Teletext is REAL! Even in the future-past of 20A7!
There are better sites out there that would give you an accurate description of Teletext. Like I could link you the Wiki right here. We stumbled upon this form of art when doing research on InfoChammel which is Public/Private cable access gone completely insane (In a good way). But a short summary for those who don't want to go clicking around is Teletext was a graphical and information standard developed in the UK during the 1970s as a means of delivering content and information over the air. It didn't really take off in America due to too many fights over how the standard of Teletext should be displayed. Read on if you would like to know more.
Why Teletext?!?
Like blogging Teletext is still being made by enthusiasts who love the retro-video feel of this format. Everyone seems to have a story of why they fell in love with this type of format and medium. To me, Teletext presents a challenge akin to pixel-art. That you are given a limited palette with a very low resolution and it's up to you the artist to use the special characters, fonts, and colors to manipulate artwork onto a screen.
To a lot of people that exist in the UK. It's almost like a salute to nostalgia. Of technology they grew up with and how it entertained and gave information. To a person running a public access network (At least in America). Teletext was a means of filling a void that would otherwise be dead air with information and graphics in between public television programs. With the analog signals dying off Teletext is now being kept alive on the internet for all to see and love. Before the internet, hell, even before ASCII graphics. Teletext was beyond its time.
Where does this site fall into the chaos!?
S-Config is an artist and as such is fond of older graphical standards. Although born in America we see Teletext as a challenge. Can we perform 3-bit art and make it not suck? You shall find out shortly!
Teletext as ART!
Now before we show you what we made here. It is worth mentioning that without these sites we would've never found the resources/inspiration to give Teletext a try myself. As a responsible blogger is it also to give credit where credit is due. Also, to encourage others to try out this art form for themselves to see if they can do better.
- Teletext block party - Hasn't been updated since 2016. Hope they do another party (and hope we get invited!) These people were the first ones I found about Teletext as an art. Boy can these people kick ass at 3-bit graphics! They also have helpful links on how to get into it like tutorials which Segways to -
- edit.tf - Probably the most prominent for people wanting to try their hand at Teletext without having to download a thing to their desktop.
- ZXnet - To us is one of the coolest online editors out there because it allows you to export to many Teletext style formats. The only downside of this editor is for us Americans it relies on the pound sign to make yellow. Bit of a setback and many laptop-style keyboards which do not support that and using the Microsoft character map copy/paste blanks out the entire line. But not the end of the world!
- Teletext art research lab - is a blog that focuses on everything Teletext including podcasts!
- Dan Farrimond - Owner of the Teletext research lab and crazy good artist that you can check out as well!
If there is any more resources that we should be made aware of please leave it in the comments below.
Our Teletext contribution.
With all of the introductions out of the way, let's dive right into the Teletext here. Keep in mind for those that have JavaScript enabled you can also view these in our gallery as well.
DreamerWolf available for download!
You can download the Original PNG, as well as TTF files exported in as many formats as possible right here! Simply click on the download link to begin!
This one you may have seen on my twitch offline page as we added more A E S T H E T I C S.
Binturong is available for download!
You can download the Original PNG , as well as TTF files exported in as many formats as possible right here! Simply click on the download link to begin! Note: archives are compressed with 7-zip for efficiency. Not that Teletext really needs it. However, it is the standard of this site.
Thank you for checking us out!
Teletext to us is the old becoming new again. Much like music goes through its cycles of life with genres such as Vaporwave. If you remember where you come from then you can project where you're going to! More to come to this gallery as we're sure these will not be the only Teletext files we will upload. We shall keep the Teletext files we make hosted here as long as we can!
Server protects you.
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