# Teletext — style guide for coding agents

> Generated from the Aesthetary record for **Teletext**.
> Research: **Partly sourced** · Build guidance: recorded in 8 of 8 research dimensions.
> 9 sources attached. 3 claims graded by our research brief, no source attached.

## How to use this

Paste this file into your agent as context before asking it to design or build something in this visual language. It states what is established, what is our interpretation, and what nobody has established. Treat all three differently.

**The most important section is "Not researched yet".** Its purpose is to stop you and your agent inventing rules that sound right and are not recorded anywhere.

## What this language is

**Defining:** Blocky broadcast characters, coarse colour grid, fixed rows, saturated primaries

**Recognise it by:** A fixed grid of 40 columns by 24 rows in which every element occupies whole character cells, drawn from a palette of seven saturated colours on black, with graphics built from 2×3 mosaic blocks inside those same cells and headings set by doubling character height. The diagnostic condition is that the grid is a transmission constraint rather than a design decision: nothing can sit between cells, no colour can fall between the seven, and no shape can be finer than a sixth of a cell. Terminal shares the monospace ground but is a console with a prompt and a phosphor-derived palette; Arcade shares the low-resolution look but draws sprites in hard-edged pixels against a coin-op frame.

**Family:** Speculative & Futurist
**Era:** 1980s
**Native medium:** broadcast

## What it is arguing

Information delivered under a hard bandwidth budget. The constraint is not concealed or apologised for — the grid, the eight colours and the blocky glyphs are the budget made visible, and legibility at broadcast distance outranks everything else.

**It refuses:** Refuses continuous tone, intermediate colour, free placement, and any element smaller than one character cell.

## What it is not

Commonly confused with these. Getting the difference right matters more than getting the surface right:

- Arcade
- Terminal

## Established rules

Grouped by what kind of claim each is. A requirement of the language and our own interpretation are not interchangeable.

**How to read each rule.** Every rule states two separate things, and neither stands in for the other:

- **Kind of claim** (the heading): Documented · Source attached · Graded by our research brief · No source attached · Documented · Source attached · Our reading · Documented · Source attached · Seen in the work.
- **Evidence** (how it is established): Graded by our research brief · No source attached (`DOCUMENTED`) · From our catalogue entry (`SUPPORTED`) · Our reading (`CURATORIAL`) · Not researched yet (`UNKNOWN`) · No grade recorded (no grade in the record). Where a claim has its own canonical label, the Evidence line gives that label instead of the grade.
- **Product area**: which of the twelve areas the rule belongs to (Layout, Typography, Color, Imagery, Surface, Interface, Motion, Motif, Technique, Form, Hierarchy, Density), mapped from its raw area label in bold. "Context" means the rule is about the Aesthetic (its name, origin, lineage) rather than a part of the design. "Not mapped" means the raw area has no single area yet.
- The code in brackets is the `grade` field at `implementationConstraints.tokenRules.value.rules[].provenance.grade` in https://aesthetary.com/data/teletext.json. "From our catalogue entry" means: Stated in Aesthetary’s existing catalogue entry. An outside source is named only where one is linked to the claim.

### Documented · Source attached

- **layout** — Composition: 40×24 character grid.
  - Kind of claim: Documented · Source attached · Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Product area: Layout
- **color** — Colour: 7 colours on black, no intermediates.
  - Kind of claim: Documented · Source attached · Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Product area: Color
- **imagery** — Imagery: 2×3 mosaic blocks only.
  - Kind of claim: Documented · Source attached · Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Product area: Imagery

### Graded by our research brief · No source attached

_A research brief graded this documented, but no source is attached yet. A grade is not a source._

