4 ms·

FWIW, my engineering school's IT team still has Minitels in use in their various server rooms, because it can be used as serial console for a variety of devices

FWIW, my engineering school's IT team still has Minitels in use in their various server rooms, because it can be used as serial console for a variety of devices (you know, just in case everything is broken and physical presence is required). The Retrocave Man should be able to do the same and enjoy our AZERTY keyboard.

amiga-workbench 9y ago
https://imgur.com/a/R6pFi https://imgur.com/a/R6pFi Yep, the adapter is easy to build. The minitel character set also has some handy glyphs in it for graphics.
- andrelaszlo 9y ago
  That's awesome! Do you have more information/documentation?
  - amiga-workbench 9y ago
    http://pila.fr/wordpress/?p=361 http://pila.fr/wordpress/?p=361 Sure, I used this guide. http://millevaches.hydraule.org/info/minitel/specs/ http://millevaches.hydraule.org/info/minitel/specs/ Here is some information on the character codes too.
    - hazeii 9y ago
      Just had a look in the library; I seem to have about half a dozen minitel manuals in there. Minitel terminal specs, "Specifications de la fonction decodage Videotex des Minitels" plus X25 stuff like "Specifications Techniques d'Utilisation du Reroutage TELETEL" and "Specifications Techniques d'Utilisation du Point d'Acess Videotex". Any use?
      - amiga-workbench 9y ago
        Those sound quite helpful. I'd love get a setup where I could talk to my minitel directly over its POTS line rather than having to enter the hotkey for serial terminal every time I power it on.
  - chapelierfou 9y ago
    I built one of these adapters some time ago, you can find some information and useful resources here: https://chapelierfou.org/2016/06/a-minitel-as-a-linux-terminal/ https://chapelierfou.org/2016/06/a-minitel-as-a-linux-termin...
simias 9y ago
AZERTY really is a terrible layout though, I can't find anything it's good at, not even typing french. You can't write É, È or À on a standard AZERTY keyboard for instance. If you're programming you're going to have the alt-gr key pressed half the time but admittedly that's mainly because programming languages are qwerty-centric. But hey, you can type 'µ' with a single unmodified keystroke!
- moviuro 9y ago
  > You can't write É, È or À on a standard AZERTY keyboard for instance That's a limitation on Windows (and macOS?). On Linux, CAPS LOCK + é = É ; etc.
- maeln 9y ago
  On Linux, CAPS-LOCK + é produce É. Ithink it works on Mac OS too. Only windows doesn't handle it. But I do agree, Azerty is not that good most of the time. Especially when it comes to programming.
  - louhike 9y ago
    You can use the following link (in french) to be able to do it on Windows: http://chrisbertrand.net/fr/articles/clavier_fr_esp_maj.html http://chrisbertrand.net/fr/articles/clavier_fr_esp_maj.html
  - simias 9y ago
    I didn't know about the caps lock method (I always have it remapped to ctrl) but still, it's more like a workaround than a true solution IMO. Using caps lock to capitalize a word doesn't seem very pleasant: "Étant donné..."
  - lloeki 9y ago
    > I think it works on Mac OS too Indeed, same on Apple's "French" keyboard layout, unless you select the "French (numeric)" one, in which case caps lock produces numbers. Also, ` is a dead key, as is ^ and ¨, which works with caps too, but there's no dead key for acute accent (é). Other bits of trivia: On macOS, the numeric keypad (if any) is always num-lock'd. The Apple "French" layouts are vastly different from the PC ones (also available as "French - PC"), relying on visual symbolism for extra glyphs which makes them (sort of) easier to remember: option-n is ~ (which turns out to be a dead key) option-l is ¬, option-t is † option-shift-l is | option-( is { and option-shift-( is [ “smart” ‘quotes’ are on " and ' with option and option-shift there are ligatures too: shiftable æ œ ﬁ on option-a o and g question and exclamation marks are reversed with option too: ! -> ¡ and ? -> ¿ option-d is ∂ PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL, option-shift-s is ∑, option-m is µ, option-f is ƒ now guess how you do: © ™ ® £ gives # when option'd (even though there's a dedicated @+# key) shift-- is underscore, option-- is en-dash, option-shift-- is em-dash similarly, there's also (grouped per physical key: no mod, shift, option, shift+option): < > ≤ ≥ = + ≠ ± : / ÷ \

amiga-workbench 9y ago

https://imgur.com/a/R6pFi https://imgur.com/a/R6pFi Yep, the adapter is easy to build. The minitel character set also has some handy glyphs in it for graphics.

