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The End of Minitel
ZeldorBlat writes "The French Minitel service is closing it's doors at the end of today. Started in 1982, Minitel provides several services now widely available on the web including phone listings, train ticketing, and many other third-party content. Many prefered it to the web for it's simplicity and perceived security. The system is to be replaced with Le Compte Achats, available to businesses only. The notice can be found here."
I remember when Bell Canada tried to introduce a similar service - Alex - a dedicated terminal w. 300 baud modem - to try to take piggyback on the popularity of free BBS systems and pay systems like Compuserve. Of course, even the cheapest modems at the time could do 1200 - 2400 baud, and 9600 baud if you had the bucks.
It was overhyped, overpriced (30 cents/minute), and not missed at all.
I remember using public minitel terminals in Switzerland back in the 90s... it was called Videotex AFAIK. They were pretty popular, and they actually represented a good chance to meet people: there was this room next to a big bank with a few terminals, and we used to meet there with friends. I mean, I even convinced a chick to call me on the public payphone next to the terminals... And I was 14. I guess geekiness is something you're born with :)
Anyway thanks for the good fun Minitel, RIP!
The French Minitel service is closing it's doors at the end of today.
Now if only we could make the same progress with Miniluv, Minitruth, and Miniplenty.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
but I guess it was too expensive to maintain, so it had to happen.
The Minitel systemi is slow, old and expensive, but it has one great redeeming quality that the internet doesn't have: it's basically a huge star-shaped network, with the only agent between the dumb terminal (the Minitel proper) and the service provider being France Telecom: FT operates the trunk lines, the last-mile lines (it's just the POTS) and the servers that manage the whole thing. So, what's great about that is, unless someone is tapping your phone line, or some well-placed FT employee is a thieve, there is no way in hell anybody can steal your personal information. As a result, it's an extremely secure way of doing business "online". What's more, you don't need a computer, Windows, anti-virus software and whatnot, so it's great for technophobic people.
But I should say "was", since it is no more. Too bad...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I remember using Minitel maybe 10 years ago when I lived in Paris briefly. It was nice because it was very, very focused. There were no banner ads, no flashy graphics, just plain text and enough buttons to get the job done. There's no technical reason we couldn't have the same thing on the Web, but because there is so much more you can do, we get sites like Amazon's (not to pick on them; they're all bad) with 500 options that take forever to load on slow connections and nobody really wants anyway. And don't even get me started on embedded Flash movies.
The players tried to take the field. The marching band refused to yield...
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
The reason it was popular was that the users will billed per minute and some of that money went to the content provider, with the rest going to France Telecom. French business didn't like switching to web pages because they are a pure expense, while minitel pages generated some revenue. When I lived in France (mid to late 90s) my friends preferred web pages, but that simply wasn't an option in many cases.
I'm not saying that minitel doesn't have security mechanisms, I'm just saying that its popularity was due to economics.
Personally, I'm glad it is gone. I thought it was slow and clunky a decade ago, and I can't imagine that I would like it any more today.
- doug
H: This is my Universal Translator. It could have been my greatest invention, but it translates everything into an incomprehensible dead language
C: Hello.
UT:: Bonjour!
H: See? Utter gibberish!
Comments above suggest that this article suggests a more than may actually be occurring. Still, it does appear that we are beginning to approach the end of Videotex and the elaborate graphics compression schemes that supported it. That can only be a good thing. All Videotex was created with the tools that enforced the mindsets of what, today, we would usually think of as badly designed web pages. The "features" of these pages:
There was a time, before the web, when it was the only way to create visually high quality content for the net. I remember going to conferences on teletex/videotex back in the late 70's and early 80's when it seemed like a genuine alternative to dial-up terminal systems, but even then it seemed much more complicated than it needed to be. I won't say I'm glad to see it go. I will say that I'm amazed that it continued as long as it did.
Davis http://davis.foulger.net
I remember when Minitel was first introduced, and, in 1982, it was pretty hot stuff. Lots of people were playing with videotex in the 1980s (remember Telidon?), but only France seemed to find a use for it. I knew people who used Prestel, but all they ever seemed to do with it was send pr0n.
I have used Minitel when visiting France for its original purpose, putting the phone book online. It worked.
...laura
Minitel was slow and basic, but, in terms of domestic market penetration, it achieved in the 80s what the Internet didn't achieve for another 20 years. By giving out the terminals for free (initially, and then asking a peppercorn rent), and by convincing customers it was a telephone, not a computer, France Telecom got the entire nation using text-based comms, for everything from directory enquiries through weather forecasts and company reports to porn (I never did work out how that worked on a teletext screen, but there you are...) There are still plenty of Minitel users who have never taken to any of the PC or set-tpo box alternatives because they seem more complicated.
Virtually serving coffee
Hold on, the end of the Minitel? Nothing less? Because when I look at the main Minitel page there is no such thing. Plus it seems to me that if the Minitel network would stop working I would have heard about it quite a lot from my family, on TV and I'm sure we would have returned the terminal to France Télécom, not to mention that the Slashdot article would have been edited.
It rather seems that the news is rather about some particular online (on the web) service, not the end of the network itselves.
You just got troll'd!
So what makes it so much better than visiting HTTPS sites on Internet Channel for Wii?
From wikipedia:
"In the 1990's, US West, (now Qwest), launched a Minitel service offering in its service areas called "CommunityLink." The service, a joint venture of US West and France Télécom, utilized Minitel-emulator software for the IBM PC, Commodore 64, Apple II and other computers. The service was fairly short-lived,"
I _knew_ I saw a kiosk selling Minitel in Mall of America. I knew it. I was aware of Minitel so it caught my attention enough to look at the screen and have the guy exchange some words with me.
Isn't that the more appropriate headline?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.