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."

Comments

The death of Videotex?

[dfoulger]

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:

• they weren't resizable
• they had very limited resolution graphics
• text was most often transmitted as a graphical representation rather than as real text
• pages had to be created in a compatible Videotext editor

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.

Not as dumb as all that

[melonman]

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.