Created Mo 8-Feb-99
Updated Mo 2-Jun-25
When Michael Grade took over as controller of BBC 1 in , he inherited two projects already in motion.
The first was the creation of a new virtual globe symbol for the channel, although early development had been hindered by a limited supply of memory chips and achieving a full revolution of the world had been a challenge. These obstacles, however, were soon overcome.
The second project was EastEnders - a new prime-time soap opera to rival ITV's Coronation Street.
Grade knew he had to arrest the flagging ratings on his channel and decided to delay the launch of the show to coincide with an overhaul of the programme schedule where EastEnders would go out on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7pm while Terry Wogan would lead the evening line-up on the other weekdays with a new chat show.
The modern, redesigned golden globe, accompanied by a clock and programme slides, were all part of this relaunch of BBC 1.
Viewers would see the new globe for the first time at 7pm on to introduce Wogan.
The device that made the earth move came in a metal box that would have been mounted in a rack together with a similar-looking box responsible for generating the station clock. You can see examples of both here.
With the cover removed, you can see the memory cards inside. On the left there are ten cards containing the map data pre-rendered as frames of animation.
To the right of these cards are five unused slots and to the right of those is a card with a red handle, the processor card. The remaining four cards contain the two images pictured below.
Now we can begin to see how the globe player works. The transparent blue sphere representing the ocean is the background image. The processor uses the map data to decide for each pixel whether to leave it as the sea or overlay a pixel from the golden sphere for the land or simply plot a black pixel to represent the land on the other side of the world.
The player can also generate a test image that demonstrates some of the video mixer's abilities, including what the ocean globe looks like with the land. If you look closely, you can see that the golden shell is slightly larger than the blue sphere, so that the land has the subtle effect of floating over the top of the ocean as it rotates.
As well as the network globe for England housed at Television Centre in London, a player would have been required for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
Each English region would also require its own player for the times when it opted out of the national schedule.
The globe players for Scotland and Northern Ireland were discovered at the BBC Research & Development site at Kingswood Warren (sadly now closed) and were rescued from being tipped. By cannibalising parts from each machine, engineers there managed to make one working machine, from which we got some of the images you see above.
The globe player for Wales remained in Cardiff, and in it too was brought back to life, which means we get another chance to look inside this fascinating box of tricks...
Inside the BBC, the globe was known as the COW, an acronym for computer-originated world. You can see this written vertically on the yellow label on the left.
The official code for the hardware can just be made out on the cover plate to the left of the earth symbol: GE6MS/565.
This code is also stamped into the left-hand side of the player (underneath a barcode sticker, to the right of the yellow label) with extra characters, possibly unique to Wales' machine. The official name is also shown.
On the top right-hand side of the box is a switch marked "CEEFAX". On the network globe this added the text "CEEFAX 888" ("CEEFAX 170" initially) underneath "BBC 1".
On this machine it can be used to toggle the "WALES" text on and off.
When the bottom cover is opened, you can see the removable memory cards inside the device.
As with the first player we looked inside, there are ten removable cards on the left, filled with PROM (Programmable Read-Only Memory) chips. Each card has on its side a yellow LED that lights up when that card is in use.
If you remove one of these cards, the player continues to work, but the land will temporarily disappear for 1.2 seconds when the player attempts to access the missing card, leaving just the ocean!
As before, there is a gap of five empty slots and then a card with a red handle and red LED, which is the processor card that controls what you see.
To the right of this are the four cards containing the graphics that aren't animated.
The reason for the globe player in Cardiff being revived was that the BBC wanted to do something special to tie in with an EastEnders storyline that would mark the show's 40th birthday. The original opening title sequence was brought back and each nation introduced the programme with its golden globe symbol.
But while the rest of the UK saw an archive recording of the globe, in Wales, viewers saw the globe generated live by the original device, just as they would have done in February 1985. This time, however, the globe player's output was enhanced to upscale the standard-definition 4:3 picture into a high-definition widescreen image.
Take the COW for a spin (or two).
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