![]() ![]() Less successful were attempts to update teletext itself. While much of the software is obscure by today’s standards (including a slightly dubious Star Trek game) the service endured into the late 1980s. Enthusiasts could buy an adaptor containing tuning dials and a TV aerial, using it to download utilities and games using the same TV signals that carried teletext. Teletext’s popularity saw the technology used in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways – not least of which was telesoftware, an initiative by the Beeb itself using Acorn’s BBC Micro computer. By 1982 over two million TVs – mostly portable ones, as it would take longer for larger sets to catch up – could access both Ceefax and ORACLE, which had launched as ITV’s teletext service and presented itself as a novel new advertising platform. Though take-up was initially somewhat limited since a set-top box was needed to access the service, TV sets with in-built decoders gradually trickled onto the market and the audience swelled. ![]() The race to be King of the Teletext Hill had officially begun.Ĭeefax was launched formally in 1976. All were originally incompatible, which would have been a nightmare for TV manufacturers and consumers alike, but a specification was eventually agreed that would later be taken up worldwide. ![]() Not to be outdone, competing companies promptly announced their own endeavours in the form of rival services like ORACLE and Prestel. ![]()
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