[HN Gopher] Blue Peter discovers the Internet (1995) [video]
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Blue Peter discovers the Internet (1995) [video]
Author : outputchannel
Score : 61 points
Date : 2022-11-29 09:28 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| elischleifer wrote:
| "The information superhighway" - great callback. I love the scan
| lines running across the CRT as she's talking in the opening
| clip.
| muglug wrote:
| Interesting to see broadcast video from 27 years ago preserved in
| such high quality. The BBC has spent a lot of money to preserve
| pretty much everything it has broadcast in the last 30 years.
| szaroubi wrote:
| it wasn't always part of the BBC's reflexes to keep all the
| content. They must have learned and adapted.
| fredoralive wrote:
| Blue Peter actually has a really good survival rate, most
| stuff from the mid-1960s onwards survives. Whilst this is
| perhaps partly forward thinking on the part of Editor[1]
| Biddy Baxter, AFAIK it was partly so older material could be
| reused in later editions to save money.
|
| [1] The title of the "showrunner" of Blue Peter, so in the
| meaning of "editor of a newspaper", not "videotape editor".
| fredoralive wrote:
| You'd hope the original broadcaster would have broadcast
| quality archives. It's not like they'd keep them on LP VHS.
|
| The BBC has had to do various work to keep the archives
| accessible, mid-90s stuff like this was probably recorded on D3
| digital composite tape, but that's now long obsolete, so has to
| be transferred to modern formats (nowadays as files on LTO tape
| AFAIK). AFAIK stuff on 2" quad (the first practical video tape
| format, used from the 1950s to early 80s) has been transferred
| at least twice, from quad to D3 or DigiBeta, then to files.
| eddieroger wrote:
| I miss the quaintness of being on the old Internet. Maybe it's
| just the Endless September of it all, but the content seemed more
| cared for when it wasn't trivial to put out. I do think it's
| great that barriers for publishing are lower than what they were,
| but sometimes I sure do wonder if they're too easy, of people are
| too connected. Maybe that's just what getting old feels like?
| bbarnett wrote:
| _I miss the quaintness of being on the old Internet._
|
| I think that back then, you'd often host your own site. Or at
| least, write most of it in HTML.
|
| It was mostly your content, and maybe if on geocities or
| something, a few ads around the edges.
|
| Now, it's 280 chars surrounded by a whole page of, what is
| realistically, ads or 'not you' content.
|
| Content is broken up, piecemeal, not one.
|
| While you can setup a singular resource, it's more rare for
| people to do.
|
| Many old pages were just a text menu on the left "birds", "my
| dog", "the month I spent travelling", and then deep content.
|
| Now you get mostly reactionary fluff "Can you believe the
| horrible thing I read!!!"
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > Now you get mostly reactionary fluff "Can you believe the
| horrible thing I read!!!"
|
| Could be worth checking the mirror there.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Reactionary fluff != citing reactionary fluff.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| As history would have it, blue peter would have loved the 2022
| MAP friendly internet.
| pjc50 wrote:
| "MAP"?
| frameset wrote:
| "Minor Attracted Persons", I think OP is trolling.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Little period details:
|
| - strobing CRT monitors that don't line up with the frequency of
| the TV camera
|
| - PCs in the internet cafe, Macs in media, Acorn Archimedes (with
| ARM processor!) in schools
|
| - first thing to do with the global communications network is
| send a dumb message to the US President
|
| - indexed-color images; you can see in one case when she changes
| windows and the colours go wrong in the background as the palette
| is swapped.
|
| - very early HTML without even a DOCTYPE
|
| - "all secondary schools are to be linked to the internet by the
| end of the year" (I would put money on that not having happened
| for several more years)
| onion2k wrote:
| _strobing CRT monitors that don 't line up with the frequency
| of the TV camera_
|
| I studied Broadcast Engineering for my degree back in 1997, and
| you could definitely shift the input signal to match the
| refresh rate of a CRT screen or a flourescent tube light on the
| Sony BetaCam TV studio cameras I worked with. I reckon the BBC
| would have been working with similar or better tech in 1995. I
| wonder if this might have been a directorial choice to show
| what viewers expect rather than any technical issue.
| worldofmatthew wrote:
| In most scenes, the refresh rate is matched (Slightly off
| from the presenters computer in the internet cafe with the
| computer all most all other computers in the cafe set to a
| different refresh rate).
| colanderman wrote:
| While television refresh rates on both sides of the pond
| matched local grid frequency, did computer monitor refresh
| rates necessarily match? VGA for example supported 60 Hz but
| not 50 Hz according to Wikipedia [1]. So in the UK, I would
| think you could sync with fluorescent lights, or VGA
| monitors, but not both (unless you recorded at say 10 fps).
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Graphics_Array#Techni
| cal...
