TELETEXT AND ITS USE IN SCHOOLS

by

GARY DAVID COOKE

A Master's by Course Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree of MSc in Computer Education of Loughborough University of Technology, January 1989.

Supervisor: Mrs M P A Green

by GARY DAVID COOKE 1989 ABSTRACT

Television teletext is a public viewdata service, a British invention in the nineteen-seventies, that was envisaged as a data store for a national computer­ literacy project. This dissertation examines the devel­ opment of the technology and its benefits to schools.

Although both the IBA and the BBC transmit a teletext viewdata service, it is the BBC's CEEFAX that has had the greatest influence on education. After launching a computer-literacy project along with its microcomputer and television transmissions, the BBC developed its teletext service to provide both information and a transfer ·of computer-based learning materials. Reception of the latter became possible with the BBC microcomputer teletext adapter. This, in turn, gave rise to the the CEEFAX Telesoftware Service, a section of CEEFAX dedicated to the provision of electronic data, primarily for education purposes. The educational achievements of BBC Telesoftware have been barely documented and this dissertation largely has that as its aim.

i DEDICATION

This dissertation is dedicated to Jeremy Brayshaw, the Telesoftware Organiser of BBC CEEFAX. When the time came to submit this work for final assessment the BBC introduced sweeping changes to the format of its teletext service and this necessitated the closure of the BBC Telesoftware service. During the time that it had been in existence, the BBC Telesoftware Office had. achieved a great deal in making information technology a familiar tool for schools and home users. Jeremy Brayshaw was the Telesoftware Organiser throughout most of that period and is to be credited with steering the telesoftware service towards the achievements that are recorded in the text that follows.

ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am indebted to the following for their assistance in the completion of this dissertation:

Jeremy Brayshaw ...... BBC Telesoftware Office

Mrs M.P.A. Green ...... Dissertation Superviser

Corinne Cooke •...... for the patience & coffee

iii DECLARATION

This text in this dissertation is the sole work of Gary Cooke unless otherwise credited.

Gary Cooke

28.11.89

iv CONTENTS i. Abstract . i ii. Dedication ii iii. Acknowledgements. iii iv. Declaration iv v. CONTENTS. . V

1 . Introduction...... 1

2. The development of Teletext Systems • • 6

3. How teletext works. . . . • . • • • • . 12

4. CEEFAX - The BBC Teletext Service . . • 22

5. ORACLE - The IBA Teletext Service • . • 29

6. The CEEFAX Telesoftware Department. . . 35

7. Viewdata software in schools .....• 52

8. Teletext as a resource for schools. • • 58

9. Conclusion...... 67

10. References & Bibliography ...... 76

Appendix...... 8 2 ·---·------

Chapter l G.D. Cooke

I. Introduction

The development of microcomputer technology in the twentieth century has enabled man to construct the computer, a machine capable of handling enormous amounts of information. As in­ creasing amounts of information have become stored as data, so the technology has been developed to enable the data to be accessed more rapidly, more cheaply, and with smaller machines. Commentators[l] on the period have indicated that the effects of this development have heralded such transfor­ mations on so many aspects of our lives that there seems little doubt that we are undergoing a twentieth century technological revolution - the information revolution: Individuals are going to have more control than before over the information that flows around them •.. more power to call for the information ... they need ••• to maintain communication with individuals elsewhere ..• to make use of files and databanks and libraries ... more individual control over information resources no longer far away, no longer restricted from their use.[2] If we are to benefit from the opportunities that this revo­ lution presents us then we must equip society with the skills necessary to handle the tools which control information:

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... if we are to avoid the fate of other generations that have experienced technological revolution, we have to subordinate the new assets to human need and social control so that we are the beneficiaries rather than the victims of change.[3]

If we accept the above as valid comment on the time in which we live then it is likely that we look to Education to equip society with the necessary skills. State Education does not hold a very good track record in responding to the implica­ tions and demands brought about by technological revolutions (see both Ward[4] and Musgrave[S] on the Industrial Revolu­ tion, and Large[6] on the current Information Revolution). The problems are numerous: equipment, buildings, capital, resources, training, and support. But, if Education is to succeed in providing the skills for the new age then a fundamental requirement must be the training of the teachers themselves. They must have the relevant knowledge and a sufficient depth of understanding in order to develop the appropriate skills in their s·tudents.

Much of this can be acquired through practice. A great deal can be gained from researching the relevant literature on current technology in education.

It is with the latter in mind that I decided to write this dissertation. There is a good deal of literature about the use of computers in Education, but in the research that I have undertaken in studying for this degree I have found

Page 2 Chapter 1 G.D. Cooke very little mention of the achievements of Teletext or its potential as a resource for Education. Only Large credits Teletext as having played a role in making us aware of the information resources now at our disposal and the potential it offers for our future:

Computer networks can be brought into the home without the help of a home computer. Twin British inventions called teletext and videotex do the job through an ordinary TV set with a few microchLps inside ... symbols of the ·transition to the post-industrial society. [7]

This dissertation attempts to record how Teletext technology was developed (chapters 1 and 2), and how the various broad­ casting organisations have embraced the technology to develop their individual teletext information services. For historical reasons the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has been the most active of our broadcasting services in embracing the technology and developing a variety of information departments and supporting hardware tools. Following the broadcast of the BBC Horizon programme When The Chips Are Down[B], there emerged great concern[9] about the growth of information technology and the comparative illiteracy of the British population. The BBC saw the opportunity of developments with teletext and home microcomputers as a way to combat this national dilemma, and so was born the BBC's Computer Literacy Project in 1979 and the subsequent development of the CEEFAX Telesoftware service.

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The dissertation focuses on the achievements of CEEFAX that have been directly relevant to schools - the development of teletext technology (chapter 3), the facilities offered by the CEEFAX information service (chapter 4), the development of the BBC/Acorn Teletext Adaptor (chapter 6), and the CEEFAX Telesoftware service (chapter 8). Consequently, the dissertation focuses on these achievements and records their development and their use in schools. Chapter 5 looks at the achievements relevant to schools of the Independent Broad­ casting Authority's teletext service, ORACLE.

The existence and proliferation of viewdata information services in many aspects of our lives (tourism, travel and banks, as well as television based services) make it inevi­ table that schools might want to emulate this use of tech­ nology and design their own community information services. A review of appropriate software is therefore included in chapter 7 in order to encourage more schools to explore the potential they offer. There are many educational benefits in producing and managing such services and, in spite of the appearance being similar to the larger information services of CEEFAX and PRESTEL, the dissertation shows how the same results can be achieved with very little effort.

Teletext is new technology. It is now only fifteen years old but, in that short time, it has undergone a change of style and emphasis. Some of these developments have been benefi­ cial to schools, others less so. It is inevitable that there

Page 4 Chapter 1 G.D. Cooke will be further changes and the final chapter attempts to draw together the current trends with a view to estimating how schools may advantage from useful developments in the ~ immediate future.

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II. The Development of Teletext Systems

Teletext is a computer-run public information service broadcast as part of the television service transmissions. Teletext services are currently run by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) and, more recently, Sky, the satellite television service. The information they provide ranges from news items and the latest share prices to sports results and pop music charts.

Teletext information is transmitted as part of the television signal, however, unlike a normal television signal the teletext information is in digital form. This means that only televisions equipped with a suitable teletext decoder are capable of interpreting th~ teletext signal to display the information. This enables the television to act as a source of updated information - an instant newspaper, an encyclopaedia, consumer guide and professional advice centre. Being in digital form the teletext signal is also well suited for use with computers. Both ORACLE and CEEFAX have transmitted computer programs as part of the teletext service they provide.

Teletext .was developed in 1971 by the BBC who were seeking ways to provide subtitles on the television screen for the deaf. From success with subtitles the BBC investigated expansion to full screen text pages with a view to broadcasting an information service. Experimental

Page 6 Chapter· 2 G.D. Cooke transmissions began in 1972 and, following a two-year trial, a full public information service, CEEFAX (from See Facts) began in 1974. The IBA, who had assisted the BBC in the development of teletext, launched its own information service, called ORACLE, a year before, on its Independent Television (ITV) channel. This was expanded to Channel 4 (CH4) when it was launched in 1984.

The teletext information databases of both CEEFAX and ORACLE are very large. They are therefore transmitted in 'pages' with one 'page' being displayed on the screen at a time. This information can take the form of text, graphics, or both, depending on the type of information to be presented. The resulting catalogue of pages is transmitted in organised groups to make it easy to access the information. Both CEEFAX and ORACLE use 'magazines' to group up to 250 pages. BBC-1 currently broadcasts two of these magazines: magazine 1 which holds pages 100-199. (active information). and magazine 3 -pages 300-399. (the sports service). BBC-2 broadcasts three magazines: magazine 2 -pages 200-299. (mainly reference information). magazine 3 -pages 300-399. (a sports reference section). and magazine 7 -pages 700-799. (the telesoftware service).

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ORACLE also broadcasts five magazines in total but the information categories for channel 4's magazines are not easy to discern: ITV carries magazine 1 - pages 100-199 (active information) and magazine 2 - pages 200-299 (regional informtn.) CH4 carries magazine 4 - pages 400-499 (Channel 4 informtn.) magazine 5 - pages 500-599 (City and Advertisg. ) and magazine 6 - pages 600-699 (Reviews, topics).

It is clear from the above that page references to teletext pages consist of three digits. The first digit always refers to the magazine number and the next two digits identify the specific page within that magazine. Page oo·is commonly used. to hold an index to the magazine. The page number digits are in fact hexadecimal, i.e. beyond 9 the number increases to A and on to F. However, pages displaying screen based teletext information are confined to numeric page identifiers (not A to F), whilst computer-based information can be held on the other page numbers.

Each page may contain more than one screen of information. Each of these screens is given a sub-page number, which is a four digit hexadecimal number. The sub-pages are sent in cycles, so when the last sub-page has been sent, the broadcast returns to the beginning of the cycle and retransmits the first sub-page. This cycle will continue until a new page is selected. As with page numbers only computer-based teletext information is transmitted on hexadecimal sub-pages beyond 9.

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Teletext is only one form of digital information systems that have come to be known as viewdata. Videotex, invented by Sam Fedida for the British Post Office at the same time as teletext, holds many similarities with teletext. Indeed the two inventions are often confused and referred to by each other's title. Videotex is like teletext in that it shares the same facility to provide a variety of updated information and computer programs, and presents the data to the user in the same screen format (viewdata mode). It differs in that it uses the telephone line for broadcasting and thereby achieves two-way transmission. This means that users of videotex TV sets can do much more than merely read screenfuls of up-to-the-minute information: they can get professional advice, pay bills, check the bank account, book flights or theatre tickets, and buy mail-order goods with a credit-card code. However, this is all achieved at a cost to the user. Access to a commercial viewdata service starts with an annual subscription, the cost of each phone call, and is then supplemented with a connection cost and the possibility of frame costs. The Post Office videotex service was launched in September 1979 as Prestel. Other commercial viewdata services include Telecom Gold, and MicroLink.

As if to further compound the confusion with videotex, broadcast teletext has been developed into a two-way operation when used in multi-channel cable TV networks. In many areas of the United States, and in some of Britain's new towns (e.g. Milton Keynes and Telford) cable TV networks

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Chapter 2 G.D. Cooke have been installed in settlements making it possible for users of teletext TV sets to both access the broadcast information services and also transmit back orders (like Prestel), or feedback requests, or responses.

In Britain viewdata services saw a slow take-up by the public. By 1981 only 120,000 UK households had bought teletext sets and Prestel had only 40,000 of its anticipated 1 million customers. The British government got together all the concerns involved in viewdata services - the broadcasters, the hardware manufacturers, and the many information-providing organisations - in an attempt to co-ordinate their efforts and improve the public's awareness of the technology available to it. By 1982 there were 200,000 teletext TV sets in British homes and over a million by 1984. Viewdata services like Prestel have still to achieve the same rate of growth. In 1989 Prestel (retitled DialCom in 1987, as a subsidiary of British Telecom) had still to reach 100,000 subscribers. There are various reasons for the lack of success of videotex, but most commentators[lO] agree that the major drawback for users has been the cost of the service. The current cost of accessing Dialcom is as follows: subscription is £79.95 a year, telephone calls during business hours cost between 10 pence and 20 pence a minute depending on time and distance of the call, connection to the Dialcom computer costs 7 pence per minute during the day time, and frame charges range from 1 pence to 50 pence per frame. The teletext services, on the other hand, are free.

Page 10 Chapter 2 G.D. Cooke

In 1989, the number of teletext information services saw further expansion with the emergence of satellite television broadcasting. The Astra satellite, launched at the end of 1988, carries five channels which broadcast a small teletext information/subtitle service. These are Sky Channel (Channel 8), EuroSport (Ch.9), Filmnet 24 (Ch.ll), Sky News (Ch.l2) and Sky Movies (Ch.l6). It is not known what plans there are for a teletext information service on the British Satellite Broadcasting service to be launched in April 1990.

I

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III. How Teletext Works

Teletext is a free service run by the television broadcast­ ing authorities that utilises sections of the broadcast TV signal to transmit digital data in a standard format. Tele­ text data may be received by any suitable receiver and decoder connected to a normal TV aerial without any payment on the part of the user, except for the cost of a TV licence.

Most Teletext receivers/decoders are built into TV sets (re­ ferred to as Teletext TVs). However, many microcomputers already feature the circuitry necessary to drive the display of teletext screens. For example.the BBC micro's Mode 7 dis­ play is directly compatible with Teletext and indicates that much of the teletext receiver/decoder hardware already ex­ ists in this machine. The addition of a microcomputer tele­ text adaptor turns a microcomputer into a teletext-receiving terminal capable of all .the functions of a Teletext TV except the superimposition of subtitles over broadcast television programmes.

Teletext information is broadcast as a series of 'pages' each being the equivalent of a BBC micro Mode 7 screen. This information is broadcast along with the television picture on the four nationally broadcast television channels. Apart from the teletext pages of text, teletext signals have the facility for carrying a variety of information in a digital

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Chapter 3 G.D. Cooke format, from computer programs to complex pictures. This is achieved by utilising the transmission lines that go unused in the broadcast of a television picture.

A normal TV picture is made up of 625 horizontal lines. These lines are traced by an electron beam which starts at the top left-hand corner of the screen and scans across from left to right until the bottom right-hand corner is reached. In order to start the next frame the beam has to be moved to the top left position without tracing anything to the screen. This is achieved by the Field Blanking Interval (FBI) which moves the beam diagonally across the screen from bottom right to top left, but meanwhile suspends the action of the TV tube. The time taken to achieve this is about equivalent to that taken to send 25 picture lines and so 25 lines are sent during the FBI with, currently, six holding teletext information held in binary form.

The broadcasting of binary data in picture format is achieved by transmitting the lines as patterns of black (0) or white (1). A single line is divided into 360 sections in black or white. This equates to 45 eight bit bytes for each line, each line of 45 bytes being referred to as a data packet. A normal television is set to ignore any information it receives during the FBI, whereas teletext sets feature circuitry to scan all the FBI's 25 lines and decode the teletext data packets. Teletext data is identified by the first three bytes broadcast in each line. If these form the

Page 13 Chapter 3 G.D. Cooke pattern 10101010 10101010 11100100 the remaining 42 bytes of the line are decoded to form an identifier and the teletext display.

The pattern formed by the first two bytes of each row or data packet is more significant than the formation of a flag to the teletext decoder. Known as the clock run-in sequence the alternating 1 and 0 pattern is used by the decoder to determine the size of each section of the transmitted line that represents a single binary digit. It measures the time taken for the section of the line to change from white (binary 1) to black (binary 0) and establishes a clock sequence. Once assessed, the timing is then applied to the rest of the line to determine where each bit starts and ends. The third byte forms a different pattern (11100100) and reading this with the bit clock-sequence enables the decoder to establish the clock-sequence for a complete byte. The remaining 42 bytes of the line or data packet are then read, bit by bit, and grouped into units of eight to form the teletext display.

These remaining 42 bytes are commonly known as the framing code for the teletext display. The first two bytes hold two numbers. The first is the magazine number from which the page originates (pages 100 to 199 belong to magazine 1, pages 200-299 magazine 2, and so on). The second byte holds the row number (teletext line number) that the following data belongs to. Each of the 40 remaining bytes represents a character for display.

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Teletext pages were first transmitted as 25 rows or packets of data in binary form. The page display has always been held in rows 1 to 24 whilst the first row (row 0) is of great significance to teletext decoders. This is known as the Header row or Television Service Data Packet (TSDP) as it contains information to identify the specific teletext page and determine how it is to be displayed (e.g. a subtitle, a newsflash display, or a text frame, etc.).

As with all teletext data packets the Header row starts with the two-byte clock run-in sequence and the two-byte magazine and row identifier. The following byte contains the identity of the page·number in hexadecimal. A teletext page such as CEEFAX 176 (Education programme transmissions) will be transmitted with &76 in the page byte and &1 in the magazine byte (the row byte here will of course be &0). The next two bytes identify the sub-page number (&0000 if there is only one sub-page), and the following two bytes hold what are known as the control bits. Control bits are used to deter­ mine whether the page is a news flash display or sub-title, i.e. not of the full teletext display format. The next three bytes are all zero and have no current purpose, but the re­ maining 32 bytes hold what is known as the Header display information - the name of the teletext service, the date and the time (e.g. CEEFAX Sun 23rd Jul 16:44/04).

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As a teletext page requires 25 rows of text, this will require the transmission of 25 television lines for the reception of the full page. Teletext information is held within just six lines of each frame of a transmitted television picture. This means that four picture frames must be received for the reception of a complete teletext page. As it takes only l/50th of a second to transmit a television picture frame, 12.5 teletext pages can be broadcast for each second of transmission.

The current teletext cycle· on BBC-1 comprises 200 pages and takes about 15 seconds. Attempts have been made to achieve ways of· speeding up access to selected pages. The IBA has applied two methods of speeding up access. Its CH4 ORACLE service transmits a 200 page cycle in just 10 seconds. The ITV ORACLE service uses a grouping of pages into magazines which are broadcast in parallel rather than sequentially. The sequence of pages for 200-299 (regional information) are broadcast in parallel with 100-199 (national information). Accessing page 235 locks the teletext receiver onto the 200- 299 magazine so reducing the pages to be cycled to reach page 235.

Both the BBC and the IBA have developed their teletext serv­ ices to be capable of broadcasting computer programs, referred to as telesoftware. This has not been easy to achieve as the teletext services work in 7-bit mode and telesoftware needs to contain code for the computers which run in 8-bit mode. In short, Teletext can only broadcast 128

Page 16 Chapter 3 G.D. Cooke

of the 256 different character codes used by computers. It has therefore been necessary to find a way of transmitting all the additional codes.

The eighth bit of computer software is used for a parity check. This is necessary not just to check the integrity of the received data, but also to check and correct the receiver's internal clock from which it determines where each bit starts and ends. In order to cater for the broadcast of the untransmittable codes a protocol for telesoftware transmissions has been devised. This was agreed at an International Standards committee in 1978 and has been implemented in all the telesoftware broadcast by the teletext services since 1983.

The protocol is known as the Redefinable Telesoftware Format (RTF) and it allows any one of a computer's 256 character codes to be transmitted. The data received by a teletext receiver is queued in an input-buffer where it is decoded by reference to a look-up table. As every byte of teletext data is decoded in this way, what is actually transmitted to the teletext receiver is not what the user sees or what the com­ puter receives from the teletext adapter. What is received is in 7-bit code, what is output is transformed into 8-bit code.

This transformation is achieved when each byte is looked up in one of two tables -the 'lone' table and the 'escape' table. These tables enable each incoming byte to decode to

Page 17 Chapter 3 G.D. Cooke

one of three possible outcomes: a single byte, a string of bytes, or a command. Most of the time the teletext receiver decodes an incoming byte to the first outcome: a single out­ put byte. In the second outcome a string of characters is achieved when an incoming byte is instructed on the tables to hold a string of characters in its output form. An incom­ ing 'Z' can be output as the string 'Message'. In the third instance an incoming byte can trigger the execution of a predefined routine which may or may not result in anything being sent to the output file. It is the third example that tends to dictate which of the two look-up tables are to be used. The first table, the 'lone' table tends to be refer­ .enced for simple byte redefinition and is accessed as the default table. The second table, the 'escaped' decoding table, transforms bytes into executed commands and is only called into play when necessary. Being able to reference one table, then the other, is how 7-bit code can generate the missing 128 characters of 8-bit code. Let's see how this is achieved.

The RTF protocol assumes the incoming signal is in normal 8-bit mode. As explained above the UK teletext services are broadcast in 7-bit mode. The first part of any telesoftware transmission is therefore a two-byte code to activate trans­ lation to 8-bit code- 'I' followed by 'B'. The' I' charac­ ter decodes on the 'lone' table (the default) to mean 'use the escaped table for the next byte'. The next byte 'B' decodes on the 'escaped' table as 'change the contents of the look-up table to a predefined decoding pattern for

Page 18 Chapter 3 G.D. Cooke transforming 7-bit data to 8-bit data'. So a received 'IB' tells the decoder that the incoming data is in 7-bit mode and, decoding should take place accordingly.

Most of the entries in the default Lone decoding table decode 8-bit data to 7-bit versions of themselves. Receiving '&Cl' ('A') decodes to '&41' the 7-bit equivalent code for 'A'. Following reception of 'jB' however, incoming bytes have the missing parity-bit added. In addition certain codes activate commands to raise or lower the value of the next byte by 64. This enables the 128 missing characters to be generated (64 by lowering a byte, 64 by raising a byte).

Transmitting programs by teletext has also made it necessary to introduce a way of detecting any errors in the reception of the data by the receiver. This has involved the develop­ ment of a checking system applying to all the information on telesoftware pages. Since 1986 each transmitted page has included a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) byte so that re­ ceivers can verify the page as being an accurate copy of the one that was transmitted. The CRC is a number calculated by the CEEFAX computers before broadcast and transmitted in a new row previously unused in teletext pages - row 27 - with the CRC number held in the last two bytes.

The release of the Advanced Teletext System (ATS) control­ ling chip for the BBC/Acorn Teletext Adaptor in 1986 (the first chip was released in 1984 - see chapter 6) included among its new features the facility to check on the CRC byte

Page 19 Chapter 3 G.D. Cooke to verify the accuracy of the page received. This facility then became incorporated in the telesoftware downloading program that was later broadcast. The program indicates to the user whether the transmitted pages carrying the tele­ software have been received accurately. In the event of any pages failing the CRC check the program-continues to search for the unsuccessful page(s) until the integrity of the page data is verified. This facility has helped to ease the inconvenience and disappointment that was experienced with the attempts at downloading telesoftware with the release of the first control software.

The CRC routine has also become a required feature of any programs that BBC Telesoftware transmits to interact with CEEFAX pages. Each teletext page (and any of its sub-pages) are transmitted with their appropriate CRC byte that inter­ active software can verify with its CRC routine. Should any page be updated, the CRC number is recalculated before transmission. This enables the user's interactive program to be able to identify pages which have been changed as a result of updating rather than corrupted by poor reception. The BBC CEEFAX service has proved extremely efficient in transmitting accurate CRC numbers with pages, sub-pages and updated pages. Unfortunately, the IBA's ORACLE service has had problems transmitting accurate CRCs. Sub-pages display­ ing the sub-page number within its display (e.g. 2/4) result in inaccurate CRC numbers being transmitted. In addition the sub-page number can be transmitted with an identifier in row 0 which is inconsistent with the sub-page identifier in the

Page 20 Chapter 3 G.D. Cooke page display. In fact it is not unknown for ORACLE to trans­ mit sub-pages with sub-page bytes in row 0 set as page 0 - i.e. a page with no sub-pages(ll]. As a result of these and other problems ORACLE has started to remove sub-page indica­ tors from its page displays.

Teletext technology has achieved a remarkable facility for the transmission of both information and computer language code. This has enabled both information and learning materi­ als to be distributed in a manner that is technologically very advanced whilst also being extremely easy to access. The next·two chapters look at the emergence and development of the CEEFAX and ORACLE teletext services and examine the educational value of these services as well as the impact they have had in schools.

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IV. CEEFAX - The BBC Teletext Service

A. History:

The British Broadcasting Corporation began experimental transmissions for a CEEFAX service in 1972. Following a two-year trial, a full public information service began in 1974.

The service was initially restricted to BBCl with a news service, a sports section, and a number of consumer interest items - motoring, gardening, cooking, etc. It was later expanded to include "reference" information pages on BBC2 (e.g. income tax rates, interest rates, sports statistics). The CEEFAX service underwent a further development in 1986. At this point three sections saw expansion: the BBC Sport service, the CityNews service (financial information) and the BBC Telesoftware service.

At the time of writing (June 1989) the CEEFAX catalogue can be summarised as holding the following categories: I

BBC-1 News 101 - 119 Finance 120 - 139 BBC Information ...... 140- 149 Weather •...... •... 151 - 154 Travel Information ••.••..... 155- 169 Television, Radio & Films •.• 170- 189

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News Plus ...... 190 - 195 Alarm Clock ...... 196 CEEFAX guide and selection .. 197 Index ...... 199 Sport News/Results Service •• 300- 379 General 300 - 309 Cricket 310 - 329 Football 330 - 359 Motor Sport ...... 360- 369 Racing 370 - 379

BBC-2 News 201 - 219 Finance 220 - 239 Telecred - quizzes/popcharts. 240 - 249 Home & Away ...... 251 - 269 Consumer information ... 252 - 256

Prices ••••••••• 0 •••• 257 - 259 Gardening ...... 260 - 261

Leisure •• 0 ••••••••••• 262 - 269 Television, Radio & Films 270 - 289 Miscellany - charity/jobs 290 - 295

World Clock •• 0 ••• 0 ••••••• 296 CEEFAX guide and selection .. 299 Index 299 Sport Reference Section ..... 300- 399 - Fixtures, rankings, league tables BBC Telesoftware ••.•...•.... 700- 749 Next- computer news .•. 701

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Diary 702 BBC micro programs ..... 710 739 IBM PC programs ..••.... 740- 749

B. Operations

CEEFAX pages are broadcast live from a database held on a DEC PDP11 computer (the CEEFAX computer) at BBC Television Centre in London. The pages are prepared using a software package called VIDI EDITOR (see eh. 8) designed for the BBC microcomputer by the BBC's technical department. This allows sub-editors to prepare and edit their CEEFAX pages off-line from the CEEFAX computer. Using VIDI EDITOR on a BBC microcomputer up to 20 pages can be held in memory allowing pages to be edited, erased, merged or dumped to a printer. The finished pages (each comprising 1k of data) are then stored as a single "magazine" of pages on disc and additional magazines can then be created.

When BBC microcomputers are connected on-line to the CEEFAX I computer, magazines stored on disc, or currently in memory, can be up-loaded to the main CEEFAX database. For added security, a system of passwords defines exactly which areas ("magazines") of the CEEFAX database each user can access. For example BBC1's CEEFAX service transmits pages from magazines 1 to 10, whilst BBC2 uses magazines 11 to 20.

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Using VIDI EDITOR in this way enables a number of BBC departments to prepare CEEFAX pages off-line and transfer them to the CEEFAX computer at a later stage. The transfer of pages can be either direct, by going on-line, or indirect, by sending floppy discs of their magazine(s) to the CEEFAX department for up-loading. Similarly, outside contributors working at home with BBC microcomputers are able to prepare pages for CEEFAX. The pop music page CEETRAX (p249) and the weekly computer column NEXT (p701) arrive at the CEEFAX newsroom for up-loading each week.

CEEFAX pages can also be compiled on site at the source of the item and transmitted 'live' to CEEFAX. The BBC engineering department have written a terminal'package called MICROFAX for the creation of CEEFAX pages on portable personal computers (PPCs). These pages are sent to the CEEFAX computer at 1200 baud via the PPC's RS232 port connected to a modem. (If transmission is direct - i.e. on a microcomputer connected to the CEEFAX ·computer - then data transfer occurs at 9600 baud). CEEFAX, like the rest of the BBC does not use the public telephone network to transfer electronic data. Instead, use is made of specially-leased four-wire British Telecom circuits which have the advantage of being noise-free and off-limits to the general public. As a result, sub-editors work on-site with rapidly changing information and update the CEEFAX pages directly. Thus sub-editors at sports events where the information changes rapidly (e.g. golf or tennis), can make changes to the CEEFAX sports pages directly from their own microcomputer.

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It is clear from the above that some magazines on the CEEFAX database are 'live' (being transmitted) and some are 'dormant' (being prepared). Of the 10 magazines associated with each channel only a few are used for live broadcasts whilst others are reserved for preparation and editing. For example, the BBC's Telesoftware Service (p700 on BBC2) has access tomagazines 15 to 18 on the CEEFAX database. Magazine 17 holds the pages actually being broadcast and magazine_18 holds the pages currently being prepared for the following week's broadcast. At the end of each week magazine 18, containing the prepared material is copied to magazine 17 :for broadcast. Magazine 18 is then free for.the preparation of new material.

A further development to the facility for remote updating of the CEEFAX database has seen the CEEFAX share price pages (pl30ff) updated directly by a Stock Exchange computer. As there are commercial services providing the same automated information, the CEEFAX share price service is deliberately restricted. It is limited to 155 companies and is only updated by the Stock Exchange computer at five specified times during the working day (9.45, 11.00, 13.00, 15.00 and 1730).

Automatic updating of CEEFAX pages also occurs via BBC Basic programs written by the BBC's technical staff. The league tables associated with various sports, and featured in the Sports Reference section on BBC2, are compiled automatically

Page 25 Chapter 4 G.D. Cooke by BBC microcomputers running home-grown programs. Each Saturday during the football season the incoming results are fed directly to the BBC CEEFAX computer. At Spm a BBC microcomputer runs a league tables program. This down-loads from the CEEFAX database both the current statistics associated with each football team and the results of the latest matches. The team statistics are then updated and the new league tables are then compiled for direct broadcasting on CEEFAX (pp350-359 on BBC-1 Saturday, thereafter pp391-398 on BBC-2).

The facility for automating CEEFAX broadcasts saw the BBC enter into an international effort in March of 1987. The French videotex system, TELETEL expressed an interest in broadcasting a selection of CEEFAX pages. However, TELETEL uses a different videotex form~t from CEEFAX so Graham Bartram (the author of the ATS ROM) wrote a program to automate the transfer process. The software selects pages from CEEFAX, translates them into the TELETEL format and then transfers them to the TELETEL computer. This enables TELETEL to broadcast a selection of CEEFAX pages and update them automatically several times a day. The.software runs on a BBC microcomputer and logs on to the CEEFAX computer at set intervals during the day. Each time it selects a number of CEEFAX pages and then saves them to disc. Periodically a call is received to the microcomputer's auto-answer modem from a Paris-based PC. At this point the program reads its stored pages., replacing the CEEFAX page header information with TELETEL equivalents. The pages are then transferred,

Page 27 Chapter 4 G.D. Cooke via the modem, sending instructions with each page telling the French host computer where it should store the pages in the TELETEL database.

The BBC is currently reviewing the whole format of its CEEFAX teletext service. There is a desire to expand the detail and range of the various information categories with more pages for news, sport, and financial information.

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V. ORACLE - The IBA Teletext Service

The earliest stages of the IBA Teletext service, ORACLE, matched the development of the BBC's CEEFAX. This was due in part to the IBA joining the BBC in the joint development of teletext technology. However, ORACLE surfaced as a full public information service in 1973, shortly before the official launch of CEEFAX.

At this time the IBA was broadcasting just the ITV channel, although this took slightly different forms in the various ITV regions. At first ORACLE was transmitted as a national service on one maga~ine (pages 100-199). In 1980 this was modified to carry a maga~ine of regional information on pages 200-299 that was broadcast in parallel (see chapter 3) •

At the time of writing (June 1989) the ORACLE catalogue can be summarised as holding the following categories:

ITV News ...... 101 - 119

Live At Five (pop maga~ine) •• 120- 129 Sport ...... 130- 159 Weather ...... 161 - 163 Travel Information .•.•.•••.. 164- 168 Tele Shopping ••.•••...•..•. 170- 189

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Telephone line advertising ... 190- 195 The Chart Show magazine .••.•. 197 What's New on ORACLE .•.•.••. 198

Index I I I I I I I I I I 0 0 I 0 199

ITV - REGIONS

Local Weather ...... 209

TV Guide I I I I I I I I I I I I I I 210 - 219 What's On - theatres/cinemas. 230 - 239 Community Noticeboard ...... 240 - 249 TV+ Guide - charts, soaps .... 250 - 259

Local advertising 0 0 I I I I I I I I I 270 - 290

CH4

4-Tel (CH4 television guide). 410 - 459

Racing I I I I I I I I I I I I I I 461 - 499 City News (business info) .... 500 - 529 Financial guidance ...... 530 - 539 Blue Suede Views (pop mag.) •. 540 - 549

Kids (children's magI ) I I I 0 I I I 550 - 559 Buzz (teenager's mag. ) ...... 560 - 569 Advertising - general ..•..... 570 - 589 Advertising - overseas hols .. 590 - 599 Advertising UK Holidays .... 600 609 Diversions -hobbies ...... 610 - 619 Arts - reviews of plays/books 620 - 629 Jobs and Courses ...... 670 - 679

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Test pages for adverts .....•. 680- 689 Miscellany 690 - 699

It will be seen from the above that in the nature of inde­ pendent television, ORACLE, has to be self-financing. It is therefore much more in the style of commercial viewdata services like Prestel. Most of the transmitted pages carry advertisements with details of how goods can be ordered. On Prestel this is called teleshopping and occurs interac­ tively. Users select the goods from the displayed pages and the orders, along with the user's details are sent back down the telephone line to the Prestel computer. The goods are billed using the user's Prestel identity information. On ORACLE this two way transmission ·isn't possible, so most of the advertising screens achieve the next best thing. Tele­ phone numbers and credit cards are displayed so that viewers can ring up to place their orders and charge the goods to their credit card numbers.

ORACLE has a major advantage over CEEFAX in that its regional subdivisions enable i~ to provide a teletext information service that is much more local to the viewer. Its guide to local films, plays and concerts, may be a form of advertising, but it is also a medium that provides information for the local Arts scene and in this respect provides an educational service.

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ORACLE also differs from CEEFAX in that its CH4 service pro­ vides in depth support for the transmitted television programmes (see 4-Tel). CH4 television was set up to provide minority viewing programmes or features that support activi­ ties not covered by the existing channels. The CH4 ORACLE service provides textual introduction and support to those types of television programmes as a way of broadening viewers interests and awareness.

Just as CEEFAX supports the Open University, CH4 has played a role in providing information for the Open College devel­ opment. This development concerns the introduction of more adult education, adult-literacy programmes and courses transmitted on CH4 television. 4-Tel transmits pages that explain which of the IBA's educational transmissions are allowed to be recorded and replayed off-air without a licence, and which require a fee to be paid. In addition, 4-Tel features pages detailing the times of CH4's educational broadcasts along with addresses and telephone numbers for support notes, education packs and further contacts.

ORACLE has not been without its own venture into telesoft­ ware. However, this has not been able to compare with the success of the CEEFAX Telesoftware service. In the initial days of ORACLE's telesoftware transmissions (c. 1986), pro­ grams were broadcast for a range of home microcomputers - the Sinclair Spectrum, the Amstrad CPC and the Commodore 64. The venture was plagued by problems: The IBA commissioned

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Volex to produce suitable teletext adaptors for the range of computers it decided to support, but these adaptors could only be purchased from Volex direct - not from computer retailers. Only the first of these three types of home microcomputers made any impact on the educational scene, so the software made available for transmission tended to take the form of home entertainment programs, especially games, rather than instructive programs.

The adaptor scheme was eventually expanded to include the BBC microcomputer which, by 1986, had come to dominate the education computer market. As a result ORACLE began trans­ mitting programs for the BBC microcomputer along with sup­ port software for some of its own educational broadcasts. For a variety of technical reasons, most of them to do with the absence of a cyclic redundancy check byte in ORACLE teletext transmissions (see chapter 2), the ORACLE telesoft­ ware transmissions were not successful and the service was abandoned in 1987.

Most of the information that is transmitted on ORACLE pages may not be viewed as being intrinsically educational, however, the different style of the service does provide students of information technology with an insight into the directions that viewdata services can take. It has to be said that the quality of some of the teletext pages on ORACLE leaves a lot to be desired. There is inconsistency in the display of sub-page labels and it is possible to access, on CH4, advertising pages still under development. Chapter 3

Page 33 Chapter 5 "G. D. Cooke has already identified some of the poor technical controls concerning the transmission of ORACLE's teletext pages and I feel compelled to suggest that ORACLE is best viewed as an example of.a viewdata information service that can be improved upon, rather than a model service to be emulated.

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VI. The CEEFAX Telesoftware Department

Phase 1

The British Broadcasting Corporation's (BBC) Telesoftware service was born out of its computer literacy project, started in 1979. Teletext seemed an ideal medium for the distribution of related information and software. The BBC and IBA therefore undertook a joint project researching the possibility of broadcasting software via their respective teletext systems. Mullard designed and built a prototype teletext receiver linked into their ZBO-based microcomputer system. This was connected to a 22-inch television set and became the testing bed for the reception of what came to be called "telesoftware". Brighton Polytechnic was approached to produce educational programs for broadcasting as tale­ software on both BBC and ITV teletext transmissions.

The next stage in the project saw education, in particular the secondary sector, chosen as the target for the new ex- perimental' service. Nine schools from . seven education authorities were selected to take part, and care was taken to ensure that they represented a cross section of the 6,000 or so state schools in the country.

Between September 1981 and June 1982 the schools in the scheme trialed the reception and use of a variety of Brighton Polytechnic's software from both CEEFAX and ORACLE.

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Some of the software included interactive programs including one that took the current food prices from CEEFAX pages and used them in software designed for domestic science lessons.

In spite of a few minor problems with hardware and software the trials were regarded as being successful (12) and the telesoftware project moved onto its second phase.

Phase 2:

The scope for the BBC's computer literacy project now encom­ passed the possibility of using CEEFAX to broadcast software and related information. The BBC next invited British compu­ ter manufacturers to submit design proposals for a new microcomputer system that could provide a facility to inter­ face with the CEEFAX service.

·Acorn computers of Cambridge took up the challenge and, with modifications to its ATOM computer, made what became the prototype to the BBC/Acorn microcomputer. The computer was launched in 1981 and work began on a peripheral unit to interface with teletext - the BBC/Acorn Teletext Adaptor.

Following on from the success of the Telesoftware in Second­ ary Education project, Brighton Polytechnic turned their attention to the Primary school sector. This project, which began in 1982, involved 40 of the 25,000 or so state Primary schools. With the Mullard system being obsolete, the

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participating Primary schools were issued with prototype Acorn adaptors for use with their recently-arrived BBC micros.

This second project proved extremely successful [13] and led to the introduction of a full public CEEFAX Telesoftware Service from September 1983. The following Spring saw the launch of the BBC micro Teletext Adaptor for the reception of the software.

Phase 3:

In 1984 Jeremy Brayshaw, a school teacher who had followed the evolution of the BBC's telesoftware service with some enthusiasm, applied to the BBC to run the Telesoftware service. His appointment saw the service enter its period of maximum prominence.

In spite of the launch of the BBC Telesoftware Service and the Acorn Teletext Adaptor, the following year did not see 1 .the expected growth in the sales of Adaptors or interest from schools in BBC Telesoftware. It was thought that a key factor had been that Acorn had been reluctant to be involved with the development of the Teletext Adaptor and had priced the unit too high at £225 + VAT.

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A further problem concerned the control software. The adap­ tor worked quite well but the control software - the TFS ROM chip (Teletext Filing System Read Only Memory) - had not provided all that was desired. With the Teletext project behind schedule a stop-gap version of teletext control soft­ ware had been released with the adaptor. The ROM worked by replacing the BBC micro's filing system- (Disc Filing System - DFS) with its own (the Teletext Filing System) and thereby created limitations in its use. It took up 3k of the BBC micro's memory, whether the teletext adaptor was in use or not. It was only capable of downloading ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) files and programs written in BBC BASIC code, not machine code. Finally the teletext adaptor's software operated as a filing' system. This meant that downloading software made it necessary to download the files under TFS and swap to DFS to save the files to disc - a process that proved rather cumbersome and time consuming. Not surprisingly, sales of the adaptor were slow to take off.

Several manufacturers sought to produce their own versions of the adaptor and applied to the BBC for technical details of teletext and telesoftware protocols. In 1985, Volex, Morley Electronics, GIS and Solidisk all launched their own teletext adaptor at a cost of around £100.00 including oper­ ating systems that were much easier to use. This helped to stimulate interest in Telesoftware not only from educational institutions but also from home-computer enthusiasts.

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With renewed interest in its service BBC Telesoftware under­ took two aims in its development. The first aim was to enhance its services to schools in a way that might foster more interest and use from staff and pupils. The second aim was to provide telesoftware and information for the new area of home users.

The services to schools were enhanced with the broadcasting of educational notes and teacher's guides to support BBC Education's radio and television broadcasts. These were downloaded via the Teletext Adaptor and stored on disc. A supporting BASIC program enabled users to view the files on disc and print them out. Introducing the support notes in this way negated the need for schools to pay postage and the BBC to pay the cost of printing so many documents. Not sur­ prisingly, it led to an increased uptake in the use of the support notes. At the same time Jeremy Brayshaw developed a number of interactive programs to enable schools to access 'live' teletext data and use them in graphs or simulations. The first of these·was a program for domestic science that sought out the latest food prices and calculated the budget needed to fund a specific meal. Shortly afterwards Brayshaw produced a Weather graphing program. This accessed the daily rainfall and temperature data for 13 seaside resorts broad­ cast on p.l54 and displayed them in a monthly graph.

