My Sugar (BBC2 1985-1988)

This tape, which began its life in October 1985, was the replacement for Sugar Loaf and the predecessing tape for Lady Beware in October 1988, and was one of the five new tapes introduced that year. My Sugar also fitted in very well to the pre-Breakfast Time slot on BBC1 and included a track called Black Velvet. Enjoy this recreation of the CEEFAX pages as well when the testcard faded in at a later point!!!!

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• BBC
• testcard
• music

[mrpfct]

Awesome... When did Ceefax actually start guys? The Syd Dale Band and The Otto Keller Band are my fav.

[cwilliams1976]

@mrpfct Although the service began in 1974 the in-vision broadcasts didn't until 1980.

[mrpfct]

@cwilliams1976 Ahhh I see. I didn't realise Ceefax started that early on. Am I right in thinking that the Beeb started their service before the ITV Networks?

[cwilliams1976]

@mrpfct It was an idea which first came in around 1969 when television started transmitting on all three channels and then the engineers realised that there were some lines spare which weren't used and so as far back as 1972 the BBC started a service called Datacast which was experimented with internally and soon realised that it would be possible to send messages over a television signal between two people when the idea was first tried out, and the IBA began experimenting with ORACLE.

[cwilliams1976]

@mrpfct It wasn't until 1973 that the Home Office officially gave the go-ahead for the transmissions to start taking place and so CEEFAX and ORACLE began around the same time.

[mrpfct]

@cwilliams1976 Wow, the Home office had to give it the go ahead. Didn't know that. So, what's the future look like for both services with the digital switchover going ahead. I live in the London area so we haven't had ours yet. Although I've not stopped to think about what it'll do for the CEEFAX service. Actually, while on the subject of digital switchover, I think BBC Wales countdown was spot on! It really captured the moment of history nicely! I'm moving to NZ in Oct so I'll miss London's :-(

[cwilliams1976]

@mrpfct I myself am emigrating to Cyprus as I have grave concerns about the split screen formatting of digital teletext which I have complained to the BBC about and they will do absolutely nothing about their hardware systems and I believe that Tyne Tees, Ulster, London and Meridian will switch over by March 2012.

[AndrewJM70]

Anyone remember a very catchy Steel Band number that was on one of the tapes in this era? I would love to track that one down!

[TommyWylie]

It took me months to get this one! There's a synthesised "harmonica" track in the 1st section that I particularly like. I can't remember the name but I know it's by the Trevor Hills group.

An excellent tape!

[peticsek28]

A very underrated tape in my opinion. It contained a wide variation of music, and some pretty unusual stuff.