Slashdot Mirror
Minitel Hits Twenty
An anonymous submitter writes "Minitel is now 20 years old, according to this article from BBC News: 'Calling Minitel a proto-internet may be a bit of a stretch, but it is not far off. Unlike the internet, Minitel is a closed network, based on the phone system of its owner, France Telecom. Using one of its prehistoric-seeming terminals, users can access a labyrinth of proprietary content, all of it determinedly low-graphics and designed for speed.' Slashdot has reported on Minitel before."
Yes, it was a dumb mistake on the author's part, exposed to all the ravenous non-believers. He is talking about the internet as we know it now, a functional forerunner of the internet as far as the position it takes in a lot of people's daily lives. 20 years ago, regular Frenchies turned to Minitel for various information like everyone else does with the internet today. If you think ARPAnet was something any schmuck could dial-in to with his modem and get the weather and news- especially 30 years ago- you've got another thing coming to you... :P
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
This is true, however the Internet really did grow out of ARPAnet. The one big important thing to notice is the protocol it uses (TCP/IP) and the way it works (layered approach, interconnictivity across multiple platforms and lines). From what I gather on this Mintel is a closed system, that works based on a special kind of terminal and only uses modems for its communication.
Well the revolutionary thing about the Internet, that allowed it to grow so large, was not the idea of connecting computers together. You already had plenty of that, universities would have many system that would talk through serial or something like it, and you could dial into little mini-networks in the form of BBSes. The revolutionary thing was that it was all open and interoperable and could be made to work with anything on anything through anything.
You can dial in to an ISP with a modem using a Mac, he can connectot to his upstream provider with something archaaic like X.25, that provider can use POS fibre to connect to all his neighbours, who can connect with ATM to their neighbours, who can connect ot another ISP with frame relay, who can connect via DSL to a computer that is running FreeBSD and offering a web page.
That is what makes it so cool. YOu don't have to have one kind of terminal, you don't have to have one kind of OS, you don't have to have one kind of physical wiring. So long as your unit speakes IP, it is good to go. This made a really diverse network possable, and also ensured its survival. New technologies come out all the time, and they can be used on the Internet. You aren't restricted to one kind of line for transport.
That's why ARPAnet is the real father of the Internet, because that's where it all started. There were plenty of other closed system like Mintel like, say AOL. You dialed in with modems, talked to a proprietary, closed network. Great, like I said, just a big version of a BBS. With the Internet, all of a sudden you can just connect to a huge decentralized network, and anyone can connect with anything and basically do anything with it. You aren't limited to one kind of interface (like a text terminal), people can invent new apps to communicate and implement them.