I remember they used to put BBC Micro programs on Ceefax, pages 800 onwards I think.

We had a tuner card on one of the computers at school, and would download the program off Ceefax, save it to tape and load it on other computers in the class.

I also remember Chris Sievey (aka Frank Sidebottom) used to put ZX Spectrum programs on the b-sides of his singles. Used to get a big shock if you played the wrong side of the record through your speakers

AS i recall, the instant update of printed news heralded the end of the newspaper, or so we were told at the time!

I used to use ceefax (mon-fri) to check the ups & downs of my BT shares...redtext bad...yellowtext good! [Ah...those were the days!] The up-to-date greyhound results and latest betting (especially during the summer months, when evening horse racing was not covered by the bookies, because they closed at 5pm then in the 1980's) was also a 'boon'.

alan14 - Nice link to the Acorn gadget (I've still got the Amigatext version.)

...but I cannot fathom out why the 14 minute ceefax 'YouTube' 'simple video'[with no sound] should require a 50 mb download on my little BB dongle? ('bout 40p in money terms).

That's progress!

I'd almost forgotten Oracle.

Not only was that outlasted by Ceefax, but so was the cutting edge ITV text, apart from adverts.

I seem to recall that Prestel was expensive to use when other services were free, and it tended to be used a lot by finance houses and travel companies.