4 ms·

When I was 13 or so, a friend and I were walking through an alley when we saw a power cord hanging out of a dumpster. We looked in and found 3 or 4 boxes that l

by zoky 3y ago

When I was 13 or so, a friend and I were walking through an alley when we saw a power cord hanging out of a dumpster. We looked in and found 3 or 4 boxes that looked very similar to this one, which we rescued and tried to use, without much success. They would power on and you could type on them, but they wouldn’t do much else. Despite having a phone jack I couldn’t get them to connect to even a modem running a terminal emulator. This being in 1995, I didn’t really have much by way of resources to figure out what the heck they actually were. I eventually surmised that they were part of some French telephone network, but these had US keyboard layouts and ran on 110, so to this day I have no clue what they were actually useful for, why they were designed to run in the US, or who threw them in the trash or why. It might have been in the vicinity of the local French consulate, but then again it might not have, as today the consulate is several miles away, and I have no idea if it was always there or if it has moved in the intervening period. Wish I knew what happened to those weird terminals; sadly, chances are they were thrown out during a move or something.

djweis 3y ago
US West (telephone company) used them around that time. I know they were in Omaha, NE but unsure of where else in their market it was available.
MayeulC 3y ago
> They would power on and you could type on them, but they wouldn’t do much else Yup, sounds like what happens when you power on a minitel. They are essentially thin clients as far as I know. Most setups I've seen had these plugged into the same outlet as a nearby phone. You would power on the minitel, pick up the phone and dial the phone number of a remote server ("3615" was the common one). Text would start appearing on the minitel with a landing page that acted as a service index and where you would be able to type in the name of the service you wanted to access, for instance SNCF to book train tickets. For instance this is a low quality video of someone using the 3611 phonebook in 2009: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS3DazMR3QY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS3DazMR3QY There seems to be a few other phone numbers that you can still dial, hosted by individuals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2mgDSBWOxI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2mgDSBWOxI
- throwaway98367 3y ago
  Thick client - these hold some state and functionality on the client device. Thin clients are just display devices, completely incapable of anything without a server.
- gumby 3y ago
  > minitel... are essentially thin clients as far as I know. They could definitely do some local computing. Most notably to me is that by the mid 90s you could stick your credit card in and it would negotiate with the chip in the card so you could buy something securely. (Apologies to American readers who didn't get chips in their cards for another couple of decades)
  - lxgr 3y ago
    That's amazing! This isn't necessarily evidence of local computation though – the EMV protocol is fairly lightweight (even for 90s standards), and I could imagine a remote EMV terminal implementation, with the handful of ISO 7816 APDU exchanges required for a minimal payment being sent over the network. That's how e.g. the Nintendo 3DS can support Suica payments, which is another amazing (and to me unexpected) application of a normally merchant/terminal-side payments technology in consumer hardware. > Apologies to American readers who didn't get chips in their cards for another couple of decades I still use at least one non-chip/magstripe-only card regularly… Well, one day!
    - gumby 3y ago
      > I still use at least one non-chip/magstripe-only card regularly… Well, one day! I’m 2018 I went to visit my family in Australia. Only one of my US cards had a chip but I called and got a different card to send me a chip version so I’d have two. Got home, tried to buy a coffee and the bloke behind the counter called out to a colleague “hey, do we still have a way to pay with a chip?” (Of course most places did, but it was on its way out)
      - lxgr 3y ago
tyingq 3y ago
Canadian maybe? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_(videotex_service) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_(videotex_service)

by zoky 3y ago

djweis 3y ago

US West (telephone company) used them around that time. I know they were in Omaha, NE but unsure of where else in their market it was available.

MayeulC 3y ago

> They would power on and you could type on them, but they wouldn’t do much else Yup, sounds like what happens when you power on a minitel. They are essentially thin clients as far as I know. Most setups I've seen had these plugged into the same outlet as a nearby phone. You would power on the minitel, pick up the phone and dial the phone number of a remote server ("3615" was the common one). Text would start appearing on the minitel with a landing page that acted as a service index and where you would be able to type in the name of the service you wanted to access, for instance SNCF to book train tickets. For instance this is a low quality video of someone using the 3611 phonebook in 2009: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS3DazMR3QY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS3DazMR3QY There seems to be a few other phone numbers that you can still dial, hosted by individuals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2mgDSBWOxI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2mgDSBWOxI

throwaway98367 3y ago
Thick client - these hold some state and functionality on the client device. Thin clients are just display devices, completely incapable of anything without a server.
gumby 3y ago
> minitel... are essentially thin clients as far as I know. They could definitely do some local computing. Most notably to me is that by the mid 90s you could stick your credit card in and it would negotiate with the chip in the card so you could buy something securely. (Apologies to American readers who didn't get chips in their cards for another couple of decades)
- lxgr 3y ago
  That's amazing! This isn't necessarily evidence of local computation though – the EMV protocol is fairly lightweight (even for 90s standards), and I could imagine a remote EMV terminal implementation, with the handful of ISO 7816 APDU exchanges required for a minimal payment being sent over the network. That's how e.g. the Nintendo 3DS can support Suica payments, which is another amazing (and to me unexpected) application of a normally merchant/terminal-side payments technology in consumer hardware. > Apologies to American readers who didn't get chips in their cards for another couple of decades I still use at least one non-chip/magstripe-only card regularly… Well, one day!
  - gumby 3y ago
    > I still use at least one non-chip/magstripe-only card regularly… Well, one day! I’m 2018 I went to visit my family in Australia. Only one of my US cards had a chip but I called and got a different card to send me a chip version so I’d have two. Got home, tried to buy a coffee and the bloke behind the counter called out to a colleague “hey, do we still have a way to pay with a chip?” (Of course most places did, but it was on its way out)
    - lxgr 3y ago

tyingq 3y ago

Canadian maybe? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_(videotex_service) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_(videotex_service)