Two things will happen on June 30th:
Firstly, the French forerunner to the Internet, Minitel is going dark forever. German language article: Adieu Minitel (
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/gadgets/frankreich-verabschiedet-sich-von-internet-vorgaenger-minitel-a-840766.html), English translation here (
http://www.babelfish.de/translate_url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fnetzwelt%2Fgadgets%2Ffrankreich-verabschiedet-sich-von-internet-vorgaenger-minitel-a-840766.html&src=auto&dst=en&submit=%C3%BCbersetzen). I've never seen a Minitel console, but they were pretty popular in France back in the 80's and 90's. The Minitel was a character-based, all-in-one terminal that could connect to a dial-up internet-like service. People used to read the news, make reservations, and visit 'hot' chat rooms, etc.; most of the same things people do on the internet today.
Secondly, MobileMe is going dark forever. I quietly posted kb7sqi's ports on my idisk (
http://public.me.com/bkