Get a life - get a mini-call

ShaneOC

Remember these were all the rage not so long ago. They's been overtaken by the texting generation.

simu

Oh yeah! Everybody was going on about the ad all the time but I never actually met anybody who bought the product!

zAbbo

Didnt the guy who done eurotrash advertise it.

"antoinne" or something

GEEET EH LIFE GEET A MEENI CALL

swalsh

i had one...yellow in colour and a cool shape. very expensive to call someone on it as it was a 1550 number. also all you could see is the number that called you . not very good realy

simu

Yeah, he may have been on Eurotrash. He seemed to have had a career based on being a "Frenchman" (kinda like the way Hugh Grant is a professional Englishman).

byte

Ah I remember them well. Motorola IIRC. That french guy still does that Eurotrash stuff on C4/E4

sceptre

Originally posted by bazH
Didnt the guy who done eurotrash advertise it.

"antoinne" or something

Antoine de Caunes IIRC. Rrapeeedo was on the box at the time, no idea if it was actually popular or not.

Capt'n Midnight

Trivia - IIRC he learned to speak english in Texas and because of the Texan drawl no one could understand him when he was later working in England so he had to revert to a stupid french accent. And he can speak normal english - but he gets paid to speek Franglais.

Get a life - not much bloody use are they unless you already have a life..

They are still used commercially.

Makaveli

Aren't they just pagers? :dunno: *
I remember my local Xtra Vision used to sell them.
In fact that was the only place I saw them for sale (well that I can remember).




* When was this made? :dunno:

Fabritzo

Antoinne was/is pretty big in the fashion world, was everyone else to scared to mention this or am I so cool that no one else knows this too. I coulda had a mini-call, I was just too cool fot it :P Imagine how embarrassing they would have been on the bus 10 years ago. The advent of cellular phones as the americans call them kinda killed the mini-call in it's tracks.

(I never really understood the term cell phone, was it to do with the cell batteries they used or was it merly the fact that sony registered the name and it caught on like walkman did?)

Makaveli

You sure you're not thinking of Jean Paul Gaultier there regarding the fashion?

Fabritzo

Aww dang nabbit, yeh you're right, so there sre people out there who watch fashion tv after all. Hs still does Eurotrash, non?

Makaveli

No.
Well it was just your man Antoinne doing it by himself last time I saw it on.

zAbbo

(I never really understood the term cell phone, was it to do with the cell batteries they used or was it merly the fact that sony registered the name and it caught on like walkman did?)

Cell Coverage i think, being signal based, referred to in Ireland as "bars"

ColinM

Mobile Cellular Telephones - you can see where the respective abbreviations came from.

The term cellular refers to the areas of coverage provided by different base stations. An area of coverage is a cell. Nothing to do with signal strength or bars on your phone.

Capt'n Midnight

Cells - think of honeycomb - a grid of hexagons - each cell is surrounded by 6 others. At the centre of each cell there is a mobile phone mast (booo hissss - will someone think of the children etc.) No cell can use the same channels/radio frequencies as the next cell. BUT you can reuse frequencies two cells over. Also each cell can only handle a certain number of calls. If you need to support more users you simply break the cell down in to smaller ones by putting up more masts (booo etc.) ie. you use mini-cells

IIRC pagers/minicalls have a better range and reception than mobiles BUT are easier to eavesdrop on.

BTW: Not only do I have a minicall somewhere at home - I've a minitel too...

oneweb

Always wanted a minicall as a kid, that's until I read the blurb and saw how much it cost to run. Don't recall anyone owning one.

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
I've a minitel too...

What exactly is one of those? I've heard of them up to a year or so ago.

Tom Dunne

Minitel was (is?) an information service provided in France. AFAIK, when you get a landline telephone, you get a colour terminal with it, complete with screen/keyboard. You log on and get a whole load of information services.

This was of course, long before this whole interweb thing that the kids have nowadays.

simu

Minitel was (is?) an information service provided in France. AFAIK, when you get a landline telephone, you get a colour terminal with it, complete with screen/keyboard. You log on and get a whole load of information services.

Is. It's still there.

I think it will die out with the spread of internet access, though.

dazberry

Ah Minitel (or whatever the Irish name was - I can't remember).

Never actually used one but I recall where my mother worked in the early 90s sub-letting a part of their building to a guy running a minitel premium rate adult chat service.

The guy was a real dodge (I can elaborate but what's the point), and eventually he just disappeared owing money to probably everyone. Took an age for the crowd (HP?) to come and take their very large computer back.

I remember a "Minitel" stand in the RDS at one of the computer shows years ago too. I think you could get emulation software for your PC at the time too, to run over a very fast modem link (300/300 or 1200/300?) .

D.

Tom Dunne

Originally posted by dazberry

I remember a "Minitel" stand in the RDS at one of the computer shows years ago too.

D.

Yes, I remember that! It was the Windows show. I remember asking the person at the stand if you could connect to the internet with the thing and she was incredibly snotty with me. It was like she was saying the Internet will never take off, Minitel is the way of the future!

Senor_Fudge

eurothrash rocks

Ryo Hazuki

Theres an old minitel lying around in my skool. Where it came from, im unsure.

Im contemplating stealing it Think of the many uses Id have for it!

ford fiesta

Aontine De Cannes still does Eurotrash, anyone remember Rapido TV he did, they had some good alternative music on it at the end of the 80s

Blisterman

My dad had a minitel. I found it a few years ago, but the isp or whatever you call it was no longer working. like to have seen it.

dragonbet

Cant find this ad anywhere, feckin search engine on youtube only brings up irrelevant sh@?£ any help people??

kelle

God, I remember this ad!

This thread is nearly 7 years old!

bullets

Yep I remember Antoinne doing the ad.

I had a Minicall back around between 1997-1999
Bought from Brown Thomas from a Guy who worked in the Electrical dept.
The Same guy who I did not know at the time joined the company I work with 2-3 years ago
and now and were buddies.

I could not afford a Mobile Phone at the time and thought
the price of making a mobile phone call was crazy.
I dont recall making a page being expensive though.

It was marketed in a way where it said once you buy
the product you got the free service for life.
I remember at some stage the Minicall service itself changed. I got a page out of the blue one day telling me
to ring a strange number, when I did it was information
telling me the service was changing and I had to do something to keep the pager active. (I think a different company took over the service)

1999 as I gave it away to a girl I had started to go out with (and still am going out with) as a way to contact her as she had no phone either. I would goto the pay phone and page her when I got into town and was due to meet her.

It was around the time when the ready to go phones
could be bought in easons etc but were still on the expensive side. And you did not have to give your name and address and register the phone like you do today.
I bought a Siemens C25 Duelband phone which looked amazingly tiny for a phone back in that time. It survived
falling out of my pocket while I hopped a wall one night and ran across a building site drunk, I found it in a puddle of water the next day, dried it out and it worked! eventually it kept turning off by itself for some reason but if I squeesed the phone it would stay on, so I superglued the body together in the squeezed position and got another year or two out of it.

~B

theaceofspies

I have a working Minitel for sale in great condition. Just drop me a reply... small money.

Run_to_da_hills

I found one of these on the side of the road near Merrion Gates, made enquiries through its operator and discovered that it belonged to someone that lived in my parents old house in Dunlaoghaire.

icdg

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Minitel was (is?) an information service provided in France. AFAIK, when you get a landline telephone, you get a colour terminal with it, complete with screen/keyboard. You log on and get a whole load of information services.

This was of course, long before this whole interweb thing that the kids have nowadays.

Minitel (which was at one stage available in Ireland) and Minicall (which the OPs post refers to) were completely different things. Minicall was just a brand of pager that happened to have a rather amusing advertising campaign fronted by Antoine de Caunes of Eurotrash fame.