[ucs]

Growing up in France in the late eighties, I once read an article in the gaming magazine Joystick that piqued my interest to no end. It was all about the wonderful world of téléchargement -- downloading -- through the Minitel.

Once I finally got my hands on the serial cable needed to connect the family's Minitel to my first computer, an Amstrad CPC6128, I was in business... As if by magic, a new game had teleported through the telephone network, materializing on a previously blank floppy disk. My 9-year old mind was well and truly blown! This was 1989 and I had just downloaded a game.

Never mind that the transfer took an eternity, resulting in a hefty charge to my parents' phone bill. Never mind that I had very little interest in the game itself -- it was only Bubble Bobble, after all. No, the downloading process is what fascinated me. A whole new world of possibilities had just opened up.

But a year later I was crestfallen: we had moved to the United States and there was no Minitel. Perhaps fortuitously, there were no Amstrad computers either. The complete lack of Amstrad software stateside was solid ground for requesting a new computer. Now armed with a brand new 286 PC and a 2400 baud modem, the Minitel was soon forgotten as I discovered the joys of local BBSes, inevitably ending up running a rather popular one of my own.

America may not have had the Minitel, but it more than made up for it with a thriving BBS scene, fostered by those gloriously free local phone calls.

[Animats]

The funny thing was that in the US, there was Minitel. But you had to get a terminal, or a PC emulator for one. France Telecom deployed dial-in ports in most US cities. It was popular with French expatriates, because there was no extra charge to reach services in France.

There was a failed attempt by a Silicon Valley company, "101 Online", to deploy Minitel terminals in the US. The terminals were available in electronics surplus stores for years.

[ucs]

That's an interesting tidbit of Minitel lore that I did not know about until today, thanks!

But I'm afraid that even in the DC metro area, among French embassy personnel no less, few people knew about such a thing. We certainly didn't. Most French folks who missed the Minitel just ended up subscribing to one of the major online services of the time, namely CompuServe and Prodigy.

Besides, without the benefit of those giant billboards featuring topless young ladies[1] the Minitel never stood a chance in the US.

[1] Was it 3615 ULLA? ;)

[DanBC]

> We certainly didn't. Most French folks who missed the Minitel just ended up subscribing to one of the major online services of the time, namely CompuServe and Prodigy.

People might not realise just how eye-wateringly expensive these services were.

In 1988 Compuserve charged $11 per hour. (Very roughly, that's $22 today).

I'm not sure what Prodigy charged, but it's amazing how much people used to spend on very slow online connectivity.

http://imgur.com/a/zdoZj

[flyinghamster]

Note, however, that charges (or lack thereof) for local phone calls varied greatly by region. Major cities like New York or Chicago had "message units," and a customer would get X message units free per month, depending on the service plan. In general, a local call was one unit, while calls further out within the metro area would be billed several units at the beginning and one per minute afterward. In some cases, unlimited plans were available at a hefty price.

Other areas, like Atlanta, had unlimited calling over a wide area, while rural areas often only offered toll-free calling within town, or perhaps to one or two nearby towns.

I miss the local BBS scene of that era, but I don't miss the hassle of analog modems, long-distance charges, and (by today's standards) laughably slow speeds. Even a low-end smartphone is light-years ahead of 1980s tech.

Amazingly, FidoNet is still a thing, though many of its systems are now on the internet instead of analog modems. It might come in handy again if the internet apocalypse happens.