videotex projects / was Re: Oddball question: really small terminals

[Brent Hilpert]

On 2015-Oct-25, at 8:29 AM, Jon Elson wrote:
> On 10/24/2015 08:54 PM, Mike Ross wrote:
>> For reasons too abstruse to explain in detail I'm on the lookout for
>> terminals that are, physically, really small - especially serial and
>> coax 3270, and possibly twinax 5250.
>> 
>> 
> I had a thing that was apparently used in France and maybe Canada for telephone directory lookup and similar uses.  I believe it was called a Minitel.

The French Minitel, and British Prestel, were videotex systems.
Canada's national effort of the late-70s/early-80s at a videotex project was Telidon.
Telidon resulted in protocol standards (which led to NAPLPS), and some hardware was produced, but it never saw major deployment as the Prestel and Minitel systems did.

I'm not aware of any Minitel presence in Canada.
Perhaps some terminals made their way here for use as compact terminals in some application or some such.



> It had a TINY CRT screen, maybe 5 x 7".  It used a standard 40-pin microprocessor and other standard parts.  I junked mine because it would randomly reset every minute or so, and I didn't really have a use for it.  I think mine was smaller than the one in the Wikipedia article, but it did look similar to that. There are some on eBay, but they are all from France and Belgium. Interface was pure serial RS-232.
> 
> Jon