I only joined FT in 1994 and most of them had moved on. My former boss Jean Lebrun worked on the marquee phone directory application, which was at the time probably the world’s highest transaction-rate database. I believe he was also involved in the abortive effort to sell the tech to Qwest in Denver.
Most of the R&D was done by the CCETT lab in Rennes, Brittany. Well into the 90s they were advocating for a graphics-oriented protocol named VEMMI to replace videotex instead of the web. Sort of a cross between X11 and a IBM 3270 terminal conceptually. There were a lot of pitched battles between the Not-invented-here and Web standards camps at FT R&D in those days.
As for the roots of the Minitel, they are a bit more prosaic. France believes in industrial policy. When president Giscard made upgrading the phone network a national priority after years of neglect under de Gaulle, the department became the largest government department by budget. When that started to taper off in the late 70s, they needed to find a new outlet for the manufacturing capacity that had hitherto being making Alcatel E10 TDM switches, and the Minitel was that outlet. One of my 6th-grade classmates was actually part of the Vélizy trial project. The paid external provider model was the result of the press worrying FT would compete with them in information services and insisting on an open model.
Later Minitels were VT100 compatible, albeit with an atrocious keyboard. I used one as terminal to connect to my university’s Vax running Unix over a 9600 baud serial line from my dorm room. Considering it was free when a real VT100 was more expensive than a PC, that was a substantial cost engineering achievement.
Thank you. I was wondering if we could continue the conversation via email? My email should be in my profile. No worries if you don't have time. Mine is limited as well. I just feel that there's a lot history being lost when we don't record any history from engineers who weren't project heads or the original creator. In Minitel's case, it feels worse because it was hard to find information on Bernard Marti, at least in English. I also get this sick feeling knowing that many of the 20th century's engineers have been dying and much of that history is lost forever.
Most of the R&D was done by the CCETT lab in Rennes, Brittany. Well into the 90s they were advocating for a graphics-oriented protocol named VEMMI to replace videotex instead of the web. Sort of a cross between X11 and a IBM 3270 terminal conceptually. There were a lot of pitched battles between the Not-invented-here and Web standards camps at FT R&D in those days.
As for the roots of the Minitel, they are a bit more prosaic. France believes in industrial policy. When president Giscard made upgrading the phone network a national priority after years of neglect under de Gaulle, the department became the largest government department by budget. When that started to taper off in the late 70s, they needed to find a new outlet for the manufacturing capacity that had hitherto being making Alcatel E10 TDM switches, and the Minitel was that outlet. One of my 6th-grade classmates was actually part of the Vélizy trial project. The paid external provider model was the result of the press worrying FT would compete with them in information services and insisting on an open model.
Later Minitels were VT100 compatible, albeit with an atrocious keyboard. I used one as terminal to connect to my university’s Vax running Unix over a 9600 baud serial line from my dorm room. Considering it was free when a real VT100 was more expensive than a PC, that was a substantial cost engineering achievement.