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| > - first thing to do with the global communications network is
| send a dumb message to the US President
|
| For me that also was about the first website I visited back
| around that time when I had friends over, who didn't know
| Internet to show how easy you can get there from Europe.
|
| Second stop was the local city councils page, and checking why
| my physics teacher was supporting for proposals as counselor.
| jameshart wrote:
| I wonder if the 'linking schools to the internet' was more
| about the rollout of the .sch.uk domain name than about actual
| physical internet connectivity. In 1995 'getting on the
| internet' was still largely a case of dial up to an ISP, and
| while schools in general probably had a PBX system on an ISDN,
| turning those into 'internet' was not just a case of enabling a
| data plan.
|
| And then on the school end, they might have had a lab of
| computers, but 1) probably Acorn Archimedes at best and 2)
| probably on an econet rather than Ethernet LAN if networked at
| all; so getting those computers 'linked up' to the internet was
| going to be tricky.
|
| So your 'linked to the internet' school would more likely be
| one PC in an office on dialup to an ISP for email.
|
| Or maybe a simple webpage hosted by a friendly local
| university?
| jdalgetty wrote:
| Those were magical times
| robin_reala wrote:
| For people who weren't kids in the UK, Blue Peter is a very long
| running weekly BBC TV programme aimed at kids. Common tropes
| include the studio pet(s) and garden, charity events, and the
| Blue Peter badge that you got for sending in a letter with a tip
| or other challenges (and which qualified you for various
| discounts at venues around the UK).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Peter
| KineticLensman wrote:
| A Brit who when demonstrating some sort of art or craft says
| "Here's one I prepared earlier" is often referencing the Blue
| Peter art segments where they would start to assemble (say) a
| model of Tracy Island from 'sticky back plastic' and toilet
| rolls and then cut to a superbly finished creation.
|
| It's the artistic equivalent of Step 1: take these household
| materials, Step 2: ???, Step 3: Profit!
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| So you're saying the gnomes have already invaded Airstrip
| One?
| moosedev wrote:
| I feel its spiritual meme-cousin is this one:
| https://amp.knowyourmeme.com/memes/how-to-draw-an-owl
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| British people of a certain age can be defined by their Blue
| Peter credentials and activities, rather like a geek-code. Mine
| FWIW; Lesley Judd, Peter Purves, John Noakes, Shep the Dog,
| Collecting milk bottle tops to buy a donkey (for some reason).
| jgrahamc wrote:
| Yes! One of my prized possessions is that badge and letter from
| Biddy Baxter.
| robin_reala wrote:
| I've got my badge somewhere, but no idea what happened to the
| reply. Guess it would have been Yvette Fielding era? (I sent
| in a way to recycle used christmas cards into decorative
| balls for the next year's celebrations, which in retrospect
| seems almost tailored for the acquisition of a badge.)
| pjc50 wrote:
| > very long running
|
| Since 1958 and over 5,000 episodes!
|
| (so much of classic UK TV is either "has been broadcasting
| since the dawn of television in a largely unchanged format" or
| the other extreme of "we only ever made six episodes back in
| the 1970s and they are etched across everyone's childhood")
| bearmode wrote:
| It blew my mind when, as an adult, I learned that there were
| only 15 episodes of Mr Bean (with one of those being a "Best
| Bits of Mr Bean" episode!).
| dmitriid wrote:
| WAT
|
| W and I cannot stress this enough AT?!!!!!!
|
| We had multiple _re-runs_ of it in the 90s in various post-
| Soviet countries.
| darrenf wrote:
| See also: there are only 12 episodes of Fawlty Towers.
| bartread wrote:
| To be honest I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing. I
| like a lot of Rowan Atkinson's work but I _absolutely
| hated_ Mr Bean. Something about watching someone be inept
| in every possible way causes me a huge amount of stress and
| isn 't something I'm able to derive any sense of enjoyment
| or fun from. If there were more episodes it might have
| become more of a cultural meme (like, say, The Simpsons),
| which I'd find really hard to deal with.
|
| _(This doesn 't always follow, of course. The UK version
| of The Office is only 12 regular episodes plus a couple of
| specials, yet it's impact is still very much felt - at
| least in the UK - so I don't necessarily see there being a
| simple correlation between quantity of material and
| cultural significance. As much as the US series is also
| excellent I don't think it carries quite the same iconic
| status or cultural weight here even though there are a lot
| more episodes - obviously it might do in the US.)_
| teh_klev wrote:
| > "we only ever made six episodes back in the 1970s and they
| are etched across everyone's childhood"
|
| Or alternatively sometimes scarred for life :)
|
| And if taking a trip back through 1970's UK TV is something
| anyone's interested in then this is a fun book:
|
| https://www.lulu.com/shop/stephen-brotherstone-dave-
| lawrence...
| nickdothutton wrote:
| This must be some kind of fake history, where are all the ads on
| the web sites? Where are the pages jumping around as the browser
| reflows the content? Why are there no auto playing videos? Next
| you will be telling me nobody used their real names on the
| Internet in those days. Definitely fake.
| colanderman wrote:
| These absolutely existed. Image-heavy pages for which designers
| didn't specify the image size in HTML (i.e. many/most pages)
| jumped like crazy as the images slowly loaded over a modem.
| Maybe no auto-playing videos, but auto playing GIFs, MIDI
| files, and _Java applets_ (!) were common, not to mention
| <marquee> and <blink> tags.