- **typography** — Typography: fixed-width cell glyphs; double-height only.
  - Kind of claim: Graded by our research brief · No source attached · Evidence: Graded by our research brief · No source attached · Product area: Typography
- **hierarchy** — Hierarchy is unusually clean and worth stating plainly: rank comes from double height, colour, and row position — and from nothing else. There is no weight axis, no size axis beyond ×2, and no indentation finer than a cell. A designer who understands only this sentence can already compose the page.
  - Kind of claim: Graded by our research brief · No source attached · Evidence: Graded by our research brief · No source attached · Product area: Hierarchy
- **form / motif / surface / technique** — Form / motif / surface / technique: block mosaic; no surface treatment exists.
  - Kind of claim: Graded by our research brief · No source attached · Evidence: Graded by our research brief · No source attached · Product area: not mapped

### Documented · Source attached

- **grid** — A 40x24 character grid with block graphics drawn on a 2x3 mosaic matrix inside each cell, in eight colours. These are the broadcast specification, not stylistic choices.
  - Kind of claim: Documented · Source attached · Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Product area: Layout

### Our reading

- **motion** — The native behaviours are page-flip on a timer, the reveal of concealed text, and the rolling subpage counter — not scrolling, which the format cannot do. Scroll-based animation would be the failure mode this rule exists to prevent.
  - Kind of claim: Our reading · Evidence: Our reading · Product area: Motion
- **density** — 960 cells is a fixed budget, so density is a consequence of content rather than a style choice. A page should run near the budget, because a sparse teletext page reads as a broken one.
  - Kind of claim: Our reading · Evidence: Our reading · Product area: Density

## Found in research

What research established from sources Aesthetary opened and checked. Each line names its area, how it is known, and where it is scoped. "Seen in the work" means the source documents particular works or products rather than the Aesthetic as a whole.

- **Interface** — Navigation is by single key press on the remote: under the FLOF (Fastext) code of practice four keys coloured red, green, yellow and cyan select linked pages, with matching prompts displayed on row 24 at the bottom of the page.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:interface-1` · Covers FLOF/Fastext pages; Level 1 pages without it rely on typed page numbers.
- **Interface** — The top row is a page header that normally carries a real-time clock and a rolling page counter.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:interface-2`
- **Interface** — Concealed text is hidden as spaces until the viewer reveals it with a decoder operation.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:interface-4`
- **Interface** — On newsflash and subtitle pages, boxed areas are inset into the live television picture instead of a black page.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:interface-5` · Covers Newsflash/subtitle pages only.
- **Interface** — Services such as ARD Text and Teefax use rows 0 and 24 for things like the date and fastext links.
  - Evidence: Seen in the work · Claim: `kcc:interface-3` · Covers practitioner guidance; ARD Text and Teefax.
- **Motion** — Text and mosaics can flash, alternating foreground and background colour, set by a control character and cancelled by Steady or a new row; early Ceefax could flash selected words.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:motion-1`
- **Motion** — Multi-frame pages rotate on a sub-page carousel, and early Ceefax animations used that carousel.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:motion-2`
- **Motion** — The header row rolls through page numbers and keeps a live clock.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:motion-3`
- **Motion** — In-vision teletext, broadcast as a TV programme free of carousel sub-page timing, could feature animated elements.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:motion-4` · Covers separates in-vision teletext from the decoded page.
- **Motif** — Separated graphics, adding gaps between mosaic cells, is a standard option alongside the default contiguous blocks.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:motif-3`
- **Motif** — A statement reported by the teletext wiki says the 3 x 2 mosaic matrix limits the design of any motif.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:motif-4` · Covers Prestel viewdata, as reported by the teletext wiki.
- **Motif** — The recurring graphic device is the mosaic page header or section banner above text content.
  - Evidence: Seen in the work · Claim: `kcc:motif-1` · Covers UK services; Channel 26's frequency claim rests on its author's own experience.
- **Motif** — Black cells where colour changes sit, which cost a character cell each, recur as heavy black outlines ('code borders') around shapes.
  - Evidence: Seen in the work · Claim: `kcc:motif-2` · Covers practitioner jargon; the BBC proposed 'Graphics hold' precisely to remove such black areas.
- **Form** — A teletext page is a grid of 40 columns by 24 rows, 960 characters.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:form-1`

## Positions by area

The overall position recorded for each area. "No overall position recorded" means rules exist for the area but no position above them; the rules still apply. It is not the same as "Not established", which means nobody has researched the area.

