o/~ Everything is Broken o/~ ml.org, come.to, yeah, I know how Thom Yorke felt.
Teletext: How it REALLY gets to your TV screen.....
You! Yes, you! You think Teletext is a all cosy and digital media form don't you? Oh, how you've been mislead. You are so, so stupid you people, you think you know it all. Don't you, admit it. ADMIT IT!!! <cough> But what I'm about to tell you will shatter your very moral foundations. You thought Teletext was soooo nice........
In the heat of the Fire: Mr .Thrills.....
Before Teletext bought the rights to ITV & C4 text in 1991, Oracle and Ceefax used traditional methods of digital transmission. This basically involved using a BBCB to make the pages and a lonely PC at a transmission site somewhere in Middlesex to send out the signal. This was the universally accepted way of doing things. Then Teletext took over. After spending £4million on the launch party and anouther £6million trying to buy in staff to actully write text, they found they almost had no money to run the digital infrastructure. With almost no other system to turn to (there was no web in those days), they had only one choice. Manual transmission.
What is Manual Transmission exactly? Well, using a darkend room (again, somewhere in england) to make out the signal people would walk past a camera, very, very far away, with a card in there hand. This card would represent a digit, 1 or 0. Because the camera would be so far away it would generate a picture that looked like the teletext bit of a TV signal. Then they would just squeeze it into the top of the picture. Simple! Easy and cheap. I bet your all thinking "Well Mr.Teletext obviously needed to economize a bit". Insolent, uncaring foolers.......
To carry this out they needed cheap labour. First they tried recruiting people via the Jobcenters of the country. The ad went like this:
Teletext is looking for exciting, young people. They must be vibrant, can work in any conditions. Good money, and you get to be on TV!
This was an outright lie, as you can see. The people that did sign up for the first day walked out after one hours of work. They didn't find walking past a distant camera in pitch blackness very vibrant. Some tried to Sue. Teletext dealt with them, ooh they dealt with them.......
Teletext then tried anouther form of labour, robot labour. Cirtain members of the board at Text would sneak into museums and nick vital equipment. They were caught. They are no longer working for the company.
The service was now desperate, they were running out of money, fast, and the new adverts from betting shops wern't pulling in enough revenue. They turned (again? - Imaginary Ed) to Animal Labour! Da du daaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh(slap - I Ed)
Using dogs taken from 500 animal shelters in the country (fooling the owners of the shelters that the animals were being taken to a safe home. Oh those stpuid foolers (stop bloody saying Oh - IEd)) they would attach a card to their backs and get them to walk around the studio non-stop. The dogs would rarely stop, only once a day for food and a pee. Out of the 500 dogs, 200 died. All this went on and the ITC didn't batter an eyelid. It disgusted the New Media industry, and stunk out East London.......
Last Febuary though, the world began to turn on Teletext. The Animal Rights Foundation burnt down their offices in London and Bristol, The Rights Foundation for Animals called for a full inquiry and the Foundation for Animal Rights (Monty Python? - I Ed) just fought the other two because of the similar names. The ARF is now called the Swampy Party.
If you belive Teletext should pay for their actions, then send £20 to:
MrThrills needs a holiday
Somewhere in Spain.Thank you.
By PAndroid. Disgusted by Teletext's treatment of animals? Join alt.digitiser and moan about it now! Alternativly Email me or Sign My Guestbook. Dated 22/3/98.