In the mid-1970s, when color televisions were considered a luxury, efforts were made to make television screens more informative. Teletext, which was mainly a status symbol for its time, It added a text-based adventure to our colorful world with just a few button presses.

With the spread of the internet, the shoe was thrown off the rails teletext, It was both the information and entertainment channel of a generation. Weather forecasts, the latest news and sports scores were at your fingertips with just one button for the television. But then things changed…

As televisions expanded their colorful world in the mid-1970s, John Adams looked for a way to deepen this magic even further.

Right now on stage He pulled out the teletext. Major television channels such as BBC and ITV, They decided to bring a text-based information display to our screens. This adventure, which started in Great Britain in 1974, remained popular around the world until the spread of the Internet.

With the rise of teletext, the televisions in our homes quickly became a source of information. Teletext, which has been on the shelf since we had access to all information when we had the Internet at our disposal, was at the time the easiest way to access information with a remote control and a few buttons. It would take years before it would arrive in our country.

John Adams, an engineer working at Philips, discovered that it was possible to fit information onto a television screen.

This unusually developed technology seemed a bit impossible. However, seeing that this was possible, Adams researched the subject. He developed Teletext, where we receive information on the TV screen.

This creative solution was approved by the BBC, even though it cost a lot of money at the time. First teletext system called Ceefax was introduced to the world. Other companies also strengthened the competitive environment by announcing their own systems: these rival systems were ORACLE and Prestel. Initially, no standards were set for these systems, so the market did not know which system to invest in.

But eventually a standard was agreed upon and this standard soon spread everywhere. Teletext adventure that is it So it started.

Ceefax, which officially appeared in our lives in 1976, could initially be monitored by connecting a separate device to it.

However, within a short time, televisions with teletext came onto the market and the audience grew rapidly. Especially in 1982, portable televisions It was now possible to receive Ceefax and ORACLE publications about it.

Teletext, on the other hand, spread quickly and was developed as much as possible. In fact, a company called Beeb has created a website that runs on the BBC Acorn microcomputer. telesoftware He even started marketing it. Players can broadcast via teletext using an antenna and a small decoder. They could download programs and games.

This service lasted until the late 1980s. However We cannot say that much effort has been made to improve teletext broadcasts. Of course, more advanced standards were created, but companies were reluctant to produce receivers compatible with these standards. For this reason, teletext broadcasts continued to consist of grainy and noisy characters as we remember them.

While this format offers clear advantages over other broadcast systems, we would be dishonest if we said it has not evolved over time.

Last minute news, competition results and stock market For example, the ability to quickly announce information that needed to be updated immediately was a must for this technology. For Teletext it did not matter that millions of users were trying to access the page at the same time; these releases still went well regardless of the number of buyers.

Unlike websites that crash when too many users load, with teletext we cannot say that the number of users is that important. For example, when websites crashed during the September 11 attacks, many people searched for news. He was on his way to Ceefax.

Let’s get to our teletext adventure.

In the early 1990s, a new era began in Turkey. The first teletext broadcast called “Telegün”, launched by TRT in 1990, With the increase in the number of private channels, many broadcasters have started their own teletext adventure. However, it is still difficult to say that these publications were perfect for the period.

Usually there was a process where we had to wait before we could access a page.

Because pages were encoded in the spaces between frames, users had to wait for their television to register the information, especially if the pages were far apart. This also slowed down page loading. Moreover, data It was broadcast over TV signals, which could cause interference problems. Pages were not loading correctly, characters were corrupted. The financial pages in particular had an extra impact in this area.

Teletext may not be very attractive to today’s young generation; many of them may even hear this name now. To see these pages on time and get the most current information, click on the remote control. While pressing the TXT key is sufficient Nowadays everything is on the internet, within reach.

Strangely enough, teletext still has an audience today, even though it is outdated. This technology, favored by the generation we generally call ‘boomer’, We can say that it flourished and then lost its place with the rise of the Internet.

Continuation of these publications TV channels still exist. Who knows, maybe Teletext will return to the scene after a long hiatus in the event of a global disaster, even if it is on the verge of oblivion!

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