|
| Heck, I was about to joke about cookie banners not being a
| thing -- but they sort of were, as they had just been invented
| (1994 [1]), and any site which relied on them inevitably had
| some prominent text exhorting you to use a browser which
| supported them (whether you already were or not). (Or frames --
| the very first web page I visited -- nintendo.com -- I was
| greeted with Cranky Kong lecturing me about frame support.)
| This was of course right next to the ubiquitous "best viewed in
| Netscape Navigator / Internet Explorer" badge.
|
| Oh and don't forget the _toolbar plugins_. Anyone from the
| cohort for whom the phrase "eternal September" was invented to
| describe had between 3-7 of these in their browser, each one
| taking up another half inch of real estate. So top to bottom
| you'd have:
|
| * title bar
|
| * menu bar
|
| * (enormous) navigation bar
|
| * bookmark toolbar
|
| * AOL toolbar
|
| * Yahoo! toolbar
|
| * Ask Jeeves toolbar
|
| * Bonzi Buddy toolbar or some other spyware
|
| * anti-spyware toolbar
|
| * web page
|
| * horizontal scroll bar
|
| * status bar
|
| * Windows dock
|
| And the web page itself was often divided up into multiple
| frames (for ads or navigation or just by accident), each with
| their own scroll bars because they'd be just a pixel too large
| to fit in their allotted space. Probably only a 1/4 of the full
| screen real estate would actually show content.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie#History
| pjc50 wrote:
| I know it's a joke, but you made me look up when the first
| banner ad was, and it appears to be 1994:
| https://digiday.com/media/history-of-the-banner-ad/
|
| The BBC brand guidelines would never have allowed an ad to
| appear, though.
| teux wrote:
| I know it's sarcasm but the thought of a small 64x64 video
| auto-playing at 0.25fps is hilarious to me.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Animated GIFs! Usually for the "under construction" logo.
| dmitriid wrote:
| You never played Porntris I see. Note, NSFW,
| https://www.retrogames.cz/play_445-DOS.php?language=EN
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Oh, RealVideo had you covered.
| mcast wrote:
| This captures a very interesting time back when the internet was
| seen culturally in a positive light with much academic potential.
| Later documentaries about the internet became more pessimistic
| and focused on cyber stalking, privacy abuse, hackers/viruses, et
| al. It truly was simpler times.
| halfdeadcat wrote:
| The things that made me feel older than anything was: When they
| recorded the audio clip for their webpage, they used Massive
| Attack's "Unfinished Sympathy" as the background audio. I still
| love that tune. Of course, they couldn't get away with using that
| now without proper licensing.
| 0898 wrote:
| The BBC has a unique exception when it comes to music, I
| believe. That's why you often hear The Beatles in the
| Eastenders cafe. ITV couldn't do that.
| teh_klev wrote:
| > ITV couldn't do that.
|
| Yes they can, all they need to do is stump up for the
| licenses the same as the BBC do via organisations such as the
| PRS:
|
| https://www.prsformusic.com/
|
| https://www.prsformusic.com/licences/broadcasting-music-
| on-t...
| dspillett wrote:
| They have a blanket licence agreements with PRS and similar
| organisations. IIRC is only covers using some number of
| seconds of any given track, and to use an entire piece (or
| larger part there-of) separate permission must be requested
| (and perhaps paid for).
| secretsatan wrote:
| Yes, the BBC used to license tons of music (still does?),
| they had some really cool background music for all sorts of
| stuff by really good artists. Late shows on Radio one used to
| be legendary for the variety of alternative music they played
| heurisko wrote:
| Don't know if that is true.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/academy-guides/music-copyright-in-tv-
| wha...
| onion2k wrote:
| The browser in the video is a very early Netscape Navigator
| (v1.0N maybe..) written by Marc Andreessen and others, who
| founded Netscape and went on to found Andreessen Horowitz which
| has invested in lots of YC startups.
| aliqot wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q7FTjhvZ7Y
|
| Project Code Rush
|
| Code Rush is a documentary following the lives of a group of
| Netscape engineers in Silicon Valley. It covers Netscape's last
| year as an independent company, from their announcement of the
| Mozilla open source project until their acquisition by AOL. It
| particularly focuses on the last minute rush to make the
| Mozilla source code ready for release by the deadline of March
| 31 1998, and the impact on the engineers' lives and families as
| they attempt to save the company from ruin.
| jonatron wrote:
| Blue Peter bury time capsules and dig them up occasionally. I
| think I remember watching one getting buried. I just looked up
| one being dug up, it was much less interesting than I could've
| imagined.
| petesergeant wrote:
| Did Blue Peter always have such cool backing music? That sounds
| like Massive Attack Unfinished Sympathy...
| nsxwolf wrote:
| It is! I didn't realize the song was that old. 1991!
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Massive Attack were approximately 40 years ahead of their
| time.
| dghughes wrote:
| I was watching a video of the BBC show Micro Live explaining how
| email works...in 1986! And it was done live.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL1NaenGPdw
| jgrahamc wrote:
| Did you notice that at the start the acoustic coupler has the
| handset placed the wrong way round?
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(page generated 2022-11-30 23:02 UTC)