andrelaszlo 9y ago
That's awesome! Do you have more information/documentation?
- amiga-workbench 9y ago
  http://pila.fr/wordpress/?p=361 http://pila.fr/wordpress/?p=361 Sure, I used this guide. http://millevaches.hydraule.org/info/minitel/specs/ http://millevaches.hydraule.org/info/minitel/specs/ Here is some information on the character codes too.
  - hazeii 9y ago
    Just had a look in the library; I seem to have about half a dozen minitel manuals in there. Minitel terminal specs, "Specifications de la fonction decodage Videotex des Minitels" plus X25 stuff like "Specifications Techniques d'Utilisation du Reroutage TELETEL" and "Specifications Techniques d'Utilisation du Point d'Acess Videotex". Any use?
    - amiga-workbench 9y ago
      Those sound quite helpful. I'd love get a setup where I could talk to my minitel directly over its POTS line rather than having to enter the hotkey for serial terminal every time I power it on.
- chapelierfou 9y ago
  I built one of these adapters some time ago, you can find some information and useful resources here: https://chapelierfou.org/2016/06/a-minitel-as-a-linux-terminal/ https://chapelierfou.org/2016/06/a-minitel-as-a-linux-termin...

simias 9y ago

AZERTY really is a terrible layout though, I can't find anything it's good at, not even typing french. You can't write É, È or À on a standard AZERTY keyboard for instance. If you're programming you're going to have the alt-gr key pressed half the time but admittedly that's mainly because programming languages are qwerty-centric. But hey, you can type 'µ' with a single unmodified keystroke!

moviuro 9y ago
> You can't write É, È or À on a standard AZERTY keyboard for instance That's a limitation on Windows (and macOS?). On Linux, CAPS LOCK + é = É ; etc.
maeln 9y ago
On Linux, CAPS-LOCK + é produce É. Ithink it works on Mac OS too. Only windows doesn't handle it. But I do agree, Azerty is not that good most of the time. Especially when it comes to programming.
- louhike 9y ago
  You can use the following link (in french) to be able to do it on Windows: http://chrisbertrand.net/fr/articles/clavier_fr_esp_maj.html http://chrisbertrand.net/fr/articles/clavier_fr_esp_maj.html
- simias 9y ago
  I didn't know about the caps lock method (I always have it remapped to ctrl) but still, it's more like a workaround than a true solution IMO. Using caps lock to capitalize a word doesn't seem very pleasant: "Étant donné..."
- lloeki 9y ago
  > I think it works on Mac OS too Indeed, same on Apple's "French" keyboard layout, unless you select the "French (numeric)" one, in which case caps lock produces numbers. Also, ` is a dead key, as is ^ and ¨, which works with caps too, but there's no dead key for acute accent (é). Other bits of trivia: On macOS, the numeric keypad (if any) is always num-lock'd. The Apple "French" layouts are vastly different from the PC ones (also available as "French - PC"), relying on visual symbolism for extra glyphs which makes them (sort of) easier to remember: option-n is ~ (which turns out to be a dead key) option-l is ¬, option-t is † option-shift-l is | option-( is { and option-shift-( is [ “smart” ‘quotes’ are on " and ' with option and option-shift there are ligatures too: shiftable æ œ ﬁ on option-a o and g question and exclamation marks are reversed with option too: ! -> ¡ and ? -> ¿ option-d is ∂ PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL, option-shift-s is ∑, option-m is µ, option-f is ƒ now guess how you do: © ™ ® £ gives # when option'd (even though there's a dedicated @+# key) shift-- is underscore, option-- is en-dash, option-shift-- is em-dash similarly, there's also (grouped per physical key: no mod, shift, option, shift+option): < > ≤ ≥ = + ≠ ± : / ÷ \