MINITERM(1) MINITERM(1)
NAME
miniterm - 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 further information.
On certain native Inferno hardware, miniterm can also con-
nect directly via a modem connection, using an address of
the form modem!modeminit!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 `F3' is a code that tells the modem to enable
V.23, which must be used when connecting to the France Tele-
com servers. To use pulse dialing instead of tone dialing
the phone number can be prefixed with a `P', 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-connect, miniterm will use the
same address if it is a network connection but prompt for a
new phone number for a direct connection. When prompting 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 avail-
able, and the minitel keys do the obvious things.
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MINITERM(1) MINITERM(1)
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 column 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 key-
board mappings. For example, hitting `A' results in a capi-
tal `A' 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 ALSO
charon(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 `iC' 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.
Page 2 Plan 9 (printed 12/21/24)