I adored this game. I certainly did the thing where I quickly changed my answer if I saw it going to the wrong page, but I don't think our TV/remote was capable of cycling down through the letters as you describe... I'm sure I would have discovered it if we could!
Remember the original version of Bamboozle, when it had 25 questions instead of 12, and a wrong answer would take you all the way back to the beginning?! OMG, it's a wonder I had any hair left.
I haven't seen those recovered Teletext pages, that's amazing :) Is he recovering them from people who had the actual pages recorded on to VHS, or is the incoming Teletext data recorded along with the visual data on to tape? If it's the latter we must have untold reams of it hidden on tape in my parents' house...
Though I never saw the original 25-question weekly version of Bamboozle because it took us so long for us to get a television that was capable of receiving Teletext! I must have been about 13 before our ancient one finally packed it in and my parents bought another one second-hand from a neighbour. :)
If people taped anything off the TV, apparently the Teletext data was recorded along with it - he's got some special software that can decode it and clean it up. Lots of people have been donating their old videos, so there should be plenty more gems to discover on them. :) One of his first few uploads included a letter I'd sent to Mega-zine - what are the chances?!
Oh, that's fantastic :D I never participated but I read that a lot - what name did you write under?
I was on Digitiser once, though! Someone had requested help with Simon the Sorcerer 2 and I sent in a handwritten letter with a solution to some puzzle or other, but they had to cut it down dramatically to fit it on to the Teletext page and it came out mostly as gibberish.
To answer your question about the coloured buttons on the remote control:
There is still a basic Ceefax-ish service (which is what the 'text' button is for, and can also be accessed via the red button), but there's nothing on it except news, sport, weather and travel, and ironically it's often slower and harder to navigate than actual Ceefax used to be. The red button returns you to the home page, the green button brings up a few shortcuts to popular sections, the yellow button takes you back to the previous menu, and the blue button gives you an index of all the page numbers.
The red button is also a portal to the BBC's extra channels, generally used for sport and music coverage that isn't shown on the main ones. The blue button then brings up the menu of viewing options or lets you exit the service.
Our digibox makes use of the coloured buttons when you're editing timers and stuff, with Fastext-style options along the bottom (delete, save, etc). Not sure if it's the same on other devices.
It is highly likely it was hexidecimal and I remember when it was 20 questions. I also remember when it was a "choose your own adventure" style game.
Some TVs would download multiple text pages, which did make it harder to cheat as the choice was immediate. This storage also allowed to flick between the multipages of teletext when the same page had multiple subpages. Before, you had to wait for it to completely cycle.
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Remember the original version of Bamboozle, when it had 25 questions instead of 12, and a wrong answer would take you all the way back to the beginning?! OMG, it's a wonder I had any hair left.
Have you seen the marvellous work of Jason Robertson, recovering Teletext pages from old VHS tapes? There are even a handful of playable Bamboozles!
http://archive.teletextart.co.uk/ch4-19981002/152.html
http://archive.teletextart.co.uk/ch4-19981106/152.htmlhttp://www.uniquecodeanddata.co.uk/teletext76/ch4-
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Though I never saw the original 25-question weekly version of Bamboozle because it took us so long for us to get a television that was capable of receiving Teletext! I must have been about 13 before our ancient one finally packed it in and my parents bought another one second-hand from a neighbour. :)
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I was on Digitiser once, though! Someone had requested help with Simon the Sorcerer 2 and I sent in a handwritten letter with a solution to some puzzle or other, but they had to cut it down dramatically to fit it on to the Teletext page and it came out mostly as gibberish.
Reply
There is still a basic Ceefax-ish service (which is what the 'text' button is for, and can also be accessed via the red button), but there's nothing on it except news, sport, weather and travel, and ironically it's often slower and harder to navigate than actual Ceefax used to be. The red button returns you to the home page, the green button brings up a few shortcuts to popular sections, the yellow button takes you back to the previous menu, and the blue button gives you an index of all the page numbers.
The red button is also a portal to the BBC's extra channels, generally used for sport and music coverage that isn't shown on the main ones. The blue button then brings up the menu of viewing options or lets you exit the service.
Our digibox makes use of the coloured buttons when you're editing timers and stuff, with Fastext-style options along the bottom (delete, save, etc). Not sure if it's the same on other devices.
Reply
Some TVs would download multiple text pages, which did make it harder to cheat as the choice was immediate. This storage also allowed to flick between the multipages of teletext when the same page had multiple subpages. Before, you had to wait for it to completely cycle.
Reply
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