Operations
Payment Methods
Users first subscribed to individual services, but traffic grew quickly after the telephone company offered a "kiosk" model (named after newsagents' shops). Minitel and voice charges appeared combined on the monthly telephone bill, with no breakout of fees. Service providers received two-thirds of the US$10 an hour that customers typically paid as of 1988. As the telephone company handled bill collection, and users who did not pay bills lost telephone service, the customer acquisition cost for service providers was low. The single bill encouraged impulse shopping, in which users intending to use one service found and used others while browsing. As users' identities and services were anonymous, Minitel use was high at work where companies paid for telephone service.
Hardware
The integrated electronics in a Minitel terminal has four functionally distinct parts
- The subset visualization responsible for producing the TV images from the signals received by the Minitel or hit on the keyboard
- The subset keymap loaded recognizes the keyboard and sends its code to the subset visualization and to the telephone line keys.
- The subset serial interface is responsible for providing signals to the DIN socket (computer peripherals) to devices.
- The MODEM (modulator-demodulator) that transforms internal digital signals Minitel
Software integrated in the ROM 8048 provides scanning of 65 keys. The keystroke causes the production of a code or a code sequence corresponding to the character or indicated on this function. If two keys (or more) are simultaneously depressed, no action occurs. One of these keys will be taken into account as soon as the others are released. The 8048, with two inlets/outlets, will provide the determination of the key, is also responsible for the serialization code since there is no standard UART function integrated in the microcontroller, and the series is produced by the integrated software. The connection of the keyboard unit is via a six-pin connector carrying the power, mass, and the RESET signal issued by the serial data 8048.
The keyboard of the Minitel is managed by an 8048 microprocessor at Intel. It is a circuit that performs several functions in one housing.