- **Layout** — Specified
- **Typography** — Specified
- **Color** — Specified
- **Imagery** — Specified
- **Interface** — Specified
- **Motion** — Specified
- **Motif** — Specified
- **Technique** — Specified
- **Surface** — Outside this language. The area does not apply; this is not a gap in the research.

## Design grammar — web primitives

A starting grammar for a website in Teletext: one 40 x 24 cell grid, seven saturated colours on black, 2 x 3 mosaic graphics, double height as the only rank, and navigation by page number and four coloured keys.

Three kinds of line: **On the record** names a rule this record holds (its wording is under Established rules) and states what it becomes on the web. **Web translation** is Aesthetary's choice for the web, derived from the rules it cites; change it if you have a reason, keep the cited rule. **Not specified by the source** means the research reached this but the sources say nothing about it; **Not researched yet** means the research has not reached it yet. Either way, follow the instruction and do not invent a rule. Structured version: `designGrammar` in data/teletext.json.

### Colour

| Role | Value | Contrast | Use | Kind |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| black | `#000000` | — | The ground, and the eighth colour. | On the record |
| white | `#FFFFFF` | 21:1 | Body text. | On the record |
| yellow | `#FFFF00` | 19.6:1 | Titles, the header, page numbers. | On the record |
| cyan | `#00FFFF` | 16.7:1 | Secondary text, the fourth Fastext key. | On the record |
| green | `#00FF00` | 15.3:1 | Text, the second Fastext key. | On the record |
| magenta | `#FF00FF` | 6.7:1 | Text and bars. | On the record |
| red | `#FF0000` | 5.3:1 | Warnings, the first Fastext key. | On the record |
| blue | `#0000FF` | 2.4:1 | Bars and mosaics only; never text on black. | On the record |

- **On the record · Documented · Source attached** · `token_rule:color-5` → Use seven colours on black and no intermediates.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:failure-2` → No intermediate colours, no gradients.
- **Web translation** — Never set blue as text on black; use it for bars under yellow lettering. _Why:_ Blue on black is 2.4:1; the palette is fixed, so the fix is where blue is used. (`token_rule:color-5`)

### Typography

Family: fixed-width cell glyphs (the room's VT323 as the screen face). Stack: `"VT323 X", "VT323", ui-monospace, Menlo, monospace`

| Role | Size | Weight | Line height | Case | Tracking | Measure | Use |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| double | 2 rows | 400 | 2 cells | uppercase | not specified | 38 cells | Titles: double height is the only size. |
| row | 1 row | 400 | 1 cell | not specified | not specified | 39 cells | Everything else, one glyph to a cell. |

- **On the record · Graded by our research brief · No source attached** · `token_rule:typography-4` → Set fixed-width cell glyphs; the only size change is double height.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:failure-3` → No proportional type.
- **Web translation** — Use VT323 for the cell face. _Why:_ The record names the class (bitmap, fixed-width cells), not a face; VT323 is the room's. (`token_rule:typography-4`)
- **On the record · Graded by our research brief · No source attached** · `token_rule:hierarchy-13` → The format has no weight axis: do not bold; rank with colour, double height or row position.

### Grid and layout

The grid is the transmission: 40 columns by 24 rows, 960 cells. The header is row 0, Fastext prompts are row 24; nothing sits between cells.

