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What’s teletext? I’m a noob don’t know much and how was it really used back then

simion314 5y ago
This link can eplain better https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext An example of usage (I had no phone or Internet at that time). Say you wanted to view the Formula 1 results , you open the TV, press the Teletext button then you would have to find from a table of content like page the number code/ID for the Formula 1 results , so it could be 311 - Formula 1 results 312 - Formula 1 pilots current points/results 313 - Formula 1 team points/results football stuff could probably start at 301 - last week football results 302 - football stuff ### So after you used it a few times you would remember that sport stuff is starting at 300 , 301 -310 is football 310 -314 Formula 1 etc so you could just do 1 open TV 2 press teletext button 3 enter code from memory 311 4 view the information Since there was no internet there was no other way to see this data anymore, so it was the only information on demand we had. There was also a nice weather info page, I think it included more then a day so it was better then waiting for the news to hear the weather person tell you something.
motogpjimbo 5y ago
It was essentially like having a text-only version of the web built into your TV, but back in the 80s. TV channels would broadcast the data for the pages in the gaps between video frames and a TV with the appropriate decoder would cache the data and use it to build up the complete set of pages, which you would then access by pressing the "text" button on your remote control. Each TV channel would broadcast its own Teletext service, with most channels offering a mixture of news, sport, entertainment etc. It sounds (and looks) primitive by modern standards, but it was actually a wonderful technology that worked perfectly well for its intended purpose and was very information-dense. Sadly, we lost Teletext in the UK during the changeover from analogue to digital TV, but I think it's still alive in a number of countries.
- mraza007 5y ago
  How would they send data to your TV I’m just curious I’m very amazed this thing existed back in the day when internet wasn’t a thing
  - motogpjimbo 5y ago
    It was possible for a TV channel to encode a small amount of data in the vertical blanking period between video frames - this is how subtitles were transmitted, for example. Teletext exploited this feature by encoding entire pages of text into that interval, each with a three digit page number. When the user requested a particular page number through the remote control, the TV set would wait a few seconds until the corresponding page was transmitted, then render it. More expensive TVs would have enough RAM to cache the pages ahead of time, so page access would be instant.

This link can eplain better https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext An example of usage (I had no phone or Internet at that time). Say you wanted to view the Formula 1 results , you open the TV, press the Teletext button then you would have to find from a table of content like page the number code/ID for the Formula 1 results , so it could be 311 - Formula 1 results 312 - Formula 1 pilots current points/results 313 - Formula 1 team points/results football stuff could probably start at 301 - last week football results 302 - football stuff ### So after you used it a few times you would remember that sport stuff is starting at 300 , 301 -310 is football 310 -314 Formula 1 etc so you could just do 1 open TV 2 press teletext button 3 enter code from memory 311 4 view the information Since there was no internet there was no other way to see this data anymore, so it was the only information on demand we had. There was also a nice weather info page, I think it included more then a day so it was better then waiting for the news to hear the weather person tell you something.

motogpjimbo 5y ago

It was essentially like having a text-only version of the web built into your TV, but back in the 80s. TV channels would broadcast the data for the pages in the gaps between video frames and a TV with the appropriate decoder would cache the data and use it to build up the complete set of pages, which you would then access by pressing the "text" button on your remote control. Each TV channel would broadcast its own Teletext service, with most channels offering a mixture of news, sport, entertainment etc. It sounds (and looks) primitive by modern standards, but it was actually a wonderful technology that worked perfectly well for its intended purpose and was very information-dense. Sadly, we lost Teletext in the UK during the changeover from analogue to digital TV, but I think it's still alive in a number of countries.

mraza007 5y ago
How would they send data to your TV I’m just curious I’m very amazed this thing existed back in the day when internet wasn’t a thing
- motogpjimbo 5y ago
  It was possible for a TV channel to encode a small amount of data in the vertical blanking period between video frames - this is how subtitles were transmitted, for example. Teletext exploited this feature by encoding entire pages of text into that interval, each with a three digit page number. When the user requested a particular page number through the remote control, the TV set would wait a few seconds until the corresponding page was transmitted, then render it. More expensive TVs would have enough RAM to cache the pages ahead of time, so page access would be instant.