Julien Mailland - Minitel: Welcome to the Internet

Platform Studies

Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost, editors

Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System, Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost, 2009

Codename Revolution: The Nintendo Wii Platform, Steven E. Jones and George K. Thiruvathukal, 2012

The Future Was Here: The Commodore Amiga, Jimmy Maher, 2012

Flash: Building the Interactive Web, Anastasia Salter and John Murray, 2014

I AM ERROR: The Famicom / Nintendo Entertainment System Platform, Nathan Altice, 2015

Peripheral Vision: Bell Labs, the S-C 4020, and the Origins of Computer Art, Zabet Patterson, 2015

Now the Chips Are Down: The BBC Micro, Alison Gazzard, 2016

Minitel: Welcome to the Internet, Julien Mailland and Kevin Driscoll, 2017

Julien Mailland and Kevin Driscoll

The MIT Press

Cambridge, Massachusetts

London, England

2017 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.

This book was set in ITC Stone Serif Std by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited. Printed and bound in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Mailland, Julien, author. | Driscoll, Kevin, author.

Title: Minitel : welcome to the Internet / Julien Mailland and Kevin Driscoll.

Description: Cambridge, MA : The MIT Press, 2017. | Series: Platform studies

| Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016042225 | ISBN 9780262036221 (hardcover : alk. paper)

eISBN 9780262340199

Subjects: LCSH: Minitel (Videotex system) | Technology and

state--France--History--20th century. | Technology and

state--France--History--21st century.

Classification: LCC QA76.57.M55 M35 2017 | DDC 384.3/3--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016042225

ePub Version 1.0

How can someone create a breakthrough game for a mobile phone or a compelling work of art for an immersive 3D environment without understanding that the mobile phone and the 3D environment are different sorts of computing platforms? The best artists, writers, programmers, and designers are well aware of how certain platforms facilitate certain types of computational expression and innovation. Likewise, computer science and engineering have long considered how underlying computing systems can be analyzed and improved. As important as scientific and engineering approaches are, and as significant as work by creative artists has been, there is also much to be learned from the sustained, intensive, humanistic study of digital media. We believe it is time for humanists to seriously consider the lowest level of computing systems and their relationship to culture and creativity.

The Platform Studies series has been established to promote the investigation of underlying computing systems and of how they enable, constrain, shape, and support the creative work that is done on them. The series investigates the foundations of digital mediathe computing systems, both hardware and software, that developers and users depend upon for artistic, literary, and gaming development. Books in the series will certainly vary in their approaches, but they will all share certain features:

• a focus on a single platform or a closely related family of platforms
• technical rigor and in-depth investigation of how computing technologies work
• an awareness of and a discussion of how computing platforms exist in a context of culture and society, being developed on the basis of cultural concepts and then contributing to culture in a variety of waysfor instance, by affecting how people perceive computing.

Minitel was brought to life through the ingenuity of countless engineers, entrepreneurs, administrators, and enthusiasts. While Internet folklore tends to celebrate small groups of computer wizards hacking away in basements and garages, Minitel thrived at the forefront of French popular culture. During the 1980s and 1990s, Minitel was on the street, in the cinema, on the radio, and in the news. People from all over France experimented with the new mediummen and women, young and old, urbanites and country dwellers, rich and poor, gay and straight. That Minitel continues to provoke our thinking about technology, policy, and culture is a tribute to the creativity and curiosity of its diverse users.

Just as Minitel was produced by a multitude, many different people assisted in the preparation of this book. We would like to thank the staff at Orange/Direction de la Gestion et de la Conservation de lInformation, the Conseil dtat, and the Archives Nationales whose help in locating and scanning materials was crucialin particular, Emmanuelle Flament-Guelfucci, Pierre Philippi, and Irmine Vieira as well as the community of researchers and Orange employees and former employees in Brittany, Paris, and San Francisco who provided us with access, support, feedback, and unbridled enthusiasm about the ongoing relevance of Minitel: Isabelle Astic, Patrice Battiston, Yochai Benkler, Jean-Luc Beraudo De Pralormo, John Coate, Daniel Hannaby, Bernard Louvel, Jean-Paul Maury, Georges Nahon, Camille Paloque-Berges, Bernard Peuto, Monroe Price, Valrie Schafer, Grard Thry, Benjamin Thierry, and Marc Weber. In addition to archival research, this book depends on several firsthand accounts, and we are grateful to those individuals who agreed to sit for interviews: Michel Baujard, Jean-Luc Beraudo De Pralormo, Laurent Chemla, John Coate, Daniel Hannaby, Jean-Baptiste Ingold, Michel Landaret, Bernard Louvel, Allan Lundell, Jean-Marc Manach, Bernard Marti, Jean-Paul Maury, Georges Nahon, Dusty Parks, Jean-Eudes Quefflec, Christian Quest, Grard Thry, and LaRoy Tymes.

A big shout-out goes to todays Minitel enthusiasts whose hacks, pranks, and tributes provided us with inspiration and insight during the preparation of this book. We are especially grateful to those minitelistes who document their explorations for other to follow. Special thanks are due to Frdric Cambus, whose archives of Minitel and French bulletin board systems materials were invaluable during the research process.

We would like to thank Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort, editors of the Platform Studies series, for their early enthusiasm and ongoing support for the project, and Doug Sery, acquisitions editor at the MIT Press, Virginia Crossman, assistant editor at the MIT Press, and Susan Clark, catalog manager at the MIT Press, for their stewardship. Finally, we would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful feedback.

Julien would like to thank his colleagues at Indiana University, especially Barb Cherry, Annie Lang, Matt Pierce, Harmeet Sawhney, and David Waterman for always lending a keen Minitel ear, Vicki Nash and the participants in the 2011 Oxford Internet Institute Summer Doctoral Program, and his committee members at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism: Jonathan Aronson, Franois Bar, Steve Lamy, Daniel Lynch, and Philip Seib.

Kevin wishes to thank his colleagues at Microsoft Research New England for their guidance and support, particularly Andrea Alarcon, Nancy Baym, Christian Borgs, Sarah Brayne, Jennifer Chayes, Tarleton Gillespie, Sharon Gillett, Mary Gray, Rebecca Hoffman, Jessa Lingel, Lana Swartz, and all of the wonderful interns and visitors who passed through the Social Media Collective. He is also indebted to Henry Jenkins for many years of mentorship and inspiration. Finally, Kevin is grateful to his family, Ed, Katie, Mark, and Mary, and especially his spouse, Lana Swartz, for her wisdom, humor, and grace.