Meanwhile, Graham Bartrom, of the BBC engineering depart­ ment, developed a new teletext system software ROM to over­ come the limitations of the initial version. Released in

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August 1986, the new ROM was titled the ATS ROM (Advanced Teletext System) and worked along with the BBC micro's DFS. It thereby made it possible to introduce a simple key-oper­ ated menu system for downloading software. In fact, software written for the ROM and broadcast as free telesoftware made it possible to automate the downloading of all the telesoft­ ware programs unattended. This considerably aided the appeal of free telesoftware for teachers who had previously found the downloading of software time-consuming and troublesome. In addition the new ROM did not interfere with the main memory of the micro and was produced by BBC Publications as a replacement for the original at a cost of just £7.95.

October, 1986 saw Telesoftware broadcast a full working version of its own VIDI EDITOR program (used in the development of CEEFAX pages - see ch.4) along with user documentation. This enabled schools to set up their own viewdata information systems modelled on CEEFAX pages.

As 1986 drew to a close Telesoftware launched one of its finest utilities for BBC microcomputer enthusiasts with Acorn Teletext Adaptors. Following a lead taken by other commercial databases, notably Prestel, Graham Bartram devel­ oped a keyword search utility program for teletext access. This enabled users to specify a topic to be searched for among the hundreds of pages of information broadcast by CEEFAX and ORACLE. The·program then presented up to ten page numbers where the topic had been located and also stored the

Page 40 Chapter 6 G.D. Cooke relevant screens in memory for instant access. The program also featured a facility to expand either the top or bottom half of any accessed teletext page to double-height text.

One of the most useful telesoftware utilities broadcast for schools appeared in late February, 1987 when an Econet suite of programs was broadcast. Prior to the transmission of this software schools were only able to access the broadcast teletext services at those terminals with a dedicated tele­ text adaptor attached to them (usually just the one termi­ nal). However, this software used the networking facilities of Acorn's Econet system to overcome this limitation. Schools with BBC computers linked by Acorn's Econet network could now use a BBC microcomputer with a teletext adaptor as a teletext 'server' to the network of BBC microcomputers. Any station on the network could now access any of the tele­ text page of CEEFAX or ORACLE, independent of those pages being accessed by other stations. With the Econet Teletext System it became possible for classes to explore the broad­ cast teletext services fully, from any station and also make use of the interactive programs in the same way. Thus it became possible to use teletext and interactive teletext programs in class lessons with students working at their own rate rather than having to queue to use the one teletext computer.

The home user saw increasing support from 1985. Aside from the free telesoftware programs the Telesoftware Service was expanded to provide a weekly computer news magazine - NEXT

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Chapter 6 G.D. Cooke

(p.701), a diary of computer shows and events (p.702) and a list of computer user groups (p.703). In line with the

~ original aspirations of the BBC's Computer Literacy project, television programmes on computing ("Computers In Control", 1984, and "The Computer Programme", 1985- 88) were inte­ grated with the telesoftware service. Program support notes or related software were broadcast in the same week as the programmes. In 1986 the Telesoftware Service went on to

introdu~e the broadcasting of technical courses on a variety of topics: "OSBITS" (BBC 6502 Assembler programming), "Mastering Sideways ROM and RAM", and "Interactive Programming with .the Acorn Teletext Adaptor System". Each of these courses was broadcast with a weekly instalment of course notes and supporting software to demonstrate the principles covered in the current instalment. In December of the same year BBC Telesoftware introduced a Teletext Keyword Search program to enable all users to locate up to 10 teletext pages (CEEFAX and ORACLE) dealing with a specified topic. Along with all this telesoftware users were encouraged to submit their own programs. Thus, by 1987, the telesoftware service had become a fruitful area for schools and home users to pick up useful utilities and support notes in their use of their BBC microcomputers.

Statistics for 1987 (14] showed that there had been a 60% increase in the sales of teletext adaptors over 1986 and a commensurate increase in the use of the telesoftware service.

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Phase 4:

Following the end of the contract with Acorn in 1987 the BBC sought to improve the facilities and license the general concept of the Teletext Adaptor. It was considered necessary to upgrade the performance of the Adaptor to cope with developments in teletext transmission technology - in particular the new unit would have to be capable of handling the faster text transmission and provide multiple page grabbing facilities. Another version of the ATS ROM was produced (ATS+ ROM) in the Spring of 1988 providing multiple page grabbing facilities. In order to stimulate interest and establish the new ROM as the standard control software for teletext the ROM was offered at £7.50. Later it was broad­ cast as a ROM image for users to download free from teletext without charge. Once downloaded it could be loaded into sideways ram units of micros (where fitted) or blown into EPROM chips (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory). In addition a good deal of Jeremy Brayshaw's interactive soft­ ware was re-broadcast with code to take advantage of these new page-grabbing facilities.

Looking further ahead, it was clear that only so much could be achieved enhancing the ATS ROM and that a new design of the Teletext Adaptor was needed. The existing adaptors from Acorn, Morley, Solidisk, Volex were all different in design. The BBC therefore submitted all of them to stringent tests in the BBC research and design department to see whether any

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Chapter 6 G.D. Cooke one unit could become the base design for the new Adaptor. As most of the existing units featured CCD (Charge-coupled device) chips which were incapable of the de~ired perform­ ance the BBC commissioned a new design. Acorn were approached, along with GIS, and the latter came up with a design that passed the BBC's stringent tests and is now the latest version of the BBC Teletext Adaptor.

In April, 1988 BBC Telesoftware announced that it recognised the emergence of the IBM PC and its compatibles as a major force in schools and among home-computer enthusiasts. The BBC Master computer series had, since its launch in 1985, featured an optional IBM eo-processor board and the new Acorn/BBC Archimedes had an IBM PC software emulator. Mean- while the emergence of Amstrad, with its cheap PC clones, had opened up a large user base in schools and homes for PC software. BBC Telesoftware therefore decided to start sup­ porting this sector of the computer-user market. In order to do this GIS had developed a PC expansion card version of the newly approved Teletext Adaptor. Software was written to allow text and data from teletext pages to be incorporated in the wordprocessors, spreadsheets and databases running under MS-DOS (Microsoft Disc Operating System). In addition a new IBM PC section of the Telesoftware service was intro- duced. This enabled PC users to download PC software as well as the support notes for BBC Education programmes that were already being broadcast for BBC microcomputers. Much of the free software that was broadcast came from Database Publica- tions. They had a publication for BBC micro owners called

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"The Micro User" and had introduced a monthly section on CEEFAX and Telesoftware that had helped to initiate new interest in the service. A sister magazine, "Personal Computing For The Amstrad", featured a free disc of PC software (mainly shareware utilities and games). Following the success of CEEFAX articles BBC Telesoftware entered into an arrangement with Database Publications to broadcast a selection of the software from the monthly disc.

In March 1989 BBC Telesoftware completed a survey of its users. Of the 1250 replies returned it was clear that the main audience consisted of BBC micro users:

Telesoftware Usage Statistics [15]

Computers owned: Acorn/BBC 88.1% (inc. Model B, Master and Archimedes) IBM PC and clones 8.1% Other 1. 8% None 5.3%

Teletext adaptor owned: Acorn 40.3% Morley 27.3% GIS 7.5% Solidisk 3.4% Other 1. 8% None 19.6%

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The survey also revealed that, after the dramatic rise in the use of telesoftware in 1987, 1988 had seen a slight drop in use. It was expected that the move to support IBM PC us­ ers would widen the appeal of telesoftware. There was also a new BBC computer, the Archimedes, that was to be supported. Further interest in telesoftware was expected to be initi­ ated with a new innovation planned for schools and home users.

Phase 5

Since 1984 Jeremy Brayshaw had been aware that it was possi­ ble to take satellite image data from the meteorological office and broadcast the information as CEEFAX data. The main problem was that the data associated with each image was more detailed and therefore larger than any single item the telesoftware service had broadcast. No micro had the capability of displaying the detail of the satellite image and it was difficult to justify the dedication of a large part of the telesoftware resources to a small part of the service. In addition, there was also the problem of who owned the data. The Meteorological Office provide a commercial service selling weather data to interested parties and it was not in their interest to allow the BBC to broadcast such data so freely. Meanwhile satellite reception equipment was being developed and sold to schools as a way of picking up transmission of weather images from the

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Chapter 6 G.D. Cooke

Meteosat and UoSAT weather satellites. The telephone view­ data services, Micronet and TTNS (The Times Network Service) had also begun investigating the purchase and broadcast of satellite images from the Meteorological Office.

Brayshaw approached a colleague, Peter Vince, a BBC engineer, to see whether the Telesoftware service could eventually share in broadcasting such data. Vince wrote software to reduce the detail of the satellite image data (about lOOk) to a density that is supported by a range of microcomputers interfacing with the telesoftware service. The resultant file is 25k long and can be broadcast on just 25 Telesoftware sub-pages. Vince also produced software to interpret the data and display screen images on the receiving microcomputer. As far as the BBC microcomputer was concerned the resultant images were best displayed using the somewhat coarse pixel graphics of the BBC micro's Mode 2 screen (20k). Although this mode allowed the light intensity range to be displayed in the maximum range of colours the clarity of the image left a lot to be desired. However, the launch of the Archimedes computer and the launch of a telesoftware service for the IBM PC offered the chance of achieving a better quality display and a much faster decoding speed. Thus further versions of the software were undertaken.

Meanwhile the Meteorological Office agreed that the satel­ lite image data that it supplied by landline direct to the BBC's Weather service could be broadcast by the BBC Tele-

Page 47 Chapter 6 G.D. Cooke software service. However, it granted permission for the broadcast of just two images a day and each one at a twelve hour delay, in order to avoid conflict with the Meteorologi­ cal Office's own commercial interests.

The autumn of 1988 saw BBC telesoftware in a position to begin trials in the reception of its satellite images. Forty schools received software for the BBC MQdel B, Master and Archimedes microcomputers. The trials involved the broadcast of a number of satellite images of different views of the earth's surface in order to arrive at an image that proved most popular. Feedback showed that the images did not re­ flect the underlying coastlines and so made it hard to in­ terpret the weather patterns in relation to land masses. Vince modified the software to overlay the satellite picture on a background land mass image for Western Europe I North Atlantic - the image that was proving the most popular.

With successful trials completed the satellite service went live in February of 1989 and was greeted with much enthu- / siasm. Owners of BBC Model B and Master computers were con- fined to the clumsy and garish Mode 2 display. A build up of the screen by the Display program that took eight minutes to complete. However, owners of Archimedes proudly demonstrated near-photographic quality images. Vince's software took ad­ vantage of· the many grey scales to display cloud formations and cloud density patterns in under sixty seconds. With the display finally built up the images could be saved to disc and reloaded almost immediately. The speed of the Archimedes

Page 48 Chapter 6 G.D. Cooke also makes it possible to reload a week's images in a movie­ like sequence. This gave a very realistic impression of the progression of the weather throughout the week.

