16 Dec
2009
16 Dec
'09
7:55 p.m.
Speaking of TV (and admittedly going OT, so I apologise) as of this week Te=
letext (UK channels ITV, 4 and 5) no longer has all teletext pages (e.g. al=
l useful stuff, such as TV listings has been removed permanently). Apparent=
Zog.. So the metal box behind me is pretty useless now (a homebrew
teletext decoder using the Philips SAA5231 and SAA5243) that links to one
of my PCs (I2C interface of course, bit-banged on the parallel port).
I must give serious though to making a teletext _encoder_. As far as I
can see it would be legal to trasnmit teletext on the amateur bands that
lalow television (it's not a secret code or cipher -- the protoocol is
fully docuemtned, amd so on). Has anyone ever done that I wonder.
To make this marginally on-topic, at one time the BBC (TV company)
transmitted programs for the BBC micro (computer) on teletext pages IIRC.
You could either type them in by hand or buy a teletxt decoder that
plugged into the BBC micro and download them automatically. Alas when
this was being done I had neither a teletext decoder or a BBC micro.
-tony