Extension board for Minitel with WiFi 2.4GHz and BLE 4.1 supports
The swiss army knife for minitel reuse projects !
The minitel contains a CRT screen and a keyboard with which we can interact via the phone line or via the serial port. If we don't think about the modem, it is nothing more than a monitor, accessible down to 10 EUR in France !
Why did I made it ?
One minitel is always laying in my workshop. We can do lot of fun things with this old device. But every times I had an idea to try on it, I had to search for prototyping stuff like an arduino or raspberry pi, a DIN connector and some components, which was a bit annoying. From there came the idea to make a development board dedicated to minitel reuse projects. A small board like a dongle with everything needed on it. And I wanted to make it well; in for a penny, in for a pound.
The ESP32-WROOM32E appears to be first choice for this project as it is the compromise between Arduino compacity and RaspberryPi connectivity. There is a big users community, lots of ressources, libraries. It is compatible with Arduino IDE and MicroPython. So cool
A devboard needs to be easy to program. The USB port combined with a UART converter and an autoboot system enables just that. You can program it with just a usb cable, without any physical procedure.
Since most of minitel provides a power supply on the serial port, a buck converter is integrated so that the dev board is self-powered. The design enables to use power from USB port as well.
Here is the result :
Programming samples
A minitel connected to the internet offers infinite reuse possibilties. But there is still a big programming effort before getting a new usecase up to the screen. To help with that, the project repository provides some useful code examples. There is also some guidances on hackaday page to get started with Arduino and Micropython.
Some reuse examples in video:
For non-dev : Software is preloaded !
If you don't want to bother with coding, Minitel1b_Telnet_Pro application is made for you. With it, you can use your minitel as a client using telnet, websocket, ssh or serial protocols. There is a nice user interface, simple yet efficient, from where you can set your wifi credentials and host settings, with lot of preset samples. You can visit some videotex and bbs servers maintained by some passionate people, big thank you goes to them ! You could also open a remote shell using ssh on the headless devices laying around you. Thanks to F.Sblendorio from retrocampus which have worked a lot on it !
I need to make a video of this app... soon !
Custom enclosure
This crystal clear enclosure protects the electronic keeping it visible ! If you move with the device a lot, if you are afraid to make a short circuit or just because it is neat... It was designed with FreeCad and then 3d printed with translucid UV resin. The clear transparency is obtained by sanding and oiling. And the result is really satisfying!
Where is it available ?
In the store !
But if there is no more stock, please send me an e-mail with the options and quantity needed. So that I can planned a new batch.
