prosthetic knowledge

Twefax 

Online web app presents your Twitter feed in the style of the old BBC CEEFAX information system, put together by @JonathanEx.

Discovered by the lovely harri80 - Try it here

Related - the old BBC service has been turned off in most of the UK, with only Northern Ireland left to go fully digital this week. So, to commemorate the end of a very British institution, the BBC have put together some items of interest.

Pages from Ceefax: Into the archives - a slideshow with accompanying cheesy library music [link]

Ceefax: The early days - An interview with one of the earliest workers with the system. [link]

CEEFAX Tapestry 

A textile tribute to the information service by Aaron Merrigan:

For the past 38 years BBC Ceefax Pages have provided the nation with a constant stream of accessible, reliable and dedicated news. With the final switch over from analogue to digital television, the iconic service will cease to exist.

100×75cm (4:3 TV ratio)
Cross stitch + machine embroidery

Exhibited it D&AD New Blood 2012 

Link

[PS - CEEFAX was the BBC’s version of Teletext]

The Teletext Museum 

An online archive of information on a British television information system, which very recently is closing down after 38 years of service:

This site celebrates the development of a very British invention. Here you will find information about the development of teletext from its faltering beginnings to a system which has gained worldwide acceptance and which we now take for granted.

Teletext was launched in the UK on 23 September 1974.

Today it’s supposedly hated (or loved) for its dated look and the first decade of the 2000s has seen its role rapidly overtaken by the Internet and ther more graphically attractive services.

In Europe, where it proved most popular it is now dying out along with the analogue tv services which carried it, though it still continues to thrive in countries where broadcast technology is less well advanced.

In July 2009 Teletext Ltd announced its intention to close its teletext news service in Jan 2010, due to falling audience and revenue.

All analogue tv services and teletext will close in the UK by 2013, but The Teletext Museum has been saving the pages here for posterity. 

You can visit the site here

Ceefax: A love letter 

In the UK, the analog television signal was turned off, with it ending a pre-internet electronic information service.

Above is part of a short essay by Matthew Engel on the BBC News Magazine website, reflecting on the information service which many in the UK became familiar with over the last 38 years.

You can read the whole thing here

Lulzsec hack Ceefax in retaliation for arrests 

From The Poke (a UK satire site similar to The Onion):

Technology News: Computer group Lulzsec have hacked the BBC’s Ceefax service in what is thought to be retaliatory act for a number of arrests of its members yesterday. 

The Ceefax pages have been replaced by a message from Lulzsec and a crude 8-bit penis, which the group says represents the ‘puppet BBC acting as the lapdog of the totalitarian regime which controls us all’.

More Here