Teletext has been popular at demoparties for over a decade, and with the invention of the BBC Micro introducing teletext software to the masses, its involvement possibly dates back to the 1980s.
Since 2009
At Sundown 2009, Neurotypical‘s BBC Micro piece VIA won second place in the Oldskool Demo category. It used software by Puppeh to convert video clips including a kettle rotating, a Van De Graaff generator emitting electricity and a sunflower to the system’s Mode 7 (teletext) mode.
Following the release of Alistair Buxton‘s Raspi-Teletext and Simon Rawles‘s edit-tf web-based editor in 2014, more teletext art demos and static art pieces began to appear at demoparties.
For Assembly 2016, Paraguay released Teletext 40 Years, a demo created with the Raspberry Pi teletext software. It contained static artworks of a dolphin leaping in front of palm trees and a mock-up of Yle Text‘s index page with humorous news headlines. There were also animations of a field of coloured pixel stars, and a blocky snake-like waveform. It won first place in the Wild Demos category.
Bitshifters released Bad Apple Teletext at the Cambridge Teletext Block Party on 25 February 2017. A BBC Micro Mode 7 version of the Touhou Project music video, it included a custom chiptune by Inverse Phase and additional artwork by Steve Horsley. Subsequently, in 2020, Jason Robertson created a version of Bad Apple running through VBIT-Pi, providing a video of it operating on real hardware.
Teletextr for BBC Master by Bitshifters, once again in Mode 7, won 1st place in the Oldschool Demo Competition at Nova Party on 24 June 2017. It featured spinning 3D geometric shapes, a pixellated MC Hammer dancing, “rotozoom,” a “scroller that is impossible to read” and additional artwork from Steve Horsley.
For Function 2019 in Budapest, Strlen produced Teletext is Not Dead, a custom hardware demo based on their teletext signal generator open source project. It featured a number of teletext artworks and 3D floating geometric meshes, and achieved third place in a competitive wild category.
Canada-based art group Mistigris often features teletext as part of their artpacks. In 2020-21, they collaborated with seven teletext artists to produce a Turner the Worm revival fan comic written by Cthulhu with contributions from original creator Paul Rose. A video version of Turner the Worm(s) in Turn, Turn, Turn! placed third in the Flashparty 2022 Animation category.
Teletext art contests
Many demoparties now regularly host teletext competitions. They are a mainstay at Nova Party, who have hosted the teletext category every year since its establishment in 2017. FieldFX occasionally holds teletext contests: In 2020, a total of 7 artworks were entered, with another 6 in 2024.
In September 2026, the Xenium demoparty in Lodz, Poland hosted a one-off teletext competition, with the added challenge of creating art exclusively in the medium’s text mode. In a closely fought contest, all five entries ranked similarly, but Dan Farrimond’s Hot Nerd Chat won out.
The Buenos Aires-based Flashparty regularly features a teletext art competition, which is unusual as Argentina never broadcast any public teletext services. When the party was revived in 2018 after 11 years, the Text Art (Teletext) category appeared on the roster, and the format continues to be popular.
Sources
- VIA by Neurotypical, pouet.net
- Teletext 40 Years by Paraguay, released 5 August 2016
- Bad Apple Teletext by Bitshifters, demozoo.org, 25 Februrary 2017
- “Bad Apple” – The definitive BBC Micro/Teletext Version Bitshifters Github, 2017
- Bad Apple!! on Teletext, uploaded by WG 22 December 2025
- Teletextr by Bitshifters, demozoo.org, 24 June 2017
- Teletextr – A Teletext Tribute to Old School Demos, Bitshifters Github, 2017
- Teletext is not dead, uploaded by Andor Polgar, 19 September 2019
- Function 2019: Wild Category, demozoo.org, 15 September 2019
- Turner the Worm in Turn, Turn, Turn!, demozoo.org, 1 October 2022
- Nova Party 2017, demozoo.org, 25 June 2017
- FieldFX teletext art competition, 2020, demozoo.org, 26 July 2020
- Flashparty, demozoo.org
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