In addition to providing software to decode and display the images, Telesoftware transmitted text files detailing the data format. Most of Meteosat's data defines the light intensity of each part of the picture. Broadcasting details of how to interpret the data encouraged enthusiasts to design their own programs to analyse the patterns of light intensity.

Transmitting a week of satellite images (two per day) in a reduced format still made it necessary to allocate 350 sub­ pages of CEEFAX. The data was therefore broadcast with each image occupying one CEEFAX page with 25 sub-pages. In order to avoid complaints from television teletext users about pages of incoherent data being broadcast the images were broadcast on hexadecimal pages. The normal television tele­ text decoder is set to receive decimal pages only, so these hexadecimal pages could not be screened on a standard tele­ text television. The hex page format has proved successful but the burden of broadcasting satellite data has introduced a slower cycle to the pages on BBC2. During every cycle the rolling page numbers halt for a second or two at page 797 while the hexadecimal pages are transmitted.

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Phase 6

In July 1989, Jeremy Brayshaw outlined to me his plans for the future of the Telesoftware service. Although 1988 had seen a small drop in sales of teletext adaptors and interest in Telesoftware he was optimistic about the future popularity of Telesoftware. The introduction of the IBM PC service and the resounding success of the weather satellite images had led to an increase in mail to the Telesoftware offices. Adaptor sales appeared to be back on the increase and, apart from the satellite software, BBC Telesoftware had not exploited the opportunities of software for the new BBC/Acorn Archimedes.

Brayshaw considered that the future for CEEFAX Telesoftware lay in providing more general purpose material for BBC mic­ res (including the new Archimedes) and IBM PC's. He hoped to produce more teletext page interrogation packages (akin to FOLIO and WEATHER) that would enable users to run software that would interact with the teletext service. The technical success of the weather satellite image service meant that it was feasible to envisage the broadcasting of other sources of satellite data. However, the problem of data ownership would probably limit the service to the broadcasting of volatile data after a significant delay. (The weather images are broadcast 12 hours after they are received from the satellite - beyond 6 hours the data is considered obsolete in commercial terms).

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The whole area of broadcasting was the subject of a govern­ ment White Paper in the summer of 1989 and the BBC was involved in reviewing all aspects of its CEEFAX teletext service. The introduction of fast text teletext technology in domestic TV sets meant that the current CEEFAX service was in need of improvement. CEEFAX needed to provide its audience with an information service that took advantage of the new technology. At the time of my visit to the CEEFAX offices plans were underway to improve the news service. It was intended that users would be provided with more detailed information on fast text pages. (Once accessed these pages are stored in the memory of fast text teletext receivers and viewed on request). Other developments involved a review of the design of the teletext pages and the overall style of the service - what information should be provided, which areas should be given more emphasis, and which deserved more rapid updating. It was hoped by Jeremy Brayshaw that this review would recognise the value of the Telesoftware service and allow more resources to be available for the develop­ ments that he envisaged. His CEEFAX Telesoftware office proudly displayed photographic evidence of the stunning clarity of the satellite images on the BBC/Acorn Archimedes computers. It marked the successful launch of new opportuni­ ties for BBC Telesoftware and Brayshaw was looking forward to the new challenges ahead. The response from schools and home-users was equally as enthusiastic. However, by the time schools returned from their summer holidays, the optimism had turned to despair ••.

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VII. VIEWDATA SOFTWARE IN SCHOOLS

The existence of a Teletext microchip in the BBC/Acorn microcomputers made it possible to display Teletext viewdata screens from a variety of sources. The chip also made it possible to direct commands to the chip, enabling the user to build up Teletext screens from a combination of key presses.

The BBC micro in fact defaults on power-up to its mode 7 display - the teletext mode, and BASIC, an interpreted BASIC language ROM. This enables users and programmers to access the teletext chip direct through the main programming lan­ guage and so incorporate teletext colour and graphic effects in the program logic and screen displays. In this mode pro­ grammers have access to text - single or double height, block graphics, and 16 colours with the loss of only lk of system memory. (Graphics screens, especially those using a wide range of colours, take up a lot of memory). Not surprisingly, most programs written in BBC BASIC for the BBC micro have been developed in this mode

A natural development in this area was the design of soft­ ware interacting with the teletext chip to enable users to design and edit teletext screens with ease. Early releases included: TED Teletext Editor (Watford Electronics) EdFax (Techmedia) Design 7 (M/B Software)

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With screens that looked like those of CEEFAX, ORACLE and PRESTEL the next step was to develop Teletext editors that produced screens that could be chained, thereby providing the facility for limited viewdata sequences. Slideit (by M.B. Webber - 1986) enables 10 screens to be chained and has the added facility for incorporating screens captured from Prestel or the television Teletext services. The resulting sequence is controlled through a menu driven front-end which is also common to the creation and editing of the screens themselves. Design 7 was developed with a similar aim and released as Design 7 Plus in 1985. It also features the fa­ cility to download screens from CEEFAX or ORACLE but, unlike Slideit, which holds the screens in memory, the resulting sequence of screens is converted into lines of BASIC. This enables the user to chain up to 60 screens in the one pro­ gram or go further and chain the programs themselves. This way the number of screens in a sequence is restricted by · only the storage capacity of the floppy discs (400k under the Acorn Disc Filing System - DFS, 640k under the Acorn Advanced Disc Filing System- ADFS). The BASIC program that is produced from Design 7 Plus also includes control com­ mands for sequencing the display and a variable time delay for determining the progress of the screens. There is cer­ tainly more flexibility with Design 7 Plus, but, without Slideit's menu front-end, control of the final product does require some understanding of programming in BASIC.

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Full emulation of viewdata was first offered in 1985 with the release of COMMUNITEL for the BBC microcomputers. The editing and sequencing of Teletext screens is combined with the facility to create a header line with pagenumber, a viewdata service name, and a date and updated time and display. Pages can be called up by typing the page number, and each page can feature its own set of subpages. Since 1986 Communitel has been released in a version that is compatible with Acorn's Econet, thereby facilitating multiuser access to both the development of the viewdata service and the display of requested screens.

In October 1986, BBC Telesoftware transmitted a suite of programs and support notes for its Vidi Editor program - a ROM chip containing software to generate the CEEFAX teletext .Pages. Vidi Editor, like other viewdata emulators, permits up to 20 pages to be grouped in a 'magazine'. These magazines are saved to disc and can be chained to produce up to 600 pages on an ADFS disc. The features are very similar to COMMUNITEL but page calling and Econet are not supported. However, Vidi Editor does allow the printing of pages, and the downloading of pages from CEEFAX or ORACLE to be edited or incorporated in the 'carousel' of pages.

Being transmitted without a charge many schools took advantage of the opportunity to experiment with teletext page design and setup their own viewdata service.

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Many schools have found it relatively easy to introduce their pupils to the development of information pages similar to those of CEEFAX and ORACLE. Pupils can incorporate news • pages from the public television teletext services or design their own. Like a school newspaper, the viewdata service can reflect school activities and events, however, the informa­ tion can be displayed in a relatively up to date form, and encourages its target audience to reference it, like many digital information services, in order to keep abreast of relevant developments. Such a service also provides the opportunity for the development of English skills as stu­ dents play the roles of editors, sub-editors, writers and reporters. General interest features can also be incorpo­ rated: students like to present their.own pages with reviews of books, games, videos, television programmes; and accounts of their interests and sports; etc. David Eastman of the Bell School of Languages at Saffron Walden has introduced just such a viewdata system. The school hosts students from all over the world who attend courses to improve their Eng­ lish. The viewdata system runs on an Econet network, 24 hours a day, and provides information relevant to students living in a foreign country. Information can be called up on train times to London and Cambridge, local cinemas, theatres and concerts, club meetings, the school timetable and news from overseas. The viewdata service is updated by a group of student volunteers of different nationalities who contribute information from their own countries as well as information gleaned from the national and local press.

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Those experimenting with COMMUNITEL have found additional educational benefits from the page call facility. David Barr at Deramore High School, Belfast has used this faciltity to encourage his students to develop multiple path stories. From a root story the possible branches for the plot are called up by page number. This can also be interactive, in that students can be invited to provide their own branch in the plot by finishing a screen with 'What would you do now?'

The Deramore High School viewdata service also carries information pertaining to the school and the local area and it has been able to widen its audience with the assistance of the Belfast Education and Library Board. Belfast does not have a local Prestel viewdata computer so connection costs to commercial viewdata services are quite high. David Barr has expanded the Deramore viewdata system to act as a host viewdata service to local schools, thus providing viewdata information to schools in the Belfast area at the cost of a local call without subscription rates. The success of this service as a vehicle for the dissemination of information has lead the Belfast and Library Board to put much of its public information on the Deramore computer. Teachers and adult education students can call up the Deramore viewdata service to glean information about courses and book places directly via their modem connection.

Schools may not want to go public with their viewdata service but, it is clear from the above that there is much to be gained from introducing students to CEEFAX and ORACLE

Page 56 Chapter 7 G.D. Cooke and then emulating them in the form of a school teletext viewdata service. Perhaps the most encouraging benefit, in my experience, is that the pupils eventually become proficient enough to teach their teachers how it all works!

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VIII. TELETEXT AS A RESOURCE FOR SCHOOLS

Teletext provides a wealth of information which is available free to individuals possesing the equipment to receive and decode the information that is transmitted. As this data is updated regularly Teletext can act as a valuable resource of 'live' digital data and topical information for a variety of educational applications.

At present statistical data is limited to share prices (up­ dated every 90 minutes), weather data (updated daily for a range of coastal and world locations), and food prices (up­ dated daily). However, once the teletext signal format is understood, it is fairly easy to write programs which will interact with this changing information to produce graphical displays that can convey trends in the data.

Jeremy Brayshaw has written a Weather program that stores and displays a month's statistics on temperature, rainfall and sunshine hours for the thirteen holiday resorts featured on page 154 (BBCl CEEFAX). Combining this program with weather maps for the period makes for a very effective way of tracing the passage of weather patterns over the British Isles and their effect on particular localities. Written in BBC Basic the code is fairly easy to read and modify to include the re­ cording of similar data for a school location over the same period.

