[darreninthenet]

One of the shows also did an experiment of downloading software from the screen itself - you sent off for a little box which I think (it's been a while!) plugged into the Beeb's serial port, fired up a bit of software and just before the end of the show they'd put a little square graphic overlay over the broadcast in the bottom left hand corner.

That was your queue to literally physically stick the box over that square on the screen and then a few minutes later during the end credits that square would turn into what would look like to the human eye just plain old static but to the sensor in the box stuck over it, it was reading it as a datastream that the software would interpret and save.

To be honestly it wasn't terribly reliable, I think we got it to work maybe once or twice in the few times they did it but was an interesting experiment by the BBC back in the 80s!