The RITE (Rolling In-vision Teletext Engine) Box was developed by Ray Goff, who had previously designed Context, the foundational system used to run and publish Ceefax, and the ATOM teletext inserter. (Goff was, according to Mort Smith, a man who “loved acronyms”.)
Having seen the rolling in-vision advertisement breaks Mort Smith had made for 4-Tel and Keyfax, Goff was inspired to make a machine that sequenced teletext pages. The RITE Box, as it was known, could transmit pages at a rate of 2 per second, making for “very jerky animations” … “but it worked”, according to Smith.
The Rite Box stores up to 500 pages and causes each required page to be displayed in sequence. As the display time can be adjusted individually for each page, sequences can be made to appear animated if desired.
–ENGINF No. 38, August 1989
Perhaps the most prominent use of the RITE Box was Hands Up!, a 1990 series of educational TV programmes commissioned by Channel 4 made entirely with animated teletext graphics.
The RITE Box had the ability to insert teletext pages into the broadcast stream so the speed of the output could be changed. However, for some of the animations in Hands Up!, even this wasn’t fast enough, so they were sent to a facilities house to be sped up. Each episode had to fit into a roughly five minute time slot.
Goff would also develop a RITE editor, allowing Intelfax employees such as proofreader Julie Smith to work from home with the aid of a dongle.
Sources
- Wednesday 13th January 1982 BBC2 – Ceefax – Landscapes of England, uploaded by Kaleidoscope’s Presentation Vault
- Hands Up! Episode 1, uploaded by Richard Shaw-Wright, 21 January 2008
- Teletext People: Mort Smith Ceefax, Intelfax 4-Tel, 3 November 2022
- ENGINF Issue 38, August 1989, Phil Lacey, Technical Services Manager at World Service, wordradiohistory.com, accessed 23 October 2026
- Teletext R Podcast, 15th April 2021 – Ian Irving (Ceefax/Intelfax), teletextart.co.uk 24 April 2021
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