March 17, 2008

How the BBC rendered their spinning globe logo in 1985 - A live picture of a spinning globe had been shown before BBC programmes since the Sixties. When colour came to BBC 1, a curved mirror was added behind the globe, and the effect this produced continued to be seen on screen for over fifteen years. But technology had moved on and time was running out for this mechanical symbol. A solid state device had generated the symbol on BBC 2 since the end of the Seventies. Subsequently, electronic clocks on both networks had replaced the mechanical clocks. And in early 1984, work began on a project to generate a digital symbol for BBC 1 too. Here is the story of those great men & women, etc..
posted by Hank Mabuse 16 years ago
  • Why did they have to keep generating the images afresh - couldn't they do it once and tape or film the result? Some very nostalgic images there. Are you going for some kind of record here...?
  • nobody posts on sunday and it irritates me - probly OCD
  • Film degrades each time it is shown. Video also.
  • That whole website is a total fascination for me. Growing up in the 1970s here in the U.S., the sum total of my knowledge of life in contemporary Britain came from the tiny handful of Britcoms we watched on PBS, many of which had their original U.K. network IDs attached but were complete mysteries to the likes of me. And then, of course, there were the BBC ident spoofs in "Monty Python".
  • We're rapidly getting closer to an "except Hank, on Sundays" addendum to the one-a-day rule.
  • Hey man, it's just my love for the site drivin' me. And this huge electrical type generator thingy plugged in at the arse.
  • Hank's AC/DC? What?
  • I always liked the old Universal "Airplane Passing Globe" logo animation.