Exploring the Videotel System, in 2025
Videotel was Italy’s failed answer to France’s Minitel — Let's try to use it nowadays.
Early Development
Videotel is often described as Italy's answer to the French Minitel, emerging in the early 1980s. SIP (now TIM) began initial trials in 1981, distributing terminals to around a thousand users, primarily newsrooms and content producers. For four years, the system was tested behind closed doors.
In late 1985, SIP and the Ministry of Communications approved a nationwide rollout. The chosen platform was developed by GEC Computers, with involvement from its Italian subsidiary, Marconi Italiana. It was compatible with the British Prestel standard and the evolving CEPT standards, the foundational European framework for videotex which had been established in 1983.
Videotel officially became a public service on May 31, 1986. SIP assigned it the dial-in number 165 and promoted it as a convenient way to check bank balances, book vacations, access insurance information or chat with other users (the latter was very popular).
My Unit
The unit I have is a Philips HCS80 built in the late 1980s. It's a box-shaped CRT terminal with a pop-out chiclet QWERTY keyboard.
The HCS80 supports four operating modes:
- 40-column ASCII
- 80-column ASCII
- CEPT P2
- CEPT P3
It includes a built-in 1200/75 baud V.23 modem and originally used the standard Italian Tripole (common at the time) but I modified mine to use RJ-11 with a custom adapter.
The terminal features a built-in “Telephone Book”, which can store multiple numbers and automatically call them using the correct protocol (CEPT or ASCII). Mine doesn’t retain numbers after reboot (dead battery?) — and I’ve never managed to get the ASCII mode working.
On the back, the HCS80 includes the standard TTL-level DIN port typical of Minitel-style terminals and an undocumented DB-25 connector, possibly a serial port.
Using It Nowadays
The Videotel infrastructure has been offline since at least 1995, but thanks to the RetroCampus BBS, the terminal can still function today as it once did.
Here are some of the pictures I took while connected to the RetroCampus BBS:
