[HN Gopher] Adventures in Teletext Recovery
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Adventures in Teletext Recovery
Author : bilekas
Score : 39 points
Date : 2022-12-08 20:04 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.andrewnile.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.andrewnile.co.uk)
| ale42 wrote:
| I remember that as a teenager I did observe that in some cases, I
| was able to see partial teletext pages from VHS tapes recorded
| from TV (like a few characters of the date/time in the top row
| that did make some sense).
|
| Now, seeing that it's actually possible to recover that data... I
| find it's too bad that we threw away all those tapes because
| nobody was watching them any more.
| dayjah wrote:
| Around '94 you could "download" games over satellite (BSkyB)
| links and play them. They were higher rez than this article has
| and far more dynamic. I got so good at the darts game.
|
| This is a wonderful trip down memory lane <3
| petercooper wrote:
| You can go back even further. If you had a BBC Micro, you could
| buy a Teletext unit to attach to it and download software over
| Teletext via system called "Prestel":
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq53DO7zL_g
|
| I have vague memories of my dad managing to "hack" this system
| and get software for free as he worked out they used a simple
| XOR cipher on the BASIC source code sent over the air and most
| programs started with "10"!
| rob74 wrote:
| Now that's what I call retrocomputing! Too bad the date on the
| teletext pages doesn't include the year... when was the premiere
| of season (pardon me, series) 3 of Babylon 5 again? Ah, 1996
| (thanks Wikipedia!).
|
| To think teletext is still around today, a fossilized technology
| using a standard that has been almost unchanged for 40 years!
| Although nowadays I mostly read it using a smartphone app - the
| bite-size pages are perfect for a quick and (almost) ad-free news
| update.
| qsort wrote:
| As someone who was a toddler when those "screenshots" were
| live, teletext is one of my favorite sources of information.
| Mostly because very few people read it, therefore the news are
| straight to the point with comparatively low political
| bullshit.
|
| I read it with a python script I wrote myself that parses
| images into ANSI sequences and outputs them to a terminal. If I
| manage to put the code in a presentable state it could be a
| cool "show HN".
| isoprophlex wrote:
| No mention of Teletext / Ceefax is complete without derailment of
| the topic at hand by plugging the music of the incomparable
| Ceephax Acid Crew
|
| http://www.ceephax.co.uk/
|
| Also..: I'm really surprised to learn old VHS tapes can contain
| embedded teletext signals! Very cool article.
| bilekas wrote:
| Thats what blew me away! I was reading something on the Closed
| Caption that were encoded into the broadcast / videos for
| subtites and realised it was those scanlines you see. Then from
| a rabbit hole of a day found these guys restoring the data from
| recorded TV streams! Incredible!
|
| https://archive.teletextarchaeologist.org/
| klondike_klive wrote:
| This gave me a real hit of nostalgia. All the more so as my mum
| (who died a couple of years ago) was a fan of Babylon 5. Sadly in
| her last years her own signal faded and became indecipherable.
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(page generated 2022-12-08 23:00 UTC)