Minitel Emulation in HyperTerminal

This article contains information about Minitel emulation in Hyper- Terminal.

Minitel is a service created by France Telecom, the state-owned tele- communication company. Minitel is a replacement for telephone books and provides Telematique services. Minitel service started in the 1970s and is currently available in over 6 million homes in France.

Popular services include connecting to France Telecom, the main phone directory of France (also called "Annuaire electronique") by dialing 11, and dialing 3615 for additional services such as chatting over a "messagerie" (message base), participating in a television show, buying theater or concert tickets, on-line banking, or buying something "par minitel" (home shopping).

Within France there is a basic service charge, a charge based on the amount of information downloaded, and additional rates for special services.

Technical Information

HyperTerminal requires the Arialals.ttf and Arialalt.ttf TrueType font files to emulate Minitel. The Arial Alternative font is the only font that contains the required graphic characters.

Minitel operates at 1200 bps.

Minitel is a French Videotex terminal that uses RTC to connect to servers. XON/XOFF protocol should not be used during Minitel emulation. X.3 PAD compatibility is not required for access using the normal Minitel network.

For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: