Teletext and the Internet revisited

Reading some messages on the teletext mailing list today and a particularly popular discussion on the analogue switch off. One topic that has arisen is the emulation of the teletext medium on the Internet. This would perhaps not be carried via regular HTTP, rather a new protocol within TCP.

A much easier way of achieving this would be to create a piece of software that works within, or similar to, hypertext browsers and to perhaps register a set of domains (.tx, .ttx?) in which these would be broadcasts. Using the software, which would be free source and similar to existing Internet browsers, users could create pages and upload them to the Internet, thus providing a network of teletext pages for the Internet generation.

Maybe the software could be embedded within a single website, much like Wikipedia. People would be provided with a template with which to create, learn some simple formatting and create pages with the interactive editor on-screen. Could the wiki possibly be modified for a teletext format?

A while back (few years ago now) I created a skin for Uncyclopedia, a site which uses the wiki format. This is shown to the right. Using a few templates and things, it is easy to see how this could possibly be replicated and reproduced.

An interesting concept for a project perhaps? Would perhaps be out of my timescale, not least because I wouldn't know how to code one with my limited knowledge of php and all that programming gubbins.

Pixel is power?

There are also some interesting points for my own project. Somebody mentioned creating a specific font set, like WST, for the 'new' format:

Creating my own teletext font may be a helpful element in making a set of teletext pages to present the information in this weblog. And, in some small way, I could actually contribute to the afterlife of teletext in its conversion to the internet.