Minitel is an interactive network in France consisting of millions of residential and business computer terminals that transmit and receive information exclusively through the country's national telephone system. The Minitel network, developed in 1978 and officially launched in 1982, performs many of the functions now available through the Internet. Minitel, however, began more than a decade before the Internet was available.

The Minitel network was originally proposed to give French residents universal access to an electronic telephone directory, to reduce the cost of paper telephone books, and to promote the nation's new telephone system run by the government communications agency, France Telecom.

To establish the Minitel network and to encourage families to subscribe to the upgraded telephone system, French households were offered a free terminal. The terminal, called "le Minitel," was a dumb terminal —it had no processing capabilities but used the telephone connection to dial...