Old News

Maypole Dancin'!

April 28, 2024

Loads more letters have been added, with thanks to our regular contributors like Tom Pitt and Peter amongst others who make it happen. The grand total now sits at over 10,400! Thanks again to everyone.

Also, I've found a few letters that slipped under the carpet (so to speak); they've now been put in their rightful places.

There's still a long way to go until we find every letter that was broadcast, but for some years we have almost got half of them. Of particular note is August 1995, which currently has the largest block of contiguous completed days in the museum.

By the way, if you haven't seen Dan's Mega-Zine article on TeletextArt yet, go read it now! Your nostalgia beckons you!

As per usual, new letters are added when I get my hands on them, even if updates to this news section are sparse. Comments about the museum are always possible by writing to the address below.

Ta ta!

The Curator
webmaster@zinemuseum.co.uk

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Serving Suggestion

November 19, 2023

Yikes, six months already? I'd better post an update!

Thanks to contributions from Tom Pitt, Adrian Burke and Peter we've exceeded the 9,000 letter mark - yes, it's over nine thousaaaaandd! This also means we have over 4 years worth in the museum now. Many thanks to everyone.

I have updated the history section slightly. Over those six months we found out that it was The Red Chipolata who contributed the winning design for Davord. There are also a few more screenshots.

Erm, that's about it! New letters are being added all the time, so by the next update I'm hoping we reach the 5 digit milestone.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Birthday and Bon Voyage!

The Curator
webmaster@zinemuseum.co.uk

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Coronation Sweet

May 8, 2023

Hullo.

There are a few things to mention in this update. Firstly, we are pretty much at the 8,000 letter mark. Many thanks go to Adrian Burke and Tom Pitt for their recordings, and also to newcomer Dr. Dave Gilbert.

I have renamed the 'Ziner section to Search, to more accurately describe what's in there. I have also made some tweaks. The backend database has been re-done, and this has caused the Ziner IDs to become shuffled. If you've bookmarked a profile, you'll need to find it again - sorry about that. On the plus side, there are now short blurbs in some profiles! I will be adding them to notable 'Ziners over time.

When I first implemented search, I decided that nobody should be prioritised above anyone else, so the results were sorted alphabetically. I still believe this, but it was making it more difficult to find 'Ziners of interest. Therefore, I have changed it to rank results based on their letter count. You can see the count on the left of each result.

Lastly, I changed the RSS thing to actually show you the news from within the comfort of your reader, instead of you having to click on a link. Hurrah!

As always, newly found letters will always be added as quickly as possible, even if it's been ages since I posted this.

And you can take that to the bank (holiday)!

The Curator
webmaster@zinemuseum.co.uk

Happy New Year!

January 8, 2023

Happy 2023 'Ziners!

Yes, 2023... it's been 30 years since Mega-Zine launched as part of Teletext's Generator section. Where did the years go?

Thanks go out to those recording teletext from tapes — you are preserving history and make this website possible. New names on the scene since the last news update include John Aspinall and Sound And Vision. With their help, the letter archive now contains over 7,200 submissions. You might also be interested to know that 1995 and 1996 are particularly well stocked, clocking in at approximately 33% complete.

News updates might be rare, but the museum will always be updated immediately upon receipt of newly found letters. So if you're reading this in August, fear not! The museum is still open!

Ciao!

The Curator
webmaster@zinemuseum.co.uk

Augustus Of Borg

August 24, 2022

Greetings 'Ziners!

Great news! Thanks to the recent efforts of Brian Hirst, James O'Malley and especially Tom Pitt, there are now more than 6,200 letters available in the museum. They represent more than three years worth of content. Tom's contributions were mainly for the year 2003 this time, which is a period fondly remembered by many people, including myself.

As always, new letters are always being added to the museum, even if this news section hasn't been updated in a while. If you were disappointed to find that your favourite letter or 'Ziner was missing the last time you looked, try again now! You never know!

Be excellent to each other, and... see you next time! ;-)

The Curator
webmaster@zinemuseum.co.uk

Darling Buds Of May

May 15, 2022

Hey 'Ziners!

Thank you all for the nice words upon The Museum's opening. I'm glad to know that the 'Zine is remembered fondly.

I have improved the search feature slightly, so it should now be easier to find the 'Ziners you are looking for. It's still far away from being as clever as your favourite search engine though, so be patient and try a few variations.

In the first couple of years of the 'Zine, location information was often listed alongside the name, but this isn't a searchable attribute. For example, Ghostdancer, Floodland. You will find results for "Ghostdancer" (or even just "ghost", etc.), but not for "Floodland".

My appreciations go to Insane Jam Sow for helping me with the history page, in particular regarding dates. I'm still hoping to find digital teletext recordings containing some of the later material, so if you have such a thing, please get in touch! In the meantime, Lilac Leopard manually wrote out the letters when they were aired and posted them to The Vegetable Revolution, so happily they are not lost media.

Big thanks to Adrian Burke, whose recent teletext recovery efforts alone have resulted in over 500 new letters being added since the opening. This brings the total number of letters found to almost 5,500 (out of a conservatively estimated total of 36,000). Thanks also go to Neil Miles, The Teletext Archaeologist, Tom Pitt, and M0AYF - a newcomer to the recovery scene.

New letters are being added to the index whenever they are found, so don't let the lack of news updates put you off! I just didn't want to spam your news feeds. :-)

Thanks again for visiting, and see you again soon!

The Curator
webmaster@zinemuseum.co.uk

Museum Now Open!

February 27, 2022

I'm pleased to say that the museum is now open for everybody to enjoy!

It has taken quite a few months to get to this point. It might not look like it on the surface (design is not my strong point), but most of the time has been spent cleaning up the teletext pages.

I have attempted to reproduce the content of the letters as accurately as possible, including typos and highlighting. I have made changes where it increases the readability of the letter, but the spirit remains intact. After all, there is a lot more space on the web than on a teletext page.

'Ziner names have also been tweaked, for example, some identities are combined to permit easier searching. The names are untouched on the actual letters.

If the retro-style font or colour scheme aren't to your liking, you can visit the accessibility section where options exist to change it. This link can also be found at the bottom of every page.

Be sure to check out all the sections of the museum, and let me know your feedback. Do you have strong memories of the 'Zine? Did I miss out an important event? Have I messed up somewhere? Is that you, WLW, reading this? Tell me!

If you'd like to keep up an eye on the museum's news postings, there is an RSS feed:

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Many thanks to everybody involved, and also thanks to you for visiting!

The Curator.
webmaster@zinemuseum.co.uk