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Awesome Minitel Awesome

A curated list of Minitel and Telematic resources

Minitel Glitches

This repository stands here for Minitel enthusiasts who may want to give a second life to their terminal. See Wikipedia for general information about Minitel terminal and network.

The Minitel devices were made to work with a French dedicated public network from the 80s implementing X.25 protocol: the Transpac Network. This network was also used in professional industry, including for inter-bank transfers, payments... With the emergence of Internet, the network became unneeded and obsolete. Its backbone was shut down in 2012, implying the death of the public Minitel network. Since then, Minitel terminals became pretty much useless: they were just display terminal with pretty much no compute and very limited RAM. Hopefully new usages are now possible, thanks to some modifications made to the original hardware, or with external hardware used to provide content to the Minitel. Some terminals like Minitel 1B have a serial port at their back that can be used to display characters on the screen and send keystrokes from the user to an external device. This is mainly what this repository is about. You will also find interesting archives and technical documentation.

Contents

Hardware

This section is dedicated on the hardware you can connect to a Minitel (serial port or telephonic port / non-destructive) or the physical hardware modifications (potentially destructive) you can perform on the terminal.

You have multiple possible approaches:

  • Using the Minitel as a display terminal for a computer or small embedded computers like Raspberry Pi

  • Using the Minitel as a standalone device able to serve local content / VDT pages locally hosted thanks to an ESP32 / Arduino board with local storage.

  • Using the Minitel as a standalone device able to connect remote content providing servers through a classic network, using for example an ESP32 / Arduino with a WiFi or Ethernet interface.

  • Using the Minitel in its original form, with external devices emulating the X.25 Transpac network and providing content with its native protocol.

  • Hacking the Minitel as a standalone computer (despite huge hardware limitations), rewriting the content of it's embedded microcontroller.

  • Using the Minitel as a display, just reusing the screen and replacing/throwing away most internal components.

In all those possible hardware modifications, the easiest way to provide content to the Minitel is to use its serial port at the back (Minitel 1B), called the Péri-informatique port.

DIY Serial interface

This section provides different ways of using the Péri-informatique Serial socket of the Minitel, which is able to receive characters / octets to display, and send keyboard inputs. This is the easiest way to use the Minitel today since it doesn't require any physical modifications of the terminals. Extra hardware is required to adapt the signal due to unusual voltage levels (>5V).

  • Iodeo's ESP32 devboard 💙 and specific instructions - The easiest way to use the serial port of a Minitel today. You don't require any soldering skill or custom cable, everything is included. This a dedicated ESP32 devboard, including a WiFi adapter and a serial port with the voltage modification required to support Minitel levels. The ESP32 is powered by the Minitel, which is very useful. See software section for a list of software you can run client side on the ESP32.

  • pi0tel - 3615 pi0, a Raspberry Pi pi0 or pi0-w uHat designed to be plugged on serial interface and self powered by the Minitel.

  • Jelora's custom cables (Serial <> RS232 and Serial <> USB) - You can plug Minitels 1B directly to a computer or a Raspberry Pi, thanks to a custom cable you can make with a few electronic components. This one is a bit more difficult to build than Pila's build below.

  • Pila's custom adapter 💙 - An alternative tutorial to create a custom Serial <> USB cable using a 2N2222A transistor, some resistors and a PL2303HX UART <> USB converter (very easy to build). (FR)

  • Picotel's modification for Raspberry Pi Pico - An alternative setup, but lacking some information about the level shifter.

Telephonic socket

WIP/TODO

Physical Hardware modification

Another approach could be to modify the terminals directly.

  • High Tech Minitel - A replacement of the Minitel 1B screen and creation of an Arduino based generic USB keyboard controller. (EN)
  • 64rulez's Minitel2.0 - A replacement of Minitel hardware with a Zynq board. (EN)
  • cfp-radio - Converting a Minitel to a TV monitor / composite video monitor. (FR)

Physical Hardware hacking

See the dedicated software section below.

Software

Once you chose your hardware path, you can chose a way to provide content to the terminal. This section contains various client and server implementations that can help using your Minitel.

Client side

By client side, we mean the software running on the Minitel side / next to the terminal, able to serve content, receive inputs and eventually fetch content from a remote server (see server side). Depending on the additional hardware you own or hardware modifications you performed, some clients may or may not be suitable for you.

Firmware for ESP32 using Minitel serial port

Those projects are dedicated to people using the serial port of their Minitel with an ESP32 microcontroller. See the hardware section (DIY) above for more information about the required hardware (ESP32 devboard or a custom cable with a bare ESP32).

  • iodeo/Minitel-ESP32 💙 - Iodeo's compilation of code samples for Minitel apps development using ESP32 (Arduino or micropython). This is a good start point if you want to use a modified ESP32. See also the associated hackaday project page for instructions. Telnet Pro 💙 is highly recommended, and takes profit from SPIFFS which is a small filesystem for Arduino (useful to persist your server list, SSID/WiFi credentials...).

  • iodeo/Socketel - A portal to Minitel webservices written in micropython for ESP32. Services are externally hosted, see server section.

  • eserandour/Minitel1B_Hard - Minitel Library for Arduino (with HardwareSerial).

  • jbellue/3615_SSH - An SSH client for ESP32.

Clients for serial communication from computer.

Projects dedicated to people using the serial port of their Minitel directly from a computer with a custom adapter, without needing a standalone microcontroller. Useful if you can to control your Minitel from a Raspberry Pi, a computer, etc.

