I just learnt the French invented the first useful computer network, or internet. You could book flights, buy things from stores, get into databases, and join message boards, check stock prices, and we are talking the year 1980.
It was so advanced other countries didn't even understand it enough to discuss it in tech news.
It is amazing that this service lasted all the way to 2012 with at least 10 million subscribers left.
Basically this French company had complete monopoly over 10 million individuals, and total monopoly of the only internet then (1980), yet they failed to exploit its true potential, they even refused to reinvent themselves in modern times with their large share of costumers.
What is wrong with the French? They held the future in their hands and did nothing with it... a few services like printing services for quick text printing, a few word applications, adoption of modern third party software... Telecom France could have had it all... And in the end (2010), they didnt even want to milk their 10 million costumers, they much prefered to sell regular internet connection and cable tv and other common services...
There was many, many occations of pure fucking stupidity in tech that changed the landscape we know today Digital Research could have been IBM+Microsoft in the 80s/90s if they would have just gotten over their own huberus and licensed CP/M under looser terms. They were just not willing to play ball unlike MS who didn't give two shits if you relabeled their OS (MS-DOS/PC-DOS) or BASIC (The million implementations of MS BASIC that was rebranded).
Dylan Cooper
>What is wrong with the French? They held the future in their hands and did nothing with it... Net neutrality came and stopped all innovation. :(
Liam Reed
Evenin' cavedwellers
Aiden Morris
>2018 >blaming Mr. and Mrs. Kildalls for breaking The Deal People still don't know about Bills mother in this day and age? The deal with DR was way better for IBM, yet "somehow" they have still chosen MS
Aiden King
All IBM cared about is that they could label it as their own (PC-DOS), dosn't matter how good or bad the deal was otherwise, they wanted the branding rights. DR gave the moon and sun but refused the one thing IBM cared about.
Charles Jenkins
>All IBM cared about is that they could label it as their own I'm implying that's not what they cared about at all, which might explain IBMs strange business decisions. Mary Gates was close to the CEO of IBM, John Opel, back from the days when they were both in the board of directors in United Way. It's certain that she at least talked with him about her sons little business venture, as she was quite involved in MS with her connections.
Jeremiah Torres
>The deal with DR was way better for IBM, yet "somehow" they have still chosen MS Because Gary Killdal tried to make a power play against IBM, and IBM realized they were dealing with someone who would be a thorn in their side. So they went with the competition. However, what they didn't realize is that Billyboy is a sociopath and acted cordial and polite to their face while stabbing them in the back.
Regardless, things have mostly worked out for the best, with Linux and FOSS in general. You think things are bad because of the drama regarding IBM, Gary, and Bill... but if IBM had unilateral control, they would have fucked over users just as hard, if not worse, than even Steve Jobs did their customers and ecosystem.
Daniel Rodriguez
basically it was a cash cow. In France we have a school called ENA National Administration School This one shits 200 useless autists every year, that monopolize nearly all the CEO/Chairman/... positions. Since they are real autists they can quote by heart a complete book from 1865. But they are unable to do anything else than sucking each other cocks.
France is doomed.
Owen Ward
wew lad
Noah Reyes
>what are bbs
While a true marvel of early online services I wouldn't call Minitel 'internet'. They were just doing point-to-point connections over the national phone network.
Levi Richardson
do you even know what internet is you stupid fuck?
Christopher Cooper
>Telecom France It's France Telecom >In 2010 People stopped using minitels in France since at least the late 1990's. I remember nobody using their minitel in 2002 or even 2000. The service was dead but I think it was really a dumb idea to just stop the service since it costed like 10k euros a year to france telecom to keep them online.
Joshua Ross
Retarded post. Nothing to do with the current topic, fuck off to Jow Forums
explain the difference between bbs and minitel network you stupid mutt
Ryder Cook
>explain the difference between bbs and minitel network you stupid mutt minitel was more like prodigy or compuserv than a BBS
Isaac Johnson
Hardly a French Revolution!
PRESTEL in the UK was launched in 1979.
Landon Sanchez
It was still used by professional, especially in remote areas where they don't care about new tech. Like doctors, bakery, truck companies.
My grandpa is a doctor and still have one but I never seen it used online. I could only write text on it without any UI or anything. Kind of like vim without the shortcuts.
On TV there was a lot of ads about minitel rose where you could have sexy chat anonymously and hook up through classified. It was expensive to connect there though and I was too young when this was up.
Thomas Hall
To be honest, Americans feel they have a "mission" to educate everyone. But on the other hand, Jow Forums doesn't realize that a lot of stuff that's posted here never gets popular outside of USA. Some of these things aren't even sold/distributed outside of USA. Sort of like Japnese flip-phones or Chinese QR codes. Every country has it's own technology.
Andrew Stewart
and the reason for minitel's success? lewd stuff in plenty. im fine with that - tho. lot's of smart euro folks made their fist money via minitel. good times.
Isaiah Watson
Dude they were sending stock ticker info in the 1800s
Jaxon Gomez
You could really do all that from a phone. It was nifty, but people didn't really need it. USA and other cunts had various modem BBSs already back then. www became a meme in the mid-late 90s for a different reason
Samuel Wood
The French suck, but minitel was ahead of it's time. Like Ceefax and BBS systems had a baby
I still wanna find one of the old terminals and hack it into a serial terminal for one of my Linux boxes
