The "Teletext" that this article refers to is the commercial analogue and digital info service that appeared on ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 if I remember correctly.

I was hugely disappointed with the digital version of commercial teletext - it was no faster than analogue teletext (and, in fact, modern teletext sets could cache analogue pages and sub-pages, meaning that digital teletext was often slower since there was no cacheing) and with the advent of media centre PCs and broadband, you were better off switching to a Web browser on an attached PC for info.

One thing that always surprised me about digital teletext on both the BBC and commercial channels is their distinct lack of still photos (except in bleeding ads on commercial text!) - I *never* saw an article (news, sport, entertainment) with an in-story photo in it, despite the digital text standard supporting this. Perhaps it too is bandwidth limited and this would slow down the page cycling?

One recent thing I'm lamenting more than the passing of commercial teletext is the dropping of channel 301 on Freeview. This basically cut the red button additional video streams (usually used for sporting events) in half and has actually meant that some of the video streams have ended up on the Net only and not available via the red button (a recent example was a midweek Final Score on the Net only vs. some showjumping on the red button). I used a PC attached to my TV to get a full screen Flash player feed, but it wasn't particularly clear. All this to make way for HD Freeview that no-one has equipment to decode yet!

I use it heavily for checking scheduled programs and fast news updates during commercials.

And quite popular...

I bought a couple of Philips Teletext decoder boards from a surplus store in Worthing (GWM Radio - anyone!?) with a view to hooking them up to my Commodore 64 so I could call up pages from the computer - sometime in the late 80s this was!! Never got round to it.

I still have them somewhere, but I suppose there's no point now. Mind you, I don't have the C64 anymore!

Mumble mumble. Get off my lawn etc.

News, sport, weather, world time, world weather, flight arrivals and departures from all the country’s international airports, closed captions, stock market info, interest rates, Lotto, even the 2008 election results (still available)! Though I don’t think I’ve come across any page with as many as 30 subpages here.

But it’s all only on analog. There’s a “TTX” button on my Freeview remote, but it never brings up anything more than a black square with the number “100” at the top left.

...the software distribution system they built into it?
The BBC Micro teletext adapter could download programs that were beamed over the airwaves.
Yes it took ages, but in the 1980s when access to a wide area network usually involved a 300/300 modem (and getting shouted at by your parents for hogging the line for 2 hours), it registered pretty high on the geek scale.

I am amazed you made it through an entire article without blaming Apple for the World Wide Web. It was invented on a NExT Cube, made by that same Steve Jobs you drag through the mud daily. Either you have come to your senses or your lynch mob of writers is slipping.

To bad modems couldn't keep up with speed, I'm sure they could with some innovative tech. We use to share programs and such. Can you imagine getting out of the grasp of the MPAA/RIAA by setting up BBS'S again. I kind of wish some high tech people would look into it or am I just dreaming. No central ISP doing a DPI and Throttling.

Bob, teletext didn't have music. You are confusing it with the full screen broadcast of selected pages that the BBC used to foist on people when they didn't have shows to fill the time slots.

On demand text, due to the tiny, tiny amount of bandwidth available, couldn't do anything but blocky text.

Of course you might well have just forgotten to press mute...

This is terrible. Where else are we ever going to find the same kind of music that you get on teletext?

Nothing else in the world is like it. Not lifts, switchboards, Guantanamo Bay, Smooth Radio overnight shows, or even weekend Radio 2.

No, we didn't have Teletext, but oh the memories of BBSes and the old computer communication systems that existed before the Internet became popular. They were and are better than all this degenerate Twitter or whatever crap that kids these days think are so important.

Can't believe you mentioned the rather cack Game Central but not its great and infamous predecessor: Digitiser.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitiser

Either Bamboozle was amazing, or WWTBAM is crap.

Or both.