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My dad came one day in 1982 with one as they were given them for free. Plugged it, and gave me the manual to figure it out :) The minitel is an anomaly a sort

by llsf 4y ago

My dad came one day in 1982 with one as they were given them for free. Plugged it, and gave me the manual to figure it out :) The minitel is an anomaly a sort of black swan. One of those brilliant idea that is not obvious, maybe even not for its creators. My mom (born in 1952) for the longest time was doing online shopping (La Redoute, CAMIF) through the minitel. She was doing her banking also through minitel. I got my exam results through minitel... watching those lines appearing one by one was nail-bitting! It was limited, but it still allowed my parents to do online shopping back in the 80's (40 years ago), and to some extent it put a lot of kids of my generation into computers. Even one French billionaire, Xavier Niel started with minitel "rose" (i.e. online porn) in mid-80's. The government paid for the R&D (CCETT) and the production (it was given for free at first). France was trying to come up with new technologies like the TGV (high speed train from 1981) or the phone card with EMV chip (1984) that you could use in booth to call (no more coins), and the minitel was one of them. 15 years later once at the University (like a mile away were the Minitel was born), my professor fondly reminded us the chaos when in 1985 the french government decided to distribute hundred of thousands of computers in all the schools, and that they had to train more than one hundred thousand teachers to computer science before the back to school. Fun times :)

echoradio 4y ago
So the French even had “Septembre éternel” before everyone else? ;)
FranklinMaillot 4y ago
> France was trying to come up with new technologies like the TGV (high speed train from 1981) or the phone card with EMV chip (1984) that you could use in booth to call (no more coins), and the minitel was one of them. Don't forget Bi-Bop (1991), the French mobile phone before mobile phones were a thing. To use it you had to find the blue and green sticker that marked the location of an antenna and stand next to it.
- UncleSlacky 4y ago
  They tried something similar in the UK ("Rabbit") around the same time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_(telecommunications) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_(telecommunications)
- galgot 4y ago
  The first ever Apple laptop with wireless connection was in fact done in collaboration with France Telecom, and was supposed to work with the Bi-Bop service, Very few were made (around 650) and sold, they were version of the PowerBook 180 with an added connection module and antenna (CT2 norm) in place of the internal floppy drive, and called PowerBop. It lasted a very short time before the Bi-Bop thing was abandoned. The remaining "PowerBop"s were sold at lower prices with the floppy drive reinstalled, but still having a weird notch in the case for the CT2 module... They are very sought after by collectors, as very rare . Got one from a Gentleman living near La Défense (Paris big business center) at the time, one of the few places where some Bi-Bop antenna were installed. Told me the thing worked, sure slow... he would sit under the antenna and check mails, and would feel like living in 2000s , but it was 1994... https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBop https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBop

by llsf 4y ago

echoradio 4y ago

So the French even had “Septembre éternel” before everyone else? ;)

FranklinMaillot 4y ago

> France was trying to come up with new technologies like the TGV (high speed train from 1981) or the phone card with EMV chip (1984) that you could use in booth to call (no more coins), and the minitel was one of them. Don't forget Bi-Bop (1991), the French mobile phone before mobile phones were a thing. To use it you had to find the blue and green sticker that marked the location of an antenna and stand next to it.

UncleSlacky 4y ago
They tried something similar in the UK ("Rabbit") around the same time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_(telecommunications) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_(telecommunications)
galgot 4y ago
The first ever Apple laptop with wireless connection was in fact done in collaboration with France Telecom, and was supposed to work with the Bi-Bop service, Very few were made (around 650) and sold, they were version of the PowerBook 180 with an added connection module and antenna (CT2 norm) in place of the internal floppy drive, and called PowerBop. It lasted a very short time before the Bi-Bop thing was abandoned. The remaining "PowerBop"s were sold at lower prices with the floppy drive reinstalled, but still having a weird notch in the case for the CT2 module... They are very sought after by collectors, as very rare . Got one from a Gentleman living near La Défense (Paris big business center) at the time, one of the few places where some Bi-Bop antenna were installed. Told me the thing worked, sure slow... he would sit under the antenna and check mails, and would feel like living in 2000s , but it was 1994... https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBop https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBop