Reply to post: Re: Minitel

A floppy filled with software worth thousands of francs: Techie can't take it, customs won't keep it. What to do?

regadpellagru

Re: Minitel

"It was basically a VT100 with a modem that you connected to a phone line.

Then you dialed the (in)famous 3615 ( or other numbers in case of private servers, like the one we used to have at work ) and entered a code. ( there was also 3616 and 3617 services. 3615 were free the other two were pay services and in some cases quite expensive )"

Yes, and 3615 costed shitloads of money, and was routinely used by crooks. It basically was a scam.

"That's one of the reasons why Internet didn't really appear in France before ADSL showed up."

In fact, the 3615 service was pushing so much money to France Telecom they never wanted to deploy any internet service. At all.

Until the minister realized how late France was into internet and forced them to move on.

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