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Minitel, France's precursor to the Web, to go dark 30/6/12

arstechnica.com

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Re: Minitel, France's precursor to the Web, to go dark 30/6/12

#21

Post by Mvandenbergh »

gioele wrote: post #13

Nostalgia 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 connec…

I think 20 minutes understates it quite a lot. The first Minitels were introduced in the late 1970s, which is pretty early for a digital data service used by the mass market.

Re: Minitel, France's precursor to the Web, to go dark 30/6/12

#22

Post by gaius »

Mvandenbergh wrote: post #21
gioele wrote: post #13

Nostalgia 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 connec…

I think 20 minutes understates it quite a lot. The first Minitels were introduced in the late 1970s, which is pretty early for a digital data service used by the mass market.

Exactly. You would think from the derision around the Web today, that they had, back in the 70s, smartphones and AJAX and Google and blah, blah but they chose to use dial-up terminals, because they were stupid...

Re: Minitel, France's precursor to the Web, to go dark 30/6/12

#23

Post by mik4el »

kleim wrote: post #16
mik4el wrote: post #12

As 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.

yeah weather forcasts must be great compared to e.g. a newspaper but inferior to a computer of course. Simple internet machines have a clear place in society, thats been shown again and again from minitel to cheap mobile phones in the third world...

Re: Minitel, France's precursor to the Web, to go dark 30/6/12

#24

Post by rbanffy »

gioele wrote: post #13

Nostalgia 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 connec…

> and died due to where it failed: by its centralization

It's not like you couldn't dial a private server. Due to the popularity of minitel terminals in Brazil (compared to personal computers with modems) many BBSs supported minitel terminals.

Re: Minitel, France's precursor to the Web, to go dark 30/6/12

#25

Post by zwieback »

The European online services (MiniTel, BildshirmText, VideoTel (others?)) show that sometimes innovation can come from crusty, state-run monopolies. I think the telecoms realized that there was something useful there but ultimately didn't quite provide what consumers wanted.

None of these projects could have succeeded in the open market at the time but I give credit to the monopolies for trying.

Re: Minitel, France's precursor to the Web, to go dark 30/6/12

#26

Post by kahawe »

In Austria and Germany the telcos were trying to push a similar technology called "BTX" ("Bildschirmtext", German for "screen text") or "Vtx" (Videotext) but it never really caught on and died even faster when the internet came around. But similar to internet-on-your-TV boxes, there was the "MUPID[1]" supposed to give you access to BTX on your tv!

I remember when I was in France most roadhouses had minitel terminals which you could feed with coins, much like phone booths back in the day or internet-corners nowadays. This was already the time when the internet was slowly starting to spread over here, at least amongst young geeks and seeing the minitel still widely in use like that was really weird for me.

[1] http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=1112&...

Re: Minitel, France's precursor to the Web, to go dark 30/6/12

#27

Post by elliottcarlson »

kleim wrote: post #16
mik4el wrote: post #12

As 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.

They will still have Teletext on their TV's which provides a lot of the same information (though only one way).

For those not familiar with Teletext, here is an online portal as an example: http://www.rtbf.be/services/teletexte/ - some teletext services even offer chatting via SMS messages, which then show up on the TV screen.

Re: Minitel, France's precursor to the Web, to go dark 30/6/12

#28

Post by mjwalshe »

rbanffy wrote: post #24
gioele wrote: post #13

Nostalgia 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 connec…

> and died due to where it failed: by its centralization It's not like you couldn't dial a private server. Due to the popularity of minitel terminals in Brazil (compared to personal computers with modems) many BBSs supported minitel terminals.

i think FIDO and manyother BBS's suported videotext modes

Re: Minitel, France's precursor to the Web, to go dark 30/6/12

#29

Post by mjwalshe »

zwieback wrote: post #25

The European online services (MiniTel, BildshirmText, VideoTel (others?)) show that sometimes innovation can come from crusty, state-run monopolies. I think the telecoms realized that there was something useful there but ultimately didn't quite provide what consumers wanted. None of these projects could have succeeded in the open market at the time but I give credit to the monopolies for trying.

Yes recall people comenting that PRESTEL did amazing things back in the day when BT was still efectivly a civil service organisation.

PRESTEL was designed in an era where if the female employes got married they had to leave the company. And there where strict rules about how senior you had to be before you got a chair with arms

Re: Minitel, France's precursor to the Web, to go dark 30/6/12

#30

Post by kleim »

Some astounding figures about Minitel in the beginning of this other article: http://owni.fr/2012/06/28/jai-ete-animatrice-de-minitel-rose...

Translated from French: "In 2011, 420,000 people 'only' have connected, against 25 million at its peak. '3615 ULLA', the most famous Minitel sex service, still totals 21,000 hits a month, against 2 million 10 years ago."

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