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Brayshaw has also written a stocks and shares program called Folio which credits individuals with £10,000 which they are invited to invest in any of the 168 companies whose shares are listed on page 130 (BBCl CEEFAX). Commission is charged for any purchase or sale of stock, and the value of the portfolio is calculated from the share prices currently being broadcast. As an educational tool this program has the edge over most other simulations for the data is real even if the money is not. Success in the program involves much more than the chance element that is found in so many games. Research into market trends, company results, and market forces are all valuable in helping students cope with the decision-making that the pro­ gram demands. Undertaking such research among the other finan­ cial pages broadcast on CEEFAX leads to a discovery and inves­ tigation of the many terms and concepts that are peculiar to the world of high finance. My only regret is that whilst Bray­ shaw has produced a program which is motivational and encour­ ages its users to investigate and explore in order to be suc­ cessful, it does so with the sole objective of making money.

In addition to this interactive software BBC Telesoftware has also broadcast a wide range of more conventional educational software written by teachers. A good deal of this has already been tried and tested in the school curriculum and occasion­ ally incorporates helpful guidelines on classroom use. Such programs include a Canadian Prairie Farm Simulation, a North Sea Oil Rig exploration game and, a variety of basic numeracy programs for use in primary schools.

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Distributing educational software in this way has been seen to offer considerable advantages over the more traditional methods:

a. Programs are immediately accessible at the time of broadcast providing the necessary teletext adaptor has been purchased. There is none of the delay and difficulties associated with packing and postage.

b. Programs are available for free (providing the school or individual possesses a television licence). There is no purchase price, no telephone charges, no computer access charges, and no postage costs.

c. Programs can be modified according to requests from teachers and individuals and then re-broadcast. (Telesoftware has even been known to modify and re-broadcast software in the same week of transmission.)

d. Problems associated with the method of storage of digital data are eased as the received program(s) can be transferred to tape, disc, Winchester, Econet or other storage device without difficulty. With traditional methods of software purchase it is necessary to state the desired distribution medium, and even then, after the purchase and delivery, transfer to other mediums can prove troublesome.

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Following the Department of Trade and Industry's initiative to provide each school with a modem (1984) many Information Tech­ nology courses now include an element requiring the student to access a remote computer and download information from it. The CEEFAX database is held on a DEC PDP11 computer like the com­ mercial databases DICKENS and KEATS which are two of PRESTEL's computer telephone databases. However, access to CEEFAX uses the Teletext adaptor and does not involve some of the diffi­ culties associated with access to telephone databases:

a. There are no telephone charges. These can be quite expensive and following the distribution of modems many schools and Local Education Authorities became concerned about the financial support necessary for their use. Even a call to a local computer for a group of 25 pupils at 4 minutes each can cost up to £5.18p (based on Telecom's 1989 prices). However, for most schools, telephone databases are held in Britain's larger cities (e.g. London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Glasgow for Prestel) and this necessitates distant access that would push the above group's costs up to £14.00.

b. Most commercial databases accessed by telephone make charges for use of their computers on top of the telephone charge. Teletext is free to all television users, although CEEFAX is subject to the BBC licence charge.

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c. In addition to computer time-charges, certain areas of commercial databases are subject to additional access charges, called frame charges. Frame charges are not a feature of teletext.

d. Commercial databases involve complex log-on routines (mainly to protect against unauthorised access) and this introduces a time delay before the data is accessed. Access with teletext is much easier - there is no log-on procedure, although the page cycle does introduce up to a 15 second delay to access certain pages according to when in the cycle a page request is issued.

e. Because teletext is a database that is broadcast by television signal there is never a situation where the user is locked out by all the available input lines being in use at once. Teletext pages are equally accessible to all teletext receivers, so long as the host channel is being transmitted.

Teletext therefore provides schools with the opportunity to fulfil the requirements of Information Technology courses requiring inquiry of data or the collection of data from an external database.

Although teletext solves many of the economic and time prob­ lems of access to commercial databases it does not serve the aim of providing students with experience of the real thing. Transmission is one way only - from the host database to the

Page 62 Chapter B G.D. Cooke teletext adaptors. This means that the facilities are somewhat limited compared to the likes of PRESTEL, TELECOM GOLD, and MICRONET, for example. It is not possible to provide for elec­ tronic mail, receiving requests to the database from the users, or the addition of information to the database from customers. In addition the data broadcast on teletext services is not as comprehensive as that provided on commercial systems. However, it does provide a useful alternative and, through Telesoftware, does aim to support schools directly.

Of all the data available on teletext I have found a number of areas particularly useful for classroom use. As a teacher of geography I have found the weather information (CEEFAX pp.l52-154 and ORACLE pp.l61-163 - national and international, p.209 -regional forecast) a useful source for illustrating weather patterns, especially when incorporated in Brayshaw's data display programs, described above. In addition, the traf­ fic information (CEEFAX pp.lSS-164 and ORACLE pp.164-167) can provide an interesting exercise in route navigation - particu­ larly as the occurrence of problems and delays can be so unpredictable. The British Airways Flight arrival information pages on ORACLE ppl76-182 provide a useful database for.also creating an awareness of world locations and commercial air routes.

Economics is a subject that benefits enormously from the interest in financial activity generated by Brayshaw's Folio program. The subject is assisted further with the CEEFAX CityNews pages on BBC1 (pp 120-139) and MoneyFile pages on

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BBC2 (pp 220-229), and ORACLE's CITY pages on CH4 (500-529). These pages feature up to date share information for selected companies, news of bids and deals, financial statistics such as exchange rates, mortgage rates, interest rates, and commodity prices. As with weather data it is not difficult to compile programs that could record this·information in a format for graphical analysis or demonstration of trends.

Teachers of Domestic Science could also make use of the CEEFAX Home & Away section on BBC-2 (pp251-269). Within this section can be found shopper prices for meat, fruit and vegetable prices; Agricultural prices - livestock, cereals, and vegeta­ bles; and a. daily recipe. Once again it is not too difficult to construct a program to record the statistical data on a regular basis for demonstration of trends. One of Jeremy Brayshaw's earliest teletext programs was constructed to calculate the likely cost of a meal. The user entered the ingredients and their quantities and the program sought out the current market prices broadcast by teletext.

The new subjects of Media Education and Drama & Television are well served by the TV and Radio details on both CEEFAX and ORACLE. Both services provide background information to many of the programmes plus rating charts for the top fifty pro­ grammes (regional on ORACLE p.254). Both ORACLE and CEEFAX feature transmitter information for students of television broadcasting.

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Both CEEFAX and ORACLE provide support for their respective Educational Broadcasting organisations. CEEFAX features a com­ prehensive listing of BBC Education's radio and television programmes (p.l76/276) as well as the broadcasting of Open University programmes. Programme support information, espe­ cially teachers' support notes and pupils' pamphlets are often available through the BBC Telesoftware service downloaded via teletext adaptor direct into a wordprocessor. In June, 1989 attempts were being made to introduce the broadcasting of simple graphics to accompany the text broadcasts. ORACLE on CH4 also provides information about its programmes for schools and in addition features support for its adult education programme.- called Open College (P. 455). Many of these broadcasts can·be recorded for educational purposes free of charge (p. 454).

In addition to all this, CEEFAX has a BBC Telesoftware section dedicated to microcomputers and information technology. BBC Telesoftware broadcasts its own teletext pages conveying information about many aspects of microcomputing and new applications for information technology (NEXT BBC2- p.701). Schools can benefit from the reviews of hardware and software (NEXT BBC2 p.702), many of which are contributed by teachers and are relevant to the classroom situation.

The television teletext services provide a valuable source of regularly updated information for schools, which can be accessed easily and without cost, once the initial equipment has been purchased. As schools enter an age where they are not

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only to be held more responsible for the management of their finances but also face the inevitable rise in the costs of providing students with necessary information resources, the teletext services seem well placed to provide the right solution.

Page 66 Chapter 9 G.D. Cooke

IX. CONCLUSION

The end of the CEEFAX Telesoftware Service:

At the end of July, 1989, with the country's schools on their summer vacation, the BBC announced that the CEEFAX Telesoftware service was to be closed. As soon as the decision was finalised Jeremy Brayshaw broadcast the following announcement on the BBC Telesoftware pages:

The End Of Telesoftware [16]

The BBC's Board of Management have agreed to a range of proposals from the new Head of Teletext Services. Amongst these is the closure of tlJe BBC Telesoftware service, to take effect from the end of August.

All Telesoftware services, including the new satellite data facility, educational broadcasts, and computer facilities to the handicapped, are to end.

The view is that the size of the audience for the Tele­ software services is too small to justify the transmis­ sion space involved, despite recent evidence to the contrary.

If you have any comments regarding this decision, please write to:

Page 67 Chapter 9 G.D. Cooke

The Director, News & Current Affairs, BBC Television Centre, Wood Lane, LONDON W1:Z· 7RJ

The following week The Guardian's Jim Schofield featured the announcement in the Microfile column of the Thursday Guardian's Computer section:

Ceef-axed [ 17]

The BBC has shocked users of its CEEFAX telesoftware service by announcing that it is to be closed down.

CEEFAX has been broadcasting Acorn BBC and DOS-compatible programs, articles, satellite weather pictures, share prices and programme notes for schools. Users have had to buy a special adaptor in order to download them.

Only last year .the BBC approved a BBC Teletext Receiver made by GIS of Cambridge (Microfile, January 21).

But telesoftware was eating up 10 per cent of the CEEFAX budget serving only 0.5 per cent of the market: the BBC says there are about 31,500 owners of adaptors against 6 million homes with teletext TV sets.

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With today's "pressure on budgets" they "can't justify the resources." And anyway the telesoftware service has been superseded by data broadcasting, said the spokesman.

Inevitably, there followed an angry response from the public, BBC user groups, and manufacturers, affected by the announcement.

1. Morley Electronics [18]:

As manufacturer of the world's leading Teletext Adaptor we are writing with reference to the BBC's decision to close down the CEEFAX Telesoftware service (Nicrofile August 3). This was originally set up for BBC Schools Broadcasting and includes teachers' notes which can be dow.nloaded by using a teletext adaptor.

The BBC argues that the cost of running the service is disproportionate to the number of users. ·They base this upon the number of teletext adaptors in domestic use compared to teletext TVs in use.

However, the main use of the service is in the education sector. We have users in over 4,000 UK educational establishments, with each adaptor serving several hundred pupils. A 1988 BBC Publications survey revealed that of schools currently receiving teachers' notes from all sources, 27 per cent wanted to see the

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service improved, along with all of those downloading notes who stated an opinion. There would seem to be a case for expanding the service, not cutting it.

It would also seem the decision has been taken without consultation with many groups who have supported the service at a time when little opposition could be raised, with transmissions scheduled to end before schools return in September.

Since the announcement was public we have been inundated with enquiries ·and complaints from teachers and individuals concerning both domestic and educational use. We feel the BBC should suspend this decision at least until the main groups involved have an opportunity to present their case.

