Unbroadcast Digitiser - Pre-Launch, 1992
Digitiser went live at 12am on 1 January 1993. In the weeks leading up to launch, the entire service provided by new franchise-owner Teletext Ltd was having content created for it in an 'as-live' state by staff - preparing them for the turnaround times needed on such a frequently-updated service. Digitiser was no exception, creating pages of content that were never broadcast.
However, images of some of these literally pre-historic pages were sent out by the Digi team under their own initiative - used to accompany a press-release announcing their arrival. The press release was sent to a variety of contemporary games magazines, and Sega Pro chose to print two of the screenshots along with a news story in their February 1993 issue.
Years later, it was possible for teletext enthusiasts to recreate authentic versions of these pages from what was published in a vintage copy of Sega Pro. Never intended for broadcast, and seemingly thought lost forever, we can now see what Digitiser looked like while it was still gestating, in all its rough around the edges, in-development glory...
Thanks to Tim Bisley for recreating these images from the magazine screenshots
Do you have any full screenshot images of Digitiser that you'd like to see included in this archive? I'd just love to include them here - please email (superpage58@gmail.com) and the Digi community will be eternally grateful. Hey: even photos of your old TV showing the teletext page are good to be included!
