Block Party 2022 - 23rd & 24th April

Block Party 2022 - 23rd & 24th April
Item Qty To Buy Price
Adult (Saturday 23rd April) Fully Booked £9.00
Child (Saturday 23rd April) Fully Booked £6.00
Concession (Saturday 23rd April) Fully Booked £7.00
Family (Saturday 23rd April) Fully Booked £26.00
Adult (Sunday 24th April) £9.00
Child (Sunday 24th April) £6.00
Concession (Sunday 24th April) £7.00
Family (Sunday 24th April) £26.00
This item is not currently available.

Description :

Before the internet, there was videotex.

Digital information and, with a little imagination, graphics, were sent down telephone lines and over the air, bringing live news, weather, and football results to millions. Then those services were turned off, and mostly forgotten. Except by us.

Join us to celebrate this monospaced medium, featuring everything from succinct information to surreal experimentation, hemmed-in by holiday adverts. Meet the enthusiasts who picked up what Big Media dropped. Draw your own holiday adverts, then wait for them to refresh live on tiny, heavy screens. Marvel as historic teletext broadcasts are recovered from domestic video tapes, politely ignoring any ads for expensive phone services.

What's on?

The museum classroom will be packed with vintage and modern videotex hardware, and open to museum visitors all day, at no additional charge. You are welcome to dip in and out as you please, or you can stay for the following panels and workshops:

Saturday 23rd April

  • 11:00 - This is Block Party
    • A gentle introduction to who we are, and what we do.
    • Hosted by Carl Attrill.
  • 13:00 - Text, Lines and Videotape
    • Learn how historic data is recovered, restored, and curated.
    • Hosted by Jason Robertson.
  • 15:30 - Videotex Lives!
    • Meet the enthusiasts who run their own services.
    • Hosted by Peter Kwan. With Alistair Cree, Nathan Dane and Tony Jewell

Sunday 24th April

  • 11:00 - Art Block
    • Discover why we love the limitations of videotex.
    • It's a bit like Bob Ross, but with palm trees.
  • 12:00 - Pixel Workshop
    • Let us help you to draw with big squares.
    • Bring your own laptop for best results.
    • You can even start now.
  • 15:00 - Frame It
    • Our closing celebration of all the pages made this weekend.
    • Your work appraised by our self-deprecating experts.

Who are we?

Carl Attrill

Carl began with the ZX Spectrum, and has never fully recovered. Those formative eight-colour years may have contributed to his short-lived TeletextR service, and its long-lived successor, the TeletextR podcast.

Alistair Cree

Alistair notes that it was actually fifteen colours, or sixteen, counting black twice. Creator of the most popular online teletext editor and viewer, and quite handy with a soldering iron. Our floor manager for the weekend, who will fret tirelessly to ensure that everyone can see your work without tripping over cables, or each other.

Nathan Dane

Nathan builds teletext in-vision decoders for fun. Also runs his own teletext service, which borrows news and other information from a certain national broadcaster. Subsequently appeared on their news himself, thus closing the loop.

Matthew Harrold

Networking, electronics, and GPO telephones - the perfect recipe for Viewdata. Matthew is bringing a pair of vintage modems for the true dial-up experience. Magic smoke included, if the vintage capacitors can't contain their excitement.

Tony Jewell

Tony is our volunteer at the museum who has made this possible, and will be expanding our videotex horizons with assorted Prestel and Minitel devices. We probably won't notice if a few Dragons are slipped in there.

Peter Kwan

When Ceefax was switched off in 2012, Peter decided to make his own version, Teefax. Also enjoys the occasional damp weekend in former nuclear bunkers for the benefit of ridiculous sci-fi, which would have been even more fun with a functioning emergency broadcast studio.

John Newcombe

Runs his own videotex service, for those with 1200 baud modems or a handy web viewer. You can see the lines arriving in real-time, which puts waiting for the next teletext subpage into perspective.

Jason Robertson

The most comprehensive curator of teletext, and a key proponent of recovering it from old video tapes. Our social media champ for the event. Plays the guitar and drums, which may be handy should we need to repel another ukulele invasion special operation.

David Walford

Shameless hanger-on who sends a few emails, writes an event page, then lets others do most of the work. Will co-host panels in an emergency, so get your revenge by asking if the Digitiser game is finished yet.

More information

Jason will keep you informed and answer your questions on Twitter.

Learn more about us by dipping your toes into our public Discord.

Important updates will eventually reach our archaic event page.

Remember - All proceeds go to support our Computing Museum!

 
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