  • Arduiblog, Bring Minitel back to life - A small but efficient documentation on how to configure a Linux server to be used with a Minitel terminal using the serial port. (FR)

  • Mars Hack Lab article - Configure a Debian stretch running on a Raspberry Pi Zero W to be used with a Minitel in terminal mode. (FR)

  • mntl.ti - Alexandre Montaron's terminfo file. You will need this configuration file to provide the right inputs/character codes to the Minitel if you plan to use a Minitel as a Linux terminal.

  • cquest/websocket2minitel - A middleware between a websocket-based Minitel server and the Minitel serial port. Written by Christian Quest. (EN)

  • Picotel - A project by Dominique Meurisse using a Raspberry Pi pico and custom adapters. See also his blog for more information. (FR/BE)

Reprogramming

  • Microprocessor Reprogrammation 💙 - Someone with a decent level of determination found the way to upload a custom firmware to the very limited Minitel microprocessor, in order to display an impressive demo. You can find the code of the demo here: the_minitel_demo. You can also find a dump of the original EPROM with the stock firmware here. A presentation has been made on the subject, slides can be found here (FR/DE)

Server side

Minitel server implementations. The idea of these projects is to serve content (VDT pages, text, other...) to clients (software running on a companion board/computer next to the Minitel or on the Minitel directly). Most of the time, these projects are meant to work with Websockets, Telnet, SSH, a directly serial connected terminal, or natively on a X.25 network.

Depending on your architecture, client and the way the client is able to fetch content, some of these projects may or may not be suitable for you.

  • Zigazou/PyMinitel - A python library to control a Minitel from a computer running Linux using a serial interface.

  • jiktim/minitel.js - A NodeJS server to send content to a Minitel through a websocket.

  • Zigazou/miplayer - A python program to continuously send VDT files to Minitel using serial interface(s).

  • cquest/pyNitel - A python library to write Minitel servers/software communicating to Minitel through a serial interface. Contains two example services, a minitel directory and 3615 ULLA simulation.

  • BwanaFr/minitel-server - A small TCP based Minitel server written in Python.

  • 64rulez/PyMoIP - A Minitel server using websockets in python. The project also contains other useful elements.

  • Zigazou/HaMinitel - An Haskell Minitel server for Linux pushing content through /dev/ttyUSB* or a real RS-232 port connected to a modem.

  • 3615 IUT Auxerre Autoserver - A python Minitel server based on pyNitel and made by students in 2019 during an academic project. In the eventuality the site goes down in a future time, the sources are available here.

  • Mushussu/Serveur-Minitel - A Minitel test server written in C pushing content to /dev/ttyUSB0.

  • cquest/cristel - Apple II Minitel server (1986) using Merlin / BIGMAC assembler.

  • cquest/dragster - Obsolete Minitel server (1985) using MPW (Macintosh Programmer's Workshop).

  • ludosevilla/minipaviCli - A Minitel server SDK allowing to build services around simple HTTP requests and PHP.

Editors

Minitel pages used to be provided in the form of a tree structure of .VDT pages. VDT format was use to describe characters displayed on the screen and basic animations / the order in which the characters are displayed. You can see VDT files as some sort of ASCII/GIF file, but beware: the charset is quite different from classic ASCII. To produce VDT pages, editors exist, allowing you to find the available characters, hexadecimal correspondence for each symbol on screen, and write your animations.

Emulators

Tools

Resources

Official documentation

Extra studies and documentation

  • hxc2001 💙 - Hardware study of the Minitel in french. Also available here. This content is referred multiple time in this repository and feels like a rabbit hole. (FR)
  • Minitel Datasheets - All datasheets of Minitel parts, compiled by MCHobby.
  • Matthieu Benoit's archives - A good amount of technical documents and archives about Minitel and telephony. The page also contains EPROM dumps from multiple Minitel models. (EN/FR)
  • Minitel Printer Interface - A scan from Hobbytronic N.36 (full mirror in better quality here), see page 13. (FR)
  • Building around Minitels - A book by Christian Tavernier. Seems to be impossible to buy anywhere, so here is the scanned version of the book from archive.org. (FR)

Other resources

  • Musée du Minitel 💙 - The Minitel Museum. A lot of resources about Minitel and data preservation. Also contains an amazing forum 💙 with an enthusiast community and almost all resources you will need. (FR)
  • Reviving Minitel Presentation - Sources of the “Reviving Minitel” presentation given at FOSDEM 2020 (Belgium).
  • goto10 - BBS and Minitel archives.
  • Minitel.us - Minitel research lab. (US)
  • PAMAL Group - Media archaeology and preservation lab working a lot with Minitel hardware. (FR)
  • Pinky Story - The story of a Telematic server running between 1986 and 1992. (FR)
  • 3615 IUT Auxerre - An academic Minitel revival project by young students from Auxerre, France in 2019-2020. Well documented, they follow the same path everyone has to walk to revive a Minitel today. A mirror for their study is available here and there. (FR)
  • Telematic History 💙 - The complete history of Telematic with a lot of details and beautiful archive photographies. (FR)
  • From Minitel to Internet - INA (FR)
  • Transpac Network Shutdown - In 2012, the French Minitel network has been shut down (FR)
  • XReyRobert/VideotexPagesRepository - An archive of VDT pages with GIF conversion for modern browsing.

Open Minitel services

Contribute

Contributions welcome! Read the contribution guidelines first.

License

The awesome-minitel project is released under the CeCILL-B (en, fr) license.

https://cecill.info/

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A curated list of minitel resources

Topics

cli awesome terminal hardware esp32 tui awesome-list obsolete french serial-port serial-communication minitel awesome-resources retro-computing retrotech awesome-readme ttyusb diy-electronics minitel-1b retro-computer

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