Module 1 character cell · gutter 0 · margin none inside the page

| Viewport | Columns |
| --- | --- |
| all | 40 |

Tokens: rows `24` · header `row 0` · fastext `row 24`

- **On the record · Documented · Source attached** · `token_rule:layout-3` → Compose on a 40 x 24 character grid.
- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:form-1` → A page is 40 columns by 24 rows, 960 characters.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:failure-5` → No element smaller than a cell or placed off-grid.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:dcc:density-6` → Run near the 960-cell budget: a sparse teletext page reads as a broken one.
- **Web translation** — Scale the grid to the viewport: one cell is the page width divided by 40. _Why:_ The cell is fixed in number, not in pixels; a screen that is not a television keeps the count. (`token_rule:layout-3`)

### Shape and geometry

Tokens: radius `0` · mosaic `2 x 3 per cell` · border `a black cell (the code border)`

- **On the record · Documented · Source attached** · `token_rule:imagery-7` → Draw graphics only from 2 x 3 mosaic blocks inside the cells.
- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:motif-3` → Separated graphics, with gaps between mosaic cells, are a standard option beside contiguous blocks.
- **On the record · Seen in the work** · `claim:kcc:motif-2` → Let the black cell a colour change costs stand as an outline: the code border.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:failure-1` → No anti-aliasing.

### Imagery

- **On the record · Documented · Source attached** · `token_rule:imagery-7` → Build every picture from 2 x 3 mosaic blocks.
- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:motif-4` → Expect the 3 x 2 matrix to limit any motif.
- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:interface-5` → On newsflash and subtitle pages, inset boxed areas into the live picture instead of a black page.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:intent-negation` → No photographs or continuous tone: a photograph is outside the format, not a lower-fidelity version of it.

### Components

Anatomy, tokens and states below are Web translation: Aesthetary's specification for the screen. Each value line after them says whether it restates a rule this record holds.

#### Button

A Fastext key: a whole-cell block in red, green, yellow or cyan with black lettering, matching its prompt on row 24.

- Anatomy: solid key colour, one of four; black cell-face label; no border, no radius, no shadow
- Tokens: red `#FF0000` · green `#00FF00` · yellow `#FFFF00` · cyan `#00FFFF` · color `#000000` · radius `0`
- State, default: Key colour, black label.
- State, hover: The label turns white on the red key; on the other three, the key goes to white.
- State, focus: 3px white outline, 3px outside.
- State, active: Colours invert: key-coloured label on black.
- State, disabled: Black key, label in the key colour, never blue.
- Accessibility: Black on green, yellow and cyan is 15:1 or better; black on red is 5.3:1.
- Accessibility: The colour is never the only label: each key names its page.
- Accessibility: At least 44px tall.
- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:interface-1` → Offer four linked pages on red, green, yellow and cyan keys, with matching prompts on the bottom row.
- **Web translation** — Letter the keys in black on the key colour. _Why:_ Seven colours on black and no intermediates; black lettering on a solid colour is the format's own reverse. (`token_rule:color-5`)

#### Card

A page: a mosaic banner, a double-height title on a colour bar, then rows of text in whole cells.

- Anatomy: mosaic banner row; double-height title on a full-width bar; body text rows, one colour per run; page number, P + three digits
- Tokens: ground `#000000` · columns `40` · rows `24` · title `double height`
- State, default: Black page, banner, bar, rows.
- State, hover: The page number turns yellow.
- State, focus: 3px white outline around the page.
- Accessibility: The mosaic banner is decoration (aria-hidden); the title is a real heading.
- Accessibility: Text is live, never an image of cells.
- **On the record · Seen in the work** · `claim:kcc:motif-1` → Head the page or section with a mosaic banner above the text.
- **On the record · Graded by our research brief · No source attached** · `token_rule:hierarchy-13` → Rank by double height, colour and row position, and nothing else.
- **Web translation** — Make the card one page of the 40 x 24 grid, spilling to a subpage rather than scrolling. _Why:_ The page is a fixed 960-cell grid and cannot scroll; overflow in the format goes to subpages. (`claim:kcc:form-1`, `claim:failure-4`)

#### Input

The page-number entry: three digits in yellow on black, keyed on the remote.

