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Bruno Martin / Reuters
A man works near a stack of French Minitel terminals which are to be broken down into their components for recycling in Portet-Sur-Garonne, southwestern France on May 23. The Minitel, the box-like terminal with a keyboard and monochrome screen, was introduced on the market in 1982 by telecommunications operator France Telecom and used by the French to get information as a phone directory or to purchase train tickets. Although there are between 600,000 - 700,000 of the units still in use, the Minitel service will end on June 30, 2012.
Bruno Martin / Reuters
A man separates components from a French Minitel terminal which are to be broken down for recycling in Portet-Sur-Garonne
Bruno Martin / Reuters
Circuit boards from French Minitel terminals which are broken down into its components, are collected for recycling in Portet-Sur-Garonne, southwestern France.
According to Wikipedia, millions of the terminals were handed out free to telephone subscribers in France who then paid by the minute for their dialup use.
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Thank goodness.... time to move on
actually it was not only to have phone numbers or to buy a ticket of train : it was also widely used just as the internet is, right now.
you could chat online, have some pr0n, (and all the benefits from the master pr0n company at that time gave their "cousin" Free telecom the power and the means to exist and to explode their concurrence prices, for the internet services and now for the cell phone contracts). you could order things through the minitel, search for general information and reach customer services, send messages to pager services, bet some money or play games, subscribe for your exams and school applications etc etc.
it was french fully fonctionnal internet 15 years before "the real deal". I remember the time when every tv show, tv commercial or radio program ended with "more info in our 3615 YYYY or 3615 ZZZZZZZ". (to enter the minitel network you had to compose the 3615, then give the minitel the code of the site you wanted and hit the button to be connected. there was also more expensive codes for high price services, and free codes - the phone book was free).
I think it changed the face of france because it gave us the opportunity to open to new technologies way before anyone else, and when internet arrived it was widely and quickly spread there, and it was useful for a lot of domains in french people lives. the design of the minitel machine (the first beige one) is also a great source of nostalgia for me, I think there's still one at my mother's :D...