Minitel

See also: minitel

English

Alternative forms
  • MINITEL

Etymology

French Minitel

Proper noun

Minitel

  1. (historical) A French videotex service utilising the telephone network, popular before and alongside the World Wide Web.
    • 1995 September, Richard Barbrook; Andy Cameron, “The Californian Ideology”, in Mute‎, volume 1, number 3, ISSN 1356-7748:
      The lesson of MINITEL is that hypermedia within Europe should be developed as a hybrid of state intervention, capitalist entrepreneurship and d.i.y. culture.
    • 2017 June 16, Julien Mailand, “Minitel, the Open Network Before the Internet”, in The Atlantic‎:
      Minitel was a computer terminal. It housed a screen, a keyboard, and a modem—but not a microprocessor. Instead of computing on its own, Minitel connected to remote services via uplink, like a 1960s mainframe or a modern Google Chromebook. Terminals were given out, for free, to every French telephone subscriber by the state (which also ran the phone company).

Further reading

Anagrams

French

Alternative forms

Etymology

Abbreviation of Médium interactif par numérisation d'information téléphonique (“Interactive medium for digitized information by telephone”).

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /mi.ni.tɛl/
  • Audio(file)

Proper noun

Minitel m

  1. (historical) Minitel
    • 2009, William Edmiston; Annie Dumenil, La France contemporaine, Cengage Learning, →ISBN, page 286:
      Le Minitel était le premier réseau informatique du monde, créé bien avant Internet (réseau informatique mondial). Au départ, le Minitel était destiné à remplacer l'annuaire téléphonique en papier par l'annuaire électronique, et l'on s'en servait uniquement dans les bureaux de poste.
      (please add an English translation of this quote)

Further reading
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