my sister’s 7th birthday is being relived on the web. an evening with ceefax contains a complete page capture of bbc1 ceefax from 1983. hi-de-hi was on in prime time, tv stopped at about midnight and president reagan was cancelling trips to the phillipines. (it’s a pity the birthday pages were broadcast on another channel!)

what stands out to me is that although we’re still using practically the exact same teletext system two decades later (we’ve added some coloured buttons for easier page jumping but i don’t think that much else is new in analogue tv?) the design has improved a lot. there are some people out there who have got very very good at packing information into an 40x24 character screen and who have great skill at monotype justification. it’s dated technology but i hope it’s not outdated yet.

[found via linkmachinego]