Christine Nugent, Morley Electronics Ltd., North Shields.

2. BEEBUG (The BBC User Group) [19):

The demise of CEEFAX Telesoftware

It is not often that an event provokes strong criti­ cism, but the sudden and blunt announcement at the end of July that the Telesoftware service provided by the BBC as part of CEEFAX was to be axed at the end of

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August, just one month later, has certainly caused anguish. It was only in Volume 8 No.2 (June 1989) that John Woodthorpe reported on the new weather satellite picture service provided by CEEFAX telesoftware. This had aroused considerable interest from many sources (many people having invested in the necessary adaptor just for this), and we had received details of improvements to the service only days before the announcement of the closure.

Now nobody would claim that broadcast Telesoftware was a major fact of life for the majority of BBC micro owners, but the manner of its parting surely has to be deplored, particularly when such exciting developments were taking place. And the manufacturers of Teletext adaptors are unlikely to be amused either. No doubt someone well placed in the News and Current Affairs (the current home of CEEFAX) has decided that telesoftware doesn't 'pay' (despite the licence fee which all users will have paid anyway), and that since you can't charge for a broadcast service, it shouldn't be done at all.

This hardly seems like support for the BBC micro, from the sales of which the BBC continues to receive a sub­ stantial royalty, and we can only deplore the apparent haste and unfeeling manner in which the decision to close down the service has been taken.

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3. A letter to 'Personal Computer World' [20):

A Bad Move by the BBC

I was shocked to read the recent announcement re­ garding the end of telesoftware broadcasts by the BBC as I make extensive use of this service and I am sure that many others do. I feel it is unfair of the BBC to terminate the service at such short notice after so many people have been persuaded into buying teletext adaptors, and even BBC computers, to obtain access to the free telesoftware.

I cannot accept the argument about the current gener­ ation of teletext decoders in TV sets having limited capacity since telesoftware is broadcast on hexadecimal pages which are not, and should not, be accessible to TV sets anyway.

I If access time is considered important, surely it would be more useful to stop the wasteful duplication of pages on BBCl and BBC2, such as news, TV, sport, and so on. I also wonder why Channel 4 teletext appears to be so much faster than the BBC's; do they use more scan lines for their teletext broadcasts? It would even be possible to broadcast telesoftware at off-peak times,

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or even for the last 30 minutes before the transmitters are closed down. With suitable software, computers could be left on overnight to download selected files.

Teletext decoders connected to computers have enor.mous potential. Hundreds, or even thousands of frequently accessed pages can be stored to provide quick access, while specialised software can make use of the data provided by teletext. Telesoftware is needed if only to broadcast these teletext related applications which are becoming more and more important as the teletext service improves, and I think it is foolish to abandon it now.

An expanded teletext service will be ve~ welcome, especially to computer users who can access pages more efficiently than people using TV sets, but please don't 'improve' the service at the expense of telesoftware broadcasts.

Paul M Skirrow, Ipswich

The editor replied:

A great advantage of accessing data through broadcasts as opposed to telephone lines is that there is no on-line charge. It is amazing that, in the UK, there is little development of radio and TV-based data transmissions. In the US a mass of local radio stations

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use spare capacity to broadcast share prices, weather maps and computer data. Maybe there's not enough money to be made.

From an educational point of view it is an obvious disappointment to have lost a service that set out to support schools so actively and worked so constructively with teachers and pupils through the major stages in its development. The provision of BBC Education programme notes and a range of software via the medium of the television signal was a technological breakthrough in the 1980s. Teachers and pupils of my school, already familiar with teletext on television sets and beginning to accommodate computers and computer software, were always impressed by the achievements of the Telesoftware service. Even more impressed were the teachers and headmasters visiting the school from abroad, who witnessed the capabilities of a service available free to the public at large as well as schools.

It is ironic that as the State undertakes a major overhaul of the education system to improve the capabilities of students the BBC should remove a service that could have played an important part in facilitating such improvements. The National Curriculum envisages schools encouraging the facility for students to solve problems using a variety of tools at their disposal. In the Inforniation Revolution many of those tools are computer based and students are expected to become familiar with their use and the huge databases of

Page 74 Chapter 9 G.D. Cooke information they can access. What a pity a facilitator of software interacting with an information source should be axed as a result of an information service review.

On Monday November 20th, 1989 the BBC launched a new-look CEEFAX information service and it became clear what the BBC Telesoftware service had been sacrificed for. Although the actual pages 700-799 on CEEFAX BBC-2 are not part of the new service, the space they had occupied have been claimed for expansion of the other CEEFAX topic areas. The biggest expansion has occurred with the News, City, Travel and TV services. Each has been allocated its own lOO-page magazine, although none was transmitting 100 pages in the f~rst month. The new magazines are transmitted in parallel which means that teletext decoders receive pages in the sequence 101, 201, 301, 401, 501, then 102, 202, 302 and so on. Whilst this might give the illusion of what the BBC is claiming to be a faster service (e.g. a viewer calling up 330 only sees the 300 magazine being cycled through) the time to reach page 330 is no quicker than if the pages were transmitted in the earlier sequential pattern.

There is no doubt that the information provided by the new service is more detailed and more informative, but the cost to education has, I feel, been an enormous one. The BBC has taken this step with a view to competition from a variety of sources: the emergence of satellite broadcasting, a forthcoming fifth television channel and a freeing of broadcasting legislation by the Government. It seems to me

Page 75 Chapter 9 G.D. Cooke that the new CEEFAX service is not breaking any new ground in its new format. It appears to be taking the form of a newspaper and, as such, it is merely copying the successful formula of another information medium whilst exploiting its advantage for being able to be more current. This is not a step forward for teletext or viewdata technology. What CEEFAX was uniquely successful at, and what made it innovative and exciting and the envy of most television services, was its Telesoftware service. Whatever happened to that vision of the BBC's Horizon programme [21] of a future information-rich society served by computers accessing transmitted data? A vision that was to be answered by the BBC's computer literacy project and sparked off the whole development of teletext and the BBC/Acorn microcomputer.

Page 76 References G.D. Cooke

REFERENCES

[1] Large, P. (1984) and Hawkridge, D. (1968) Social, Political and Economic Problems in Scanlon, E. & O'Shea, T. (1987)

[2] Schramm, W. (1981) in Wilhoit, G.C. and de Bock, H. (eds.) Mass Communications Yearbook Volume 2, Sage

[3] Kinnock, N., MP (1984) Foreward in Large, P. (1984)

[4] Ward, L.O. (1973)

[5] Musgrave, P.W. (1968)

[6] Large, P. (1984)

[7] Large, P. (1984) p.SO

[8] BBC Horizon - first broadcast in March 1978

[9] Maddison (1983) p.62

[10] Large, P. (1984) and Schofie1d, J. (1989)

[11] Brayshaw, J. (1989)

Page 77 References G.D. Cooke

[12] Brayshaw, J, (1987) Ceefax: more than just a toy

[13] Brayshaw, J. (1987) Ceefax: more than just a toy

[14] BBC Telesoftware (March 1989)

[15) BBC Telesoftware (March 1989)

[16] BBC Telesoftware p.175 July 28th - August 31st 1989

[17] The Guardian Microfile 3rd August 1989

[18] The Guardian Micro£ile· 24th August 1989

[19] BEEBUG Editorial Vol.B No.4, September 1989

[20] Letters: Personal Computer World Vol.12 No.lO, Oct.1989

[21] BBC Horizon: When the Chips are Down, March 1978

Page 78 Bibliography G.D. Cooke

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bains, G. ( 1986) The Morley Teletext Adaptor BEEBUG Magazine, April 1986

Barr, D. (1987) In-school information Micro User, July 1987

Bartram, G. (1986) Advanced Teletext System BBC Enterprises, September 1986

Bartram, G. (1987) Vidied: A Teletext Simulation BBC Telesoftware, February 1987

Brayshaw, J. (1987) Ceefax: More than just a toy Micro User, April 1987

Brayshaw, J, (1987) Interactive Programming BBC Telesoftware, May 1987

Brayshaw, J, (1988) Ceefax Line by Line Personal Computing, September 1988

Brayshaw, J. (1989) Telesoftware Usage Statistics BBC Telesoftware, May 1989

Page 79 ------

Bibliography G.D. Cooke

Brayshaw, J. (1989) An ear on your screen Micro User, August 1989

Brunton, RJ (1989) A Change In The Air For Micronet BEEBUG Magazine, October 1989

Cooper, M. (1988) On-the-spot coverage Personal Computing, December 1988

Fletecher, J (1986) Teletext Super ROM BEEBUG Magazine, October 1986

Hope, R .. J. (1986) Morley Teletext Adaptor Morley Electronics, Tyneside·

Large, P. (1984) The Micro Revolution Revisited The Open University

Maddison J. (1983) Education in the MicroElectronics Era The Open University

Musgrave, PW (1968) Society and Education in England since 1800. Nelson

Schofield, J (1989) Ten years of flawed technology. Computer Guardian. October 12th 1989

Scanlon E. & (1987) Educational Computing 0' Shea, T. ( eds ) Wiley

Page 80 Bibliography G.D. Cooke

Vince, P. (1989) Satellite Image Data File Protocol BBC Telesoftware, March 1989

Vince, P. (1989) Weather Satellite Images via Telesoftware BBC Telesoftware, March 1989

Ward, L. 0. ( 19 7 3) Technical Education and the Politicians (1870-1918) • B.J.E.S. Vol 21 Feb.,l973

Williams, M. (1984) Acorn's Teletext Adaptor BEEBUG Magazine, April 1984

Woodthorpe, J. (1989) Weather Pictures on Your Micro BEEBUG Magazine, June 1989

BBC Horizon (1978) When The Chips Are Down March 1978

Page 81 Appendix G.D. Cooke

APPENDIX

Useful Addresses

Acorn Acorn Computers Ltd. · Fulbourn Road Cherry Hinton Cambridge CBl 4JN

BEEBUG BEEBUG Ltd 117 Hatfield Road St Albans· Herts All 4JS

CEEFAX CEEFAX British Broadcasting Corporation Television Centre Wood Lane i LONDON

WlA lAA

GIS General Information Systems Ltd. Croxton Park Croxton Cambs.

Page 82 Appendix G.D. Cooke

M/B Software 4, Arden Close Wall send Tyne & Wear NE28 9YB

Morley Morley House off Northam Road North Shields Tyne & Wear NE29 7TY

ORACLE ORACLE 25-32, Marshall Street LONDON WlV lLL

WATFORD Watford Electronics Jessa House 250 Lower High Street Watford WDl 2AN

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