Teletext adaptor

[Stephen Coates]

I definately look forward to having it speak the teletext page.

I never really have used teletext that much. I just usually use it for checking todays and tommorows weather forcasts. Although i do use it for checking te news sometimes though. I will definately miss analogue teletext. I have used digital text but not as much as I have used Analogue. I really hate watching the BBC news on Freeview as it has that 'Press red' thing in the corner which i don't seem to be able to get rid of. I don't know why it is there. I put BBC1 on to watch the news, not to Press Red and read teletext instead.

I think our analogue signals are being switched off in 2011. I am certainly not looking forward to that, because while I do like digital TV, it does mean that anything with an analogue tuner, which i do use from time to time, will be unusable.

I am not sure if the Microtext can save all the teletext pages but I'm sure I will be able to find out.

[Harrison]

It will be interesting to hear about the unit once you get it.

[Stephen Coates]

I recieved the adaptor today, and started to set it up.

The manual is clearly out of date regarding teletext (mentions of Oracle, FastText being a new thing etc).

It seems to work, although due to my A500's keyboard not working correctly, I have not been able to set it up proeprly.

[AlexJ]

The manual is clearly out of date regarding teletext (mentions of Oracle, FastText being a new thing etc).

Oracle! I'd forgotten all about that. I remember flicking Text on during the kids programmes one morning and being met with a blue & yellow Teletext screen instead of the familiar red & green Oracle screen. I thought I'd found some foreign text service. Reminds me actually how much I used to use Text before the internet (and even during the days of dial-up, text was still quicker than using the web).

Having said that, the digital text on my Freeview PVR is actually super quick and will display pages near instantly (I think it might buffer pages). Plus there's no waiting for sub-pages to go round which used to be (well I guess it still is) really annoying on teletext.

[Harrison]

Really? I find with digital teletext that often I have to sit and wait with the message "Loading..." on screen.

[TiredOfLife]

Must admit, hardly ever use teletext now since we went digital.
It's just too slow.
Used to use it quite a bit in the days of analogue.
News,Sports news and financial news.

[Stephen Coates]

I find digital text slow, but I think it depends on the speed of the reciever.

I still use analogue text for weather forcasts.

I put a different keyboard in the A500+ and it now works well. The adaptor tuned itself in and tried to put all the channels on the relavant programme number, with the exception of Channel Five, and ITV - it found Tyne Tees first when I wanted Yorkshire, so I just put Tyne Tees on channel 6 and waited for it to find yorkshire. My Tyne Tees signal must be quite good though, because on my old TV, we actually programmed Tyne Tees into channel 3 (probably unknowingly) and that is what I spent most of my time watching.

I did manage to get it to speak the pages. It was good, but I hope that speach is just a little adition, and isn't a feature for the visually impaired users.

You can also save teletext pages as IFF files, and you can print them, either as plain text, or the entire page with graphics. I did this, but a dried up ink ribbon prevented it from looking good.

It also comes with a BBC Emulator disk to use the BBC telesoftware which can be downloaded from the adaptor.