How to describe Teletext to the Twitter generation? Imagine a clunky internet with an insufferably slow dialup connection, only less interactive and with a strictly limited amount of content.
Except in many regards, Teletext (like its ITV predecessor Oracle and the BBC's equivalent, Ceefax) was way ahead of its time.
Up-to-the minute news and weather, real-time scoreboards from football, cricket and snooker, cheap last-minute holidays and on Channel 4's text service, 4-Tel, something called Debbie's Diary, the daily diary of a nobody which had me and my fellow students completely addicted. It was a bit like Bellede Jour but without the sauce. What's not to like?
Well, quite a lot, actually. If it was like the web, then it was the web played out on a Sinclair ZX81 (don't ask me to explain one of those as well).
Part of the unique experience of Teletext was waiting for the next page, and boy could they take a long time to load. The urge to change channels was overwhelming, only occasionally abated by the option of merging the text with your television picture.
Back when I was watching Oracle during the long school summer holidays in the early 1980s, this had the advantage of enabling you to watch the Sullivans at the same time on ITV, but the disadvantage of rendering most of the text illegible. Press the wrong button and you had to start all over again. Gah!
Every now and again, waiting to find out the local cinema times (when is Superman II showing at the ABC Sidcup?) it felt like it would have been quicker to go to the shops and buy a local newspaper instead.
