Are these people considered the "laggards"?
Minitel, France's precursor to the Web, to go dark 30/6/12
11–20 of 33 posts
Re: Minitel, France's precursor to the Web, to go dark 30/6/12
#12As I understand most that still use their Minitels use them as a digital phonebook next to their old phones. I mean, If you have inputed tons of numbers in to any device and it works reasonably you won't change easily.
Re: Minitel, France's precursor to the Web, to go dark 30/6/12
#13Nostalgia aside, the most important part of the (scarce) article is
> “The Minitel was innovative for about 20 minutes, and died due to where it failed: by its centralization that never allowed it to evolve technologically: because it was under the control of France Telecom, for whom that control translated into huge profits.”
> “It is true that the Minitel taught French people how to use a keyboard and how to connect to online services,” he added. “But it taught them the opposite of what is the most important lesson about the Internet: its universality, and the decentralized character of its architecture.”
> Zimmerman now worries that legislative efforts to restrict the Internet will be similar to a “return to the Minitel”—in other words, a walled garden where many Internet users don’t stray beyond sites like Google or Facebook.
Re: Minitel, France's precursor to the Web, to go dark 30/6/12
#14How was Minitel different from BBSes in the 80s?
it was run by the French government. And the hardware needed to access it was given away -- no general-purpose computer needed. And it achieved much higher penetration into the non-technical demographic than bbses ever did.
That's right. You could go to any post office, and they would give you a Minitel, for free. The main use of the Minitel was as a digital phonebook, that's why PTT (Poste, Téléphone et Télécommunications) was made responsible for distributing them. My dad still has one.
Re: Minitel, France's precursor to the Web, to go dark 30/6/12
#15I remember that the original idea was to create white/yellow page online (it was very costly to print all these white pages). Then came commercial services. You were billed according to the number you dialed (from free -3613- to very expensive service -3617-). That was my first online experience and that was magic :-) There was also a hacking scene on pirated servers where you can meet a lot of people (and it was on…
Part of the huge prices is explained by the fact terminals were subzidized. IIIRC their real cost was around 1000 FRF but were nearly given for free. This is the economic model that is still used by all mobile phones operators in France nowadays (except for Free Mobile).
Re: Minitel, France's precursor to the Web, to go dark 30/6/12
#16As I understand most that still use their Minitels use them as a digital phonebook next to their old phones. I mean, If you have inputed tons of numbers in to any device and it works reasonably you won't change easily.
I also heard many farmers are still using it to trade cattle or watch weather forecasts of their region. I wonder how they will handle the end of the Minitel.
Re: Minitel, France's precursor to the Web, to go dark 30/6/12
#17My first ever job was to demonstrate this to 'enterprisy' land in 1990. It was unquestionably the future. I would launch dial up, make a connection, and showed pages which were actually from CEEFAX. I was hailed a boy genius, neither status which obviously no longer applies.
Re: Minitel, France's precursor to the Web, to go dark 30/6/12
#18The Facebook image is ridiculous :-P Minitel terminals couldn't do proportional fonts, were 40 column by, IIRC, 24 lines and could do color. Graphics were done with a TRS-80-like 2x3 matrix blocks.
If you are going to fake something, at least do it right.
Re: Minitel, France's precursor to the Web, to go dark 30/6/12
#19In Italy we had another proto-web videotex computer, called Videotel. Less widespread than Minitel, still very similar. Its beta dates back to 1981 http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videotel
Re: Minitel, France's precursor to the Web, to go dark 30/6/12
#20By 85 or so, it was already very clear to me the most useful peripheral for my Apple II was neither the printer nor the floppy, but the 1200/75 modem.