MINITERM(1)MINITERM(1)NAMEminiterm - Minitel® emulator
SYNOPSIS
wm/minitel/miniterm [ address ]
DESCRIPTION
Miniterm connects to the Minitel® service at the given address, by
default the France Telecom Internet gateway to its Minitel® service,
tcp!pdc.minitelfr.com!513. The address can be any form acceptable to
dial(2). Miniterm opens a new window that mimics a Minitel display.
An array of buttons on the right hand side (in 40 character mode) or
bottom (in 80 character mode) offer the special Minitel functions, with
French abbreviations. Characters typed on the keyboard are sent to the
server; typing the return key acts as Suite or Envoi as required.
Clicking on a word with the mouse sends it to the server.
The France Telecom gateway offers a demonstration service using ID
ZXNET1 with password DEMFTD. Once connected, the services PAGESM (a
directory of all Minitel services) and FT (France Telecom's information
service) are available without charge. See www.minitelfr.com for fur‐
ther information.
On certain native Inferno hardware, miniterm can also connect directly
via a modem connection, using an address of the form modem!modemi‐
nit!number, which sends the string modeminit to the modem to initialise
it, then dials the given number. For example:
wm/minitel/miniterm modem!F3!00133836431414
Here, the is a code that tells the modem to enable V.23, which must be
used when connecting to the France Telecom servers. To use pulse dial‐
ing instead of tone dialing the phone number can be prefixed with a as
in:
wm/minitel/miniterm modem!F3!P3614
If the parameter specifies a network connection or a direct connection
with a phone number the software will attempt to connect immediately.
If the on-screen button Cx/Fin is used to disconnect and then re-con‐
nect, miniterm will use the same address if it is a network connection
but prompt for a new phone number for a direct connection. When prompt‐
ing for a new number the top row of the screen is used to allow the
user to edit the last used number. Simple editing is available, and the
minitel keys do the obvious things.
The Minitel function keys are displayed on the right hand side of the
screen in 40 column mode on a network connection and can be swapped to
the left hand side by hitting the key. In direct dial mode and 80 col‐
umn network mode the keys are displayed at the bottom of the screen.
In network mode they are redisplayed as appropriate on 40 to 80 column
mode changes.
Miniterm provides a software keyboard, activated by the Clavier button,
which understands some of the Minitel keyboard mappings. For example,
hitting `A' results in a capital on the screen in spite of the Videotex
case mapping.
FILES
/dev/modem
soft modem (no longer supported)
/dev/modemctl
/fonts/minitel
text and semigraphic characters
SOURCE
/appl/wm/miniterm
SEE ALSOcharon(1), telnet(1)BUGS
There is no button to control use of error correction in direct dial
mode; it will be enabled only if the server requests it, but not all
do. Without it direct dial screens are occasionally corrupted.
The software keyboard is not AZERTY. Worse, it does not always come to
the top on a mode change.
Some screens look wrong in 80 column mode.
On a network connection, choosing USA displays at the bottom left hand
corner of the screen. The server really is sending this sequence. Both
the FT emulator and their explorer plug-in suffer from it too.
MINITERM(1)
