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This is great. Teletext was a big deal in the UK, a lot of people used to book cheap holidays from deals they saw on it. It was where you could check the news,

This is great. Teletext was a big deal in the UK, a lot of people used to book cheap holidays from deals they saw on it. It was where you could check the news, the weather and maybe play a multiple choice quiz or two. Happy memories.

oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
It was the best way of checking the score in a football match, in real time. When there were enough games playing to necessitate pagination, the wait for your team's page to come around added extra tension! Also, Bamboozle.
- petepete 2y ago
  Bamboozle and Digitiser were fantastic, we visited most days.
- fecal_henge 2y ago
  At age 8 I realised my Uncle looked like the guy off Bamboozle. We didnt see my Uncle anymore at that point. Now in memory my Uncle looks pixelated and yellow.
- ta1243 2y ago
  Bamboozle was great, it had "hidden" pages with numbers like "4F5" -- normal ceefax numbers were 0-9 because that's what you could enter on your remote control, the hex numbers were only reachable from the "fasttext" red/green/yellow/blue buttons, so it was hard to "cheat", the wrong answer sent you back to the beginning, you couldn't just put the number back
  - alexdbird 2y ago
    You could still cheat. It’s not fresh in my memory but the correct page number was distinctive and the incorrect pages did not load instantly, so you could just press all the colours until you saw the right one!
arrowsmith 2y ago
Am I misremembering or could you play games on Teletext? I feel like I remember playing very primitive and janky videogames on the TV as a child in the 90s, but I might be making that up. My clearest memory of Teletext is how slooooow and unreliable it was to load anything. But I sat it out and waited. Compare that to now where if your website takes an extra second to load then you can lose like half your traffic. Everybody was much more patient with technology back then.
- larschdk 2y ago
  They had bingo games running on Teletext in Denmark. There were also interactive pages where you could phone in and press numbers to access a much larger set of information. You'd get your own temporary page number (that anyone could technically see), and the teletext broadcast equipment would insert your updated page into the stream when you pressed a number.
- rwmj 2y ago
  http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/Bamboozle%21 http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/Bamboozle%21 was one. There was a short period where you could download games from Ceefax, although it required special hardware.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  The expensive TV sets cached the previous page, so you could flip between them. The really expensive sets cached ALL pages.
- rkachowski 2y ago
  I remember channel 4 had "bamboozle" - a basic janky quiz game - on their Teletext service, it was a daily adventure between friends to solve each day.
- bartread 2y ago
  There were definitely puzzles, quizzes, and jokes. You could reveal the answers by pressing the "Reveal" button on your TV remote. I don't remember games per se.
RowanH 2y ago
Kiwi checking in - was a thing here as well. Blows my mind what we all do now would have been absolute voodoo magic by comparison. If we had gone back in a time machine and shown HDR 4k video upload, available to stream all around the world off peoples phones, live chat alongside, across devices / platforms. I think they would have an aneurysm.
datascienced 2y ago
That got me in Tenerife!
VBprogrammer 2y ago
We once got flights to Florida from Glasgow for £49 fly drive off of Teletext. Booked it Tuesday and flew out on Thursday. Those where the days!
- switch007 2y ago
  I thought all those were bait and switch. That's cool!
- qingcharles 2y ago
  I think everyone in the UK in the 80s and 90s were taking those crazy trips to NYC and Orlando from Teletext. You'd check every day to see how insane the prices had got. I remember people going to just fill suitcases with things like Levi's jeans which were massively over-priced in Europe.
vmilner 2y ago
I used to check the live world snooker championship scores on teletext in the 80s (when the BBC didn’t show it all live) Now skipping between it on iPlayer and hacker news in my phone…

oneeyedpigeon 2y ago

It was the best way of checking the score in a football match, in real time. When there were enough games playing to necessitate pagination, the wait for your team's page to come around added extra tension! Also, Bamboozle.

petepete 2y ago
Bamboozle and Digitiser were fantastic, we visited most days.
fecal_henge 2y ago
At age 8 I realised my Uncle looked like the guy off Bamboozle. We didnt see my Uncle anymore at that point. Now in memory my Uncle looks pixelated and yellow.
ta1243 2y ago
Bamboozle was great, it had "hidden" pages with numbers like "4F5" -- normal ceefax numbers were 0-9 because that's what you could enter on your remote control, the hex numbers were only reachable from the "fasttext" red/green/yellow/blue buttons, so it was hard to "cheat", the wrong answer sent you back to the beginning, you couldn't just put the number back
- alexdbird 2y ago
  You could still cheat. It’s not fresh in my memory but the correct page number was distinctive and the incorrect pages did not load instantly, so you could just press all the colours until you saw the right one!

arrowsmith 2y ago

Am I misremembering or could you play games on Teletext? I feel like I remember playing very primitive and janky videogames on the TV as a child in the 90s, but I might be making that up. My clearest memory of Teletext is how slooooow and unreliable it was to load anything. But I sat it out and waited. Compare that to now where if your website takes an extra second to load then you can lose like half your traffic. Everybody was much more patient with technology back then.

larschdk 2y ago
They had bingo games running on Teletext in Denmark. There were also interactive pages where you could phone in and press numbers to access a much larger set of information. You'd get your own temporary page number (that anyone could technically see), and the teletext broadcast equipment would insert your updated page into the stream when you pressed a number.
rwmj 2y ago
http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/Bamboozle%21 http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/Bamboozle%21 was one. There was a short period where you could download games from Ceefax, although it required special hardware.
actionfromafar 2y ago
The expensive TV sets cached the previous page, so you could flip between them. The really expensive sets cached ALL pages.
rkachowski 2y ago
I remember channel 4 had "bamboozle" - a basic janky quiz game - on their Teletext service, it was a daily adventure between friends to solve each day.
bartread 2y ago
There were definitely puzzles, quizzes, and jokes. You could reveal the answers by pressing the "Reveal" button on your TV remote. I don't remember games per se.

RowanH 2y ago

Kiwi checking in - was a thing here as well. Blows my mind what we all do now would have been absolute voodoo magic by comparison. If we had gone back in a time machine and shown HDR 4k video upload, available to stream all around the world off peoples phones, live chat alongside, across devices / platforms. I think they would have an aneurysm.

datascienced 2y ago

That got me in Tenerife!

VBprogrammer 2y ago

We once got flights to Florida from Glasgow for £49 fly drive off of Teletext. Booked it Tuesday and flew out on Thursday. Those where the days!

switch007 2y ago
I thought all those were bait and switch. That's cool!
qingcharles 2y ago
I think everyone in the UK in the 80s and 90s were taking those crazy trips to NYC and Orlando from Teletext. You'd check every day to see how insane the prices had got. I remember people going to just fill suitcases with things like Levi's jeans which were massively over-priced in Europe.

vmilner 2y ago

I used to check the live world snooker championship scores on teletext in the 80s (when the BBC didn’t show it all live) Now skipping between it on iPlayer and hacker news in my phone…