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I’m not sure when the big switch-over date to digital is in Wigan, or if it has happened yet, but mine is today. With this, means the loss of Ceefax and Teletext forever. Not that I’ve even glanced at it in this past decade with the internet, Sky Sports News, 24 hour news channels etc. No more will promotion and relegation battles be discovered by watching endless pages of text scrolling and then, when it gets to the page you want, skipping and going on to the next screen. No more will I go to 324 and 325 (I think) to check the league tables. On the plus side, at least there will be no more Teletext holiday adverts. Remember people, Ceefax is BBC and Teletext it ITV – not to be confused.
I remember in the early days of Teletext having a big black box the size of an old school VHS player, and it’s only purpose in life was Teletext. Does anybody else remember these or have one at the time. Talk about being on the cutting edge of technology. It’s not like my Commodore could connect to a central computer and get up-to-date information like that! Gutted I don’t have that anymore, it would probably be worth something these days… not that it will work anymore now.
Oh well, I guess we have to embrace the red button now :(
lemur we were one of the first regions to switch to digital signal only – perhaps 2+ years ago, but there is still a full service for ceefax on the BBC – although its slower and not as good – you can still access racing results on Chan 4 and holidays on ITV.
Blimey, I’d forgotten spending hours and hours watching about 42 pages of holiday adds scrolling through looking for a bargain.
And I thought some folk were sad for the time they spend on Internet forums.
You can’t beat watching a game on teletext though lol. Putting the scores on and then getting excited when you were no longer on page 2, only to realise it was because someone on there had scored a panful.
I once watched the sudden death play-off for the 1995 US PGA Championship on Ceefax. I knew Montgomeie had been in with a chance and flicked on teletext just before going to bed to see how he’d done.
Apparently there was a tie after 72 holes and a “play off was about to commence” according to Ceefax. I decided to stay up to see how it ended. While they evidently played the world’s longest par 5, I necked another couple of cans watching a totally unchanging screen until, about 25 minutes later, up popped the message “Elkington defeats Montgomerie on first hole of sudden death playoff”. Gutted.
If I remember correctly, I had also watched the thrilling climax to a Lancashire Sunday League game earlier that day on Ceefax. I recall screaming “great shot” and clapping at the screen as the score moved on by 4 runs. It could have been a scrawpy 4 wides as far as I knew.
Innocent, happy days! It will be missed. Just.
In the days before the Internet and living in Scotland, where you rarely even saw the results in the papers, Ceefax was it for people like me. Waiting and praying for the goal to come in, waiting for the page to turn, to realise that it had gone from page 1/3 to page 3/3 and missed us out. I have to say, in all sadness I remember being promoted to the Championship via Ceefax…
Sadly missed byt shocking technology, thanks to the WWW
:)
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