Paris Nostalgia - Remembering the Minitel

When one is nostalgic about Paris, one thinks of Post WWII ballads like"La Vie en Rose, or the thriving cultural time between the Great Wars, or the boisterous and creative turn of the (last) century's Belle Epoque.

A sleek, well designed Minitel terminal for French homes

But being a gadget geek and early adopter of computers, BBS (ran one), internet, and tablets (long before iPad), some of my nostalgia lay with the French technology of the 80's: The Minitel!

Most people have never heard of it. But the Minitel, developed in the 70's, launched in 1982 in France as a way for people to be connected. The computer-like machine was given to people for free by the French telephone service.

Not only was it an electronic phone book, but you could do e-commerce, check your bank account, check stocks, and chat. Need to book a vacation? Minitel. Need to check flight or train schedules? Minitel!

Ooh-la-la, La Vie en Rose indeed!

And the Minitel had chat rooms and services allowing people to be anonymous - thus developing into the "Minitel Rose" which allowed adult kinds of chats and services! Just as now on the web, this "Minitel Rose" earned LOTS of revenue!

Minitel was convenient to use, right there where ever your phone was.

I remember, when I lived in Paris in 1986-87, that every ad announced their Minitel address. I also remember using it in my Uncle's office at his home outside of Paris. At it's height the during the mid 1990's, there were more than 25 million users able to connect to 23,000 services with their Minitel at home or the terminals in their local Poste!

People could access Minitels in the Post Office and kiosks.

One of the really remarkable things about the Minitel is that this existed long before public access to the internet existed. AOL was launched along with Prodigy and CompuServe around 1991 but didn't take hold until around 1994 - 12 years after the launch of Minitel. 

Used up until 2012, you could Facebook and Tweet on your Minitel.

I had not thought about Minitel for a long time. And apparently, I completely missed the farewell to the service last year in 2012. 30 years is certainly a good run for anything cutting edge in the world of technology.

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