How many of you out there have been here long enough to have used a Minitel ? Service is finally going to be stopped in June 2012. (http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/le-minitel-tirera-sa-reverence-le-30-juin-2012-39762592.htm)
When we first came it was an invaluable tool at both work and at home. It probably slowed the adoption of the Internet in France.
I remember it well. Used it all the time way back when and I still come across people who prefer it to the internet. It was once ahead of its time and I think you’re right – it did slow down the arrival of the internet here.
an old topic but this is a recent offering from France 24.
It mentions hacking and I remember the most famous hacker on Prestel, the BT offering - when the so called Squeaky Da Mouse (Robert Schifreen and Steve Gold) hacked the Duke of Edinburgh’s personal mail account.
and the Schifreen/Gold hack archive from 2016:
I think I must have slept through Minitel… 
Minitel was so useful, I think it delayed the wider use of the Internet in France. As well as being a free alternative to Directory Enquiries for Pages Jaunes/Blanches, you could access all sorts of content on it. Used to use it to reserve train tickets and get details of potential customers. I had ours in the office connected to a dot matrix printer.
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@Steve_YATES_2 hope you didn’t mind me “borrowing” and resurrecting your old topic
I used Minitel a lot when I flew into France from the UK for filing flight plans at all sorts of remote airfields. Very useful tool.
Didn’t realise I started the topic 11 years ago. It came up on an email reminder earlier and I didn’t read the whole thread
Didn’t know they were used for flight plans, will tell my glider owning mate when we speak tomorrow. It was used as a terminal for all sorts of industrial applications.
I still know someone who have their Minitel on display in their living room, one of the snazzy two tone brown jobs
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I designed hardware and software for French Canal+ STBs that used the Minitel PAVI network in the 90’s. The Minitel PAVI specification was a bitch to implement as so many products on the French PAVI network didn’t implement the spec correctly 
. I for one am not really sad to see it go really.
Interesting. My next door neighbour, a French IT specialist, is also of the view that the French love affair with minitel, and the fact that it was world-leading, delayed their adoption of the internet.
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