I admit I have found myself sitting at the pub "watching" scores refresh on a soccer/gaa match when it wasn't on TV and I didn't have my iphone.
Teletext: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext Ceefax: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceefax
I must confess, this may have partially motivated my submission ;-)
I also loved the style the article was presented in.
Does anyone remember 'Bamboozle'?
There were also other pages with jokes where hitting 'reveal' on the remote control toggled the punchline.
None of the other pages we visited ever seemed to make as much use of the remote buttons as the 'games' and fun items did.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboozle
Not mentioned there, but there was one geek aspect of Bamboozle that I remember. Given that a wrong answer would (at the time I played) send you back to the beginning, it was tempting to try and note down the three-digit page number of the question, to cheat and skip back to the latest question. But the use of the 4 coloured buttons meant that the questions could use page numbers with hex letters in them - e.g. 34F - rendering them impossible to type in with a remote control. Sneaky, but it was a source of pride when I had figured out not only that they used letters, but why they used only A-F.
Also, Bamboozle inspired me to waste many hours making drawings on my (even by then) old BBC Model B's Mode 7 graphics.
The longer story is that the Sun-Times and Honeywell tried to launch Ceefax here, but the british-designed decoders would need a few years to get approved by Underwriters Labs, so the static service ran ahead of the launch. When Keyfax actually launched, it flopped. It was also shitcanned by Rupert Murdoch, who had bought the Sun-Times in the 80s and was quoted as saying "I do not believe that tomorrow's newspaper will be delivered on a TV screen".
Anyway, here's some nostalgia and a capture of the Keyfax system. It was kind of boring after a while:
tvs with teletext cost about £20-30 more last time i bought a tv but you got the money back in savings on buying tv guides as you could use teletext for the listings.
Add to that that I can't even read what is on the screen. At least I can read Ceefax. Perhaps it is because I don't have a TV display larger than 22".
The company that can add useful overlays to existing broadcasts - could clean up: think Twitter/Wikipedia on the telly. A use for something like raspberry pi?
But I'd love something that can overlay stuff - "now and next"; subtitles; tv schedules; 'your favourite programme is on in 5 minutes on the other side"; "Ann (who you trust) recommends this programme. Do you agree? [YES][NO]" (and it builds up a score of trust in some reviewers, enabling discovery of good programmes.
With a bit of human intervention you get some exciting possibilities. Links to (as you mention) Wikipedia would be awesome for instant checking. Some people would enjoy having tweets running on the tv.
Tie the news into a web search for other stories, or better analysis.
Would be nice to see an open implementation here. I was kind of thinking that Google Tv might be that. But you really need the ability to overlay the picture. I've considered placing a low resolution lcd next to the telly and doing something myself. Something text based would be fine, it wouldn't need a supercomputer.
When David Cameron visited the Queen to be signed in, I had a live Twitter feed running and it was hilarious. I like the alternative commentary. You could also do audio overlays - over the net. Or even (though a little Orwellian) a webcam to communicate with your mates, something like hangouts.
The smart TV landscape and digital services are pretty confusing. It was tricky enough choosing between Ceefax and Teletext.
Currently I resort to a laptop for lookups and my partner claws her smartphone - which is pretty antisocial, and you miss the action.
Try Chumby NeTV:
http://www.theverge.com/2011/9/8/2412828/chumby-netv-smart-t...
And you can buy a developer kit today from Adafruit, unlike the RPi.
I wonder how this interferes with on device picture optimisation - scaling etc.
The leather always put me off the chumby.
Does anyone else remember this and on which program it was done? It may well have been Channel 4's Me and My Micro in about 1985.
Ah. This person says it was '4 Computer Buffs': http://www.tvcream.co.uk/?p=2347 Found it. Here's a video of how you had to make the 'receiver' for this: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=89458723914479030 and here's an interview where there's the software being transmitted at the same time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULGDTtGZcN0
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_Blanking_Interval and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext#Data_transmission
The VBI itself is a hang over to slow technology used in CRTs: The VBI was originally needed because of the inductive inertia of the magnetic coils which deflect the electron beam vertically in a CRT; the magnetic field, and hence the position being drawn, cannot change instantly. Additionally, the speed of older circuits was limited.
The idea for Ceefax came from the BBC who were researching ways to send subtitles for the hard of hearing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext#Development
It was a magazine about computer games, written in a fantastically stupid manner, full of daft jokes and innuendos and presented by a set of rather offensive characters (Fat Sow and Insincere Dave being my favourites).
The 'limited' graphics added to it, in my opinion. It was also, probably the only set of pages to make good use of the reveal button.
And, another use for the reveal button: Bamboozle!
Firstly, it could do the basics very fast.
...if you had a fancy TV that cached the carousel index pages. If not you type in the page number you want and wait for it to cycle around in the carousel. Which could be pretty slow on Oracle, as all those holiday ads played out.
If you were amending a page, it went through instantly, when you change something on the web, it may go through instantly. Or it may not.
But if you're authoring for the MHEG interactive service on Freeview then it can get pushed straight away. Apples/oranges comparison, really.
Secondly, it provided an instant and BBC-certified timecheck, accurate to the second
As does Freeview, and all other DVB platforms. Most TVs have a button to tell you what time it is.
Spurs move right, said Fred's agent
Sizzling Gasquet batters sorry Fish
Fish Mardy from Del Potro battering
(we liked Mardy Fish losing badly at tennis, particularly if he also had a strop after)
For anybody with knowledge about British tennis out there, the following became a running joke which we rehashed at every opportunity.
Bogdanovic suffers first-round exit
That must have been used a mind-boggling number of times.
We also did subbing for Ceefax, with its extra paragraph - but I'll always have a bigger place in my heart for Teletext and its 40 x 24 character grids (for text, 35 for headlines).
Romantics ire after death of Ceefax
For many, this type of TV technology was their first exposure to "technology".
