1. AFAIK NTSC doesn’t support it, so North America never had it. There were equivalent standards but not one universal one to unify around.
2. Are there that many cultural references? I’m struggling to think of many that I saw growing up and I’m in my thirties. It existed (and I used it a lot!) but it wasn’t exactly part of the cultural zeitgeist. The internet had already taken over.
I think the only cultural references I see are football-result nostalgia. Quite a few do still crop up though (and even more so, almost every day I get an ad for a Ceefax inspired mug with my team's results on it).
I too have fond memories of using Ceefax for my football news pre-internet - the ones I remember were I think "302" for general football homepage or "310" for Scottish football scores.
1. AFAIK NTSC doesn’t support it, so North America never had it. There were equivalent standards but not one universal one to unify around.
2. Are there that many cultural references? I’m struggling to think of many that I saw growing up and I’m in my thirties. It existed (and I used it a lot!) but it wasn’t exactly part of the cultural zeitgeist. The internet had already taken over.