I noticed on the news yesterday that the last analogue TV transmitter has been switched off and the UK is now completely digital. A related story that may have escaped people’s attention was 
the closure of CEEFAX – the BBC’s teletext service (ORACLE was the ITV version, but it made a better post heading). CEEFAX was part of the analogue transmission.
It’s hard to believe that it started back in 1974. Younger people today cannot understand how hi-tech it was back then – before there was the internet or mobile phones (not as we know 
them, anyway).
I think my family got our first Teletext TV in the early 80s, and I used to spend hours reading through it. It was always good for up-to-date football results and newsflashes. I suppose it was the equivalent of text messaging today – but with good grammar and meaningful content.
One of its drawbacks was that since it was carried with the analogue signal the slightest interference would corrupt the data, and since the pages scrolled sequentially – as many as 20 or 30 in some cases – you had to wait until the one you wanted came around, each one remaining on-screen for about 20 seconds or so. If the fridge motor turned on, or the woman next door started hoovering, the information would be gobbledegook!
One of its better uses was to provide subtitles for various programmes, and I think that was its main purposes initially.
I’m surprised it wasn’t shutdown sooner than this as it ceased to have any real use as soon as the internet began to take hold. Even now, text services broadcast with digital TV via “the red button” are vastly inferior to what you can get online – but now and again, their existence can be handy (especially if you’re lazy and can’t be bothered to get up and find out the latest Arsenal score while you’re watching a movie.
It’s the end of an era, obviously, But then, all eras must end sooner or later and there’s no point trying to cling on to them.