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France 24

Technology

Peter O'BRIEN

Remembering the Minitel: How France was online before the rest of the world

Internet Le Monde

TECH 24 © FRANCE 24

From reading Le Monde to buying furniture, flirting with "hot singles in your area" to organising a student uprising, France's Minitel was the internet before the internet. The iconic terminal, which was rolled out in 1980, was used by up to 25 million French people at its peak in the year 2000 for online shopping, gaming, chatting and thousands more activities. Ten years after it definitively lost its battle with the internet that we know today, we take a look back at this typically French invention, which now has a second life thanks to hobbyists hooking it up to WiFi.

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