cak@PURDUE.EDU ("Christo{r A. Kent") (02/15/86)
While a lot of people may not care for the Minitel terminals for directory assistance, there's a networking culture building up. Several large catalog-based operations offer Minitel service instead of mail- or voice-based ordering (for a fee to the PTT, of course.) There's also a conferencing service offered, much like the conference groups on the Source and elsewhere. An article that I saw over Christmas gave an outsiders view of the whole thing, describing a culture much like Usenet for conferenced groups on various subjects, as well as real-time communications, often for romantic encounters. Communication is typcially based on handles rather than real names, and there are some serious Minitel junkies out there. And my impression was that it was quite expensive (but I don't recall any hard numbers.) chris ----------