5 ms·

Not really. I worked for France Télécom's Wanadoo ISP division and the Minitel guys tried to sabotage us at every opportunity, including getting the head of our

by fmajid 5y ago

Not really. I worked for France Télécom's Wanadoo ISP division and the Minitel guys tried to sabotage us at every opportunity, including getting the head of our first division CEO Roger Courtois, but they did not manage to slow the progress, even though at the time they had $1B/year in revenues. The bigger hindrance was relatively low PC penetration compared to the UK, Netherlands or Germany. Fun story: at the time TCP/IP did not ship standard with Windows, so we had to ship CD-ROMs with installers for WinSock, along with a browser (initially Netscape, then IE because it had much better provisioning tools, not because of Microsoft's dirty tricks though they certainly tried). My colleague who was responsible for this was clearly so traumatized he shortly later left the company and joined the Catholic priesthood...

sailingparrot 5y ago
> The bigger hindrance was relatively low PC penetration compared to the UK, Netherlands or Germany. Wasn't that, in part, due to the fact that many people in France already had a Minitel at home?
- trasz 5y ago
  In pre-internet times the purpose of a PC was quite different from electronic communication, so I’d guess people ought to have them anyway… It’s a good question, though, why was that.
  - hnlmorg 5y ago
    In those days doing things by computer wasn't ubiquitous anyway (due to expense, lack of social/peer pressure, and fewer people were trained to use computers). So it was still common to hand write formal letters so such like. This meant that even those on older hardware like 8-bit micros with monospaced dot matrix printers were still at an advantage. So people often ran with older hardware for longer. It wasn't really until a combination of PC gaming taking off (particularly with 3D games that consoles of the same era couldn't compete with) and the WWW that many Europeans started taking IBM-compatible machine upgrades seriously.
- miniwark 5y ago
  It's only partly true, many people indeed have a Minitel at home, because it was free to have one (like it was free to have a landline phone). You only had to pay for the usage. And there was great services not yet available on WWW : find the train timetable, find the phone number of someone, chat with a (fake) sexy girl... As for the PC penetration, there was many, but most of them where not ready for network usage : Commodore, Amstrad, Amiga, Thomson and first generation IBM-PC with MS-DOS. Only the last Amiga, Macintosh and IBM compatibles had the software to use a modem (Thomson had included a Minitel as dual bot in some of their computer instead). There was no need for internet or to change the computer when WordPerfect, Multiplan and games still work perfectly. At the time, the pricey computer than you bought in the 80's was still good enough in the 90's... I think than what had incite people to get a computer with modem is not WWW but email (with was not a Minitel feature). The real thing than Minitel hindred in France are Bulletin Board Systems. They where never really a thing in France. For the curious, there are still a few unofficial Minitel services available : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-serveur_Minitel https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-serveur_Minitel All you need is a Raspberry Pi and a modified Minitel...
  - spullara 5y ago
    I spent a good proportion of my youth using a modem on C64/C128 connecting to BBSs.
  - renaudg 5y ago
    > The real thing than Minitel hindred in France are Bulletin Board Systems. They where never really a thing in France. As a Frenchman who spent most of my high school evenings on demoscene-oriented BBSes like A.C.E., Dune and Eden, I'll beg to differ and raise this : http://web.fdn.fr/~musical/bbsf.txt http://web.fdn.fr/~musical/bbsf.txt :)
    - agumonkey 5y ago
      I only heard of BBS twice in my youth, even if I was kind of a nerd, it was really a niche thing, wasn't it ? I wonder how BBS worked in those days.
    - 5y ago
123pie123 5y ago
MS Windows 3.11 came with TCP/IP winsocks, MS Windows 3.1 didn't but that was the same for all countries I had the painful job of getting Windows running with netware ie IPX also with TCP/IP
- karmakaze 5y ago
  I remember those days, travelling with a Win 3.1 laptop and a PPP stack with Winsock.dll to use dial-up in various countries. And 1-1 direct text chat apps.
- pengaru 5y ago
  > MS Windows 3.11 came with TCP/IP winsocks, MS Windows 3.1 didn't Not really, Windows For Workgroups 3.11 offered an addon called Wolverine [0] but it wasn't even included by default AFAIK. Win95 is where TCP/IP support became normal for Windows. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_3.1x#Windows_for_Workgroups_3.11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_3.1x#Windows_for_Workg...
  - 123pie123 5y ago
    jeez my memory is playing up, I must have installed it by default whilst setting all the other crap up. Like installing Office on 35+ disks

