessor, but produce it digitally instead of optically? If so, at what stage did the new look come about and who decided upon it?

David, it's over to you... :

You shouldn't be drinking this late.

Aaah but I'm eating aswell (ner nerrrr )

Maybe. We all credit Michael Grade with bringing us EastEnders, yet the project was in development well before Michael took the helm at BBC1. So it's quite likely the COW was planned for some time. Test Card F went electronic not long before the COW was unveiled. Perhaps both projects were part of a wider technical upgrade?

In September 1981, BBC1's globe, clock and schools dots were all mechanical. The electronic clock, already used for many months on 2, came to BBC1 on December 6th. January saw BBC1's schools dots go CGI. That left just the globe in its original form.

Now that everything else was computer-generated, it's almost certain attempts were made to digitise the globe. After all, NODD was all but redundant and taking up space in Pres. But technology just wasn't up to the job. So the model would stay for another four years, when a computerised globe was feasable.

I seem to remember the available options in Scotland were to generate the 888 from the Riley Capgen, which you could then key over the symbol (good because engaging Next Cut Off would lose the 888 on your next vision cut - bad because the colour was never right) or to super a slide of 888 from Slide File. (colour and positioning right, but operationally tricky - spider hands required to make it appear and disappear at the right point - Slide File wasn't a DSK source option). Happy days!!

I believe you're right. It was a slide file super - I'm sure it wasn't from the cap gen, so my earlier posting saying that it was keyed was wrong - and it certainly did require a degree of operator flexibility.

As a matter of interest there are now subtitle and non-subtitle versions of each symbol, but it wasn't that long ago that the Subtitle cap (and the 888 before it) were keyed over. The analogue suites used a 'BugShot' box to do this, but in the then new digital suites the balloons existed clean on the server, the '888' being generated from the Aston and keyed over at the same point that the BBC ONE logo revealed. Great if you remembered to leave the Aston on the right page, but there were those evenings when someone had been prepping a menu for the following Wednesday and.........!