- Anatomy: three-digit field; yellow cell-face digits; yellow block cursor
- Tokens: color `#FFFF00` · background `#000000` · border `2px solid #FFFF00` · width `3ch + padding`
- State, default: Yellow digits on black, yellow edge.
- State, focus: 3px white outline.
- State, error: The field clears and row 1 prints "PAGE NOT FOUND" in red on black.
- State, disabled: The edge dims to the cell grid; digits hidden.
- Accessibility: A visible label or an accessible name, "Page number".
- Accessibility: inputmode="numeric" with a three-digit pattern.
- Accessibility: Errors are words, not a red edge alone.
- **Web translation** — Treat text entry as keying a page number. _Why:_ Level 1 pages without Fastext rely on typed page numbers; that is the format's only entry. (`claim:kcc:interface-1`)
- **Not specified by the source** — Free-text forms are not part of the format. _Instead:_ Keep any other field to whole cells in the seven colours; do not invent a teletext form.

#### Navigation

Row 24: four coloured prompts naming the Fastext pages, with the header row above carrying the page number and a live clock.

- Anatomy: header row: page number, service name, subpage counter, clock; row 24: four coloured prompts; Reveal for concealed text
- Tokens: header `row 0` · fastext `row 24` · clock `hh:mm:ss` · prompts `red, green, yellow, cyan`
- State, default: Four prompts in their colours on black.
- State, hover: Prompt in white.
- State, focus: 3px white outline.
- State, current: The header prints the current page number; the prompt for it is omitted.
- Accessibility: aria-current on the current page link.
- Accessibility: The clock is aria-hidden or updated no more than once a minute to assistive technology.
- Accessibility: Concealed text is revealed by a button with aria-pressed.
- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:interface-1` → Put the four linked pages on row 24, in red, green, yellow and cyan.
- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:interface-2` → Keep a header on the top row with a real-time clock and a rolling page counter.
- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:interface-4` → Hide concealed text as spaces until the viewer reveals it.

### Motion

Durations, easing and the rest of this specification are Web translation: Aesthetary's choice for the screen.

- Durations: flip 8s per subpage, flash 1s per beat, 4 beats, clock 1s
- Easing: all `steps(1) — nothing eases`
- Transforms: none: content changes whole, by page.
- Entrance: The page is replaced whole.
- Hover: A colour change, instant.
- Reduced motion: No flip, no flash; the clock updates once a minute.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `token_rule:motion-14` → Move by page-flip on a timer, the reveal of concealed text and the rolling subpage counter; never by scrolling.
- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:motion-1` → Flash text or mosaics by alternating foreground and background, cancelled by Steady or a new row.
- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:motion-2` → Rotate multi-frame pages on a subpage carousel.
- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:motion-3` → Keep the header rolling through page numbers with a live clock.
- **Web translation** — Start the carousel only when the reader asks, stop it when asked, and stop flashing after four beats. _Why:_ Carousel and flash are the format's; the reader controlling them is the web's rule for moving content (WCAG 2.2.2). (`claim:kcc:motion-2`, `claim:kcc:motion-1`)

### Deliberately not added

- **A period typeface** (typography): The record names cell glyphs, not a face; VT323 is ours.
- **A card and a free-text field** (components): The format has pages and page-number entry; the card and the field are translations.
- **Any surface treatment** (surface): No surface treatment exists: no scanlines, glow or curvature.

## Coverage — what has been looked at

One row per research dimension a research pass considered. "Not researched yet" (`UNKNOWN`) means exactly that; a dimension can carry an Aesthetary recommendation and still be unresearched, and those are different things.

| Research dimension | Evidence | Resolved by | Carries a rule |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Composition | Specified · Graded by our research brief | follows the recorded claim | yes |
| Typography | Specified · Graded by our research brief | follows the recorded claim | yes |
| Hierarchy | Specified · Graded by our research brief | follows the recorded claim | yes |
| Colour | Specified · Graded by our research brief | follows the recorded claim | yes |
| Density | Specified · Our reading | Aesthetary decided | yes |
| Imagery | Specified · Graded by our research brief | follows the recorded claim | yes |
| Form / motif / surface / technique | Not specified by the source: form, surface · Specified: motif, technique | follows the recorded claim | yes |
| Motion | Specified | Aesthetary decided | yes |

Unresearched: Motion. Where a rule appears for one of these it is Aesthetary's implementation recommendation, not a property of the language, and its Evidence line above says so.