by fmajid 5y ago

sailingparrot 5y ago

> The bigger hindrance was relatively low PC penetration compared to the UK, Netherlands or Germany. Wasn't that, in part, due to the fact that many people in France already had a Minitel at home?

trasz 5y ago
In pre-internet times the purpose of a PC was quite different from electronic communication, so I’d guess people ought to have them anyway… It’s a good question, though, why was that.
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  In those days doing things by computer wasn't ubiquitous anyway (due to expense, lack of social/peer pressure, and fewer people were trained to use computers). So it was still common to hand write formal letters so such like. This meant that even those on older hardware like 8-bit micros with monospaced dot matrix printers were still at an advantage. So people often ran with older hardware for longer. It wasn't really until a combination of PC gaming taking off (particularly with 3D games that consoles of the same era couldn't compete with) and the WWW that many Europeans started taking IBM-compatible machine upgrades seriously.
miniwark 5y ago
It's only partly true, many people indeed have a Minitel at home, because it was free to have one (like it was free to have a landline phone). You only had to pay for the usage. And there was great services not yet available on WWW : find the train timetable, find the phone number of someone, chat with a (fake) sexy girl... As for the PC penetration, there was many, but most of them where not ready for network usage : Commodore, Amstrad, Amiga, Thomson and first generation IBM-PC with MS-DOS. Only the last Amiga, Macintosh and IBM compatibles had the software to use a modem (Thomson had included a Minitel as dual bot in some of their computer instead). There was no need for internet or to change the computer when WordPerfect, Multiplan and games still work perfectly. At the time, the pricey computer than you bought in the 80's was still good enough in the 90's... I think than what had incite people to get a computer with modem is not WWW but email (with was not a Minitel feature). The real thing than Minitel hindred in France are Bulletin Board Systems. They where never really a thing in France. For the curious, there are still a few unofficial Minitel services available : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-serveur_Minitel https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-serveur_Minitel All you need is a Raspberry Pi and a modified Minitel...
- spullara 5y ago
  I spent a good proportion of my youth using a modem on C64/C128 connecting to BBSs.
- renaudg 5y ago
  > The real thing than Minitel hindred in France are Bulletin Board Systems. They where never really a thing in France. As a Frenchman who spent most of my high school evenings on demoscene-oriented BBSes like A.C.E., Dune and Eden, I'll beg to differ and raise this : http://web.fdn.fr/~musical/bbsf.txt http://web.fdn.fr/~musical/bbsf.txt :)
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    I only heard of BBS twice in my youth, even if I was kind of a nerd, it was really a niche thing, wasn't it ? I wonder how BBS worked in those days.
  - 5y ago

123pie123 5y ago

MS Windows 3.11 came with TCP/IP winsocks, MS Windows 3.1 didn't but that was the same for all countries I had the painful job of getting Windows running with netware ie IPX also with TCP/IP

karmakaze 5y ago
I remember those days, travelling with a Win 3.1 laptop and a PPP stack with Winsock.dll to use dial-up in various countries. And 1-1 direct text chat apps.
pengaru 5y ago
> MS Windows 3.11 came with TCP/IP winsocks, MS Windows 3.1 didn't Not really, Windows For Workgroups 3.11 offered an addon called Wolverine [0] but it wasn't even included by default AFAIK. Win95 is where TCP/IP support became normal for Windows. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_3.1x#Windows_for_Workgroups_3.11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_3.1x#Windows_for_Workg...
- 123pie123 5y ago
  jeez my memory is playing up, I must have installed it by default whilst setting all the other crap up. Like installing Office on 35+ disks