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."
Calling Minitel a proto-internet may be a bit of a stretch, but it is not far off. ... all of it determinedly low-graphics and designed for speed.
All right, aspiring web developers and disgruntled dot-bomb employees. Your objective today is to modernize this archaic service: develop a functional implementation of Flash and JavaScript pop-under advertisements, then ensure that all original content is publicly inaccessible. Finally, schedule a decadent yacht party. We're going to party like it's 1999!
Do you like German cars?
What kind of taxes are levied against Minitel transactions, pray tell?
'Calling Minitel a proto-internet may be a bit of a stretch, but it is not far off'
What about Darpanet? Isn't that the true proto-internet given that it predates minitel and was a much larger network and, oh yeah, formed the backbone of the internet?
From the article:
One new venture for example, known as w-HA, is working on a scheme that will allow online payments to be made within two mouse clicks
Phew! For a second there, I thought they were in trouble.
"'Calling Minitel a proto-internet may be a bit of a stretch, but it is not far off."
It has been said that Al Gore saw one of these when he visited Paris, and it inspired him to create the Internet when he got home.
Thank you, France! For the fries, and now for the 'Net!
I don't get it. Why not offer web and email access via Minitel (lynx and pine, or equivalent)? It seems that FT have resisted doing this for a long time.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
As an proud, God fearing, flag loving American, I hearby announce a US boycott against Minitel to punish France for its general cowardly, frogginess in the Iraqi affair. I will no longer use it to look up phone numbers or get train times.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated.
BTW, what the hell is an "Illegal Comment"?
> Minitel is now 20 years old so, what is its webpage? :P
I'm a chainsmokin' alcoholic sociopath, so-ci-o-path
...now will you please die?
The Minitel is an obsolete piece of technology. Yes, it was revolutionary twenty years ago. But it has slowed French innovcation down ever since. The sail has become an anchor.
Why is the Minitel still in use today? France Telecome still makes a significant profit from the overpriced service and has no intention to give it up. The Minitel's prime use is what we use the interenet for, yellow and white pages.
The interface isn't simpler, the boxes are ugly and unpractical, the service costs a fortune. I can't see why the Minitel couldn't be replaced by cheap, mass produced computers connected to the internet.
Trollem mirabilem hanc subnotationis exigiutas non caperet
Minitel is trusted not just because it is an integral part of French life, but because its closed network is guaranteed virus-free and hacker-proof
Both famous last words.
That's a rather odd statement, given that 1) the defining characteristic of 'last words' is ensueing death or failure, and 2) these 'famous last words' have now lasted for some 20 years.
Seriously, 20 years working is a damn good achievement for any IT system, even if it should fall apart tomorrow.
Just to tell you that the picture in the BBC article is somehow a bit out dated and that our french third wonder (after Sophie Marceau and la baguette) has been re-styled with the utmost "french touch" to suit even the highest standards of modern technological societies.
:)
Here is what is really looks like at this time: http://www.com1.fr/images/ph_atmax_iminitel.jpg
I wonder if we could boot a linux kernel out of this baby...
So when will the Internet be upgraded to support the same features?
Ade_
Big Bubbles (no troubles) - what sucks, who sucks and you suck
Having lived in France during the introduction of the Internet, I remember many details:
:)
The Minitel is liek a BBS system, except that you got the terminal (screen and keyboard) from the phone company for cheap. There were (now it's declining due to the net) any kind of service that you could image. You thing pop-ups are bad? You haven't seen anything until you've seen a street of Paris filled with posters showing a barely clad woman and advertising some Minitel dating service.
For me the Minitel shows how even old people can embrace new technology if you make it easy for them. EVERYONE used the minitel, and companies set up Minitel servers before the concept of website was even imagined. We had chatrooms, forums (a la Slashdot) etc. Considering these were billed per minute, and billings varied from $0.2 to $1, it can get very expensive.
However having the machine at home costed you about $3-4 per month, not much considering what you could get. Most families that I know over there had a minitel, at least for using as a phone book (first 3 minutes of phone book browsing service were free).
However, it was (is) a real cash cow, so of course when the Net came along France Telecom was very reluctant to move away from this service. Which is a damn shame, because I'm sure they could have made a profit selling "Internet minitels", the same thing except with Internet access... however, with these no company can charge $1/minute, so, the move was not popular with companies either. There were some Internet phones, but at $500, they failed miserably.
Today I wish the service a quick death, because there's really nothing left there that cannot be done faster and more comfortably through the Internet (max connection speed for the minitel was, IIRC, 9600 bps, and only for some servers!). And you can recycle the devices: there's a lot of documentation of how the teletext terminal work, so you can easily hook up a network of those for whatever you want.
France was an innovator back then, but because they latched on their own system and failed to adapt, they were slow in adopting the Internet. The new generation, however, having grown up with minitel technology, was very quick to jump into the Net train. As a matter of fact, many French free webhosting services were created by guys who ran free BBS or inexpensive (the phone company always made money) Minitel servers back in the day!
The ENIAC Demo Competition
Does Minitel suffer from spam messages and pop-up ads, or has it avoided the plagues of the Internet?
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
In the mid 80's I used to work during the summer in a bank in France. When suddenly all the computers went dead. No more network. The reason for this was that the minitel and the bank network were using the same lines and the minitel suddenly had a surge in communication. Why ? Because the first "minitel rose" services had appeared. The minitel rose was some rather expensive porn chat services and they became very popular.
So there you go. Internet, minitel, same thing.
Plus ca change, plus c'est pareil.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
As featured in The Hacker's Handbook of long ago ....
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
Although directory lookups via Minitel are indeed popular, they're also free (and available via public Minitel terminals at any post office).
Few on Slashdot will be surprised to hear that the real money-maker (unfortunately, from my POV), is porn. Wherever you go in France you'll see posters that say "3615 {female name}" Entering that code at a Minitel terminal will connect you to the Minitel equivalent of a phone sex line. At least, I think that's what happens. I was in France as a Mormon missionary, so not surprisingly, I never tried it. But posters were literally everywhere, and you'd regularly hear radio ads for 3615 this and 3615 that.
While there are other uses for a 3615 prefix, cybersex was far and away the use most often advertised.
Actually, the Minitel is just a terminal with an internal (1200 bps) modem. I've used my Minitel to connect to my university mainframe, mostly to read my mail when I was on holiday.
/etc/inittab, and eventually /etc/gettydefs!
/etc/termcap and /usr/share/terminfo, you will find a few "minitel" entries.
Some people have connected their Minitel to their Linux machine. A (simple) custom cable needs to be soldered, and then all that needs to be done is to edit
The Minitel is more or less VT100-compatible, with some custom escape sequences to handle eight(?) colors (shades of gray on most models) and semi-graphical characters.
Have a look in