## Not researched yet

Nobody has established a position for this language on:

- Form

**Do not fill these in.** An absent position is absent research, not permission and not a blank for you to complete. If the work needs a decision in one of these areas, make it on other grounds and do not attribute it to this language.

## Grade your own work

20 checks: 12 mechanically testable, 7 needing a person to look, 0 needing a source Aesthetary does not hold, 1 with no recorded position. Scores do not add up. A failure against a required rule and a departure from something we invented are not the same result, and no total should let them cancel.

### Recognition — does this read as the intended Aesthetic?

- **[visual_human · recognition signature · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Strip every logo, word and borrowed image out of your work, then show it to someone who knows the collection. Do they land on this Aesthetic? The signature to hold is: A fixed grid of 40 columns by 24 rows in which every element occupies whole character cells, drawn from a palette of seven saturated colours on black, with graphics built from 2×3 mosaic blocks inside those same cells and headings set by doubling character height. The diagnostic condition is that the grid is a transmission constraint rather than a design decision: nothing can sit between cells, no colour can fall between the seven, and no shape can be finer than a sixth of a cell. Terminal shares the monospace ground but is a console with a prompt and a phosphor-derived palette; Arcade shares the low-resolution look but draws sprites in hard-edged pixels against a coin-op frame.
  - _If it fails:_ The work may be competent and still read as a different Aesthetic, or as none. Nothing below matters until this passes.

### Fidelity — are its defining rules present?

- **[mechanical · Documented · Source attached · Evidence: Documented · Source attached]** Does your work hold this? Composition: 40×24 character grid.
  - _If it fails:_ The result is not this Aesthetic. This is a requirement of the language, not a preference.
- **[visual_human · Graded by our research brief · No source attached · Evidence: Graded by our research brief · No source attached]** Does your work hold this? Typography: fixed-width cell glyphs; double-height only.
  - _If it fails:_ The result is not this Aesthetic. This is a requirement of the language, not a preference.
- **[visual_human · Graded by our research brief · No source attached · Evidence: Graded by our research brief · No source attached]** Does your work hold this? Hierarchy is unusually clean and worth stating plainly: rank comes from double height, colour, and row position — and from nothing else. There is no weight axis, no size axis beyond ×2, and no indentation finer than a cell. A designer who understands only this sentence can already compose the page.
  - _If it fails:_ The result is not this Aesthetic. This is a requirement of the language, not a preference.
- **[mechanical · Documented · Source attached · Evidence: Documented · Source attached]** Does your work hold this? Colour: 7 colours on black, no intermediates.
  - _If it fails:_ The result is not this Aesthetic. This is a requirement of the language, not a preference.
- **[mechanical · Documented · Source attached · Evidence: Documented · Source attached]** Does your work hold this? Imagery: 2×3 mosaic blocks only.
  - _If it fails:_ The result is not this Aesthetic. This is a requirement of the language, not a preference.
- **[visual_human · Graded by our research brief · No source attached · Evidence: Graded by our research brief · No source attached]** Does your work hold this? Form / motif / surface / technique: block mosaic; no surface treatment exists.
  - _If it fails:_ The result is not this Aesthetic. This is a requirement of the language, not a preference.

### Implementation — were those rules translated appropriately into this medium?

- **[mechanical · Our reading · Evidence: Our reading]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. The native behaviours are page-flip on a timer, the reveal of concealed text, and the rolling subpage counter — not scrolling, which the format cannot do. Scroll-based animation would be the failure mode this rule exists to prevent.
  - _If it fails:_ Nothing. No one has researched the dimension yet, and this is only what Aesthetary would do. Departing from it costs you nothing.
- **[visual_human · Documented · Source attached · Evidence: Documented · Source attached]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. A 40x24 character grid with block graphics drawn on a 2x3 mosaic matrix inside each cell, in eight colours. These are the broadcast specification, not stylistic choices.
  - _If it fails:_ A defensible departure, and you should be able to say why you made it.

### Avoidance — known failure modes, neighbour drift, cloning

- **[mechanical · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: No anti-aliasing.
  - _If it fails:_ A failure mode recorded in our research brief: recorded judgement about what weakens this Aesthetic, not a requirement of the language.
- **[mechanical · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: No intermediate colours or gradients.
  - _If it fails:_ A failure mode recorded in our research brief: recorded judgement about what weakens this Aesthetic, not a requirement of the language.
- **[mechanical · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: No proportional type.
  - _If it fails:_ A failure mode recorded in our research brief: recorded judgement about what weakens this Aesthetic, not a requirement of the language.
- **[mechanical · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: No scrolling.
  - _If it fails:_ A failure mode recorded in our research brief: recorded judgement about what weakens this Aesthetic, not a requirement of the language.
- **[mechanical · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: No element smaller than a character cell or positioned off-grid.
  - _If it fails:_ A failure mode recorded in our research brief: recorded judgement about what weakens this Aesthetic, not a requirement of the language.
- **[visual_human · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Have you made any of these changes? Each one moves the work into a neighbouring Aesthetic: Against Terminal: broadcast page versus interactive console. Inherited from distinguishing — *"colour blocks, not phosphor lines"*. Against Arcade: character cells versus sprites drawn in hard-edged pixels, and no coin-op furniture (score, lives). Anti-signature: adding a prompt or cursor makes it Terminal. Adding a score counter makes it Arcade. Allowing any element to sit off-cell makes it neither.
  - _If it fails:_ You have built the neighbour. That may be fine — but name which Aesthetic you are in.
- **[mechanical · declared closure · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: Not open: the grid.
  - _If it fails:_ This one is closed, not open. The record says generation must not go here.
- **[mechanical · declared closure · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: Not open: the palette size.
  - _If it fails:_ This one is closed, not open. The record says generation must not go here.
- **[mechanical · declared closure · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: Not open: the mosaic geometry..
  - _If it fails:_ This one is closed, not open. The record says generation must not go here.
- **[visual_human · neighbour drift · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Could your work be mistaken for Arcade? That language is: Coin-op furniture and hard-edged raster pixels
  - _If it fails:_ Not necessarily wrong, but you are closer to Arcade than to this Aesthetic.

### Accessibility — the Aesthetic preserved without its inaccessible practice

- **[unassessable · no recorded position · Evidence: Not researched yet (`UNKNOWN`)]** Does this Aesthetic conflict with any usability floor? Nobody has recorded one for it.
  - _If it fails:_ Nothing — and that is the problem. An unrecorded conflict is not an absent one. Hold AA on reading matter and decide the rest on other grounds.

## Rules for the agent

1. Do not invent rules for any area listed under **Not researched yet**.
2. Do not treat an absent position as permission to do anything you like — say that the language has no position, and decide on other grounds.
3. Keep our interpretations separable from the language's own requirements. If asked to justify a choice, cite which kind of claim it came from.
4. If you need something this record does not contain, say so rather than producing a confident answer from the aesthetic's name.
5. When you self-score against "Grade your own work", score only checks marked `mechanical`. Declare `visual_human` and `evidence_dependent` checks unjudged rather than guessing, and never score an `unassessable` one.
6. Evidence "Not researched yet" (`UNKNOWN`) is never a failure. It means nobody researched the dimension, so departing from what is written there costs nothing and must not be reported as a defect. "No grade recorded" is not a grade either: do not treat it as our decision or as an outside source.
7. In **Design grammar**, a "Web translation" line is our choice for the web and may be changed with a reason; the rules it cites may not. Never present a translation as a property of the language.

## Provenance

- Record: `teletext` · status `draft` · research `partly_researched`
- Full structured record: https://aesthetary.com/data/teletext.json
- Human-readable record: https://aesthetary.com/a/teletext.html
- This file is a snapshot. The record may have changed since; check the page above.

_Aesthetary is an alpha. Where a page says nothing, nobody has done the work yet._