[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