undefined | Better HN

0 pointsgravitystorm14y ago0 comments

As soon as anyone says "Ceefax" or "Teletext" I think of Bamboozle. I'm glad to see I'm not alone and there's even a wikipedia page about it:

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.

0 comments

1 comments · 1 top-level

coroxout14y ago

Still not a perfect cheating deterrent, as when in doubt you could press each button and see which one led to a unique page, as the wrong 3 answers all led to the same losing page.

On my set, at least, you could change which page you were waiting for before it loaded, so you could usually check all 4 in the few seconds between dialling up a page and the data for that page arriving. I often did this, perhaps I should be ashamed to admit.

Haven't looked at Teletext in years (though for some reason last year I needed the "what's on now and next" page and found I could still remember the number) but I have fond memories of Bamboozle, Digitiser and the kids' and music pages, Mega-zine and Planet Sound.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse