Teletext was—is— a searchable text- and graphics-based information service cunningly broadcast over the television airwaves and accessible by televisions with appropriate decoders. Largely blown away by the world wide web and modern digital TV sets lacking the analog protocol, teletext is now mostly a locus of nostalgia and aesthetic irony in other media. But it, and similar derivatives, is still in operation by many broadcasters. In The Rise and Fall of Teletext, neo summarizes an important internet precursor that may yet have some life in it.
A funny thing I didn't know: teletext flopped in the U.S. because U.S. broadcasters wanted to develop a proprietary alternative that could render their precious logos at high resolution, but this scared off TV manufacturers and resulted in external boxes that no-one bought.
Still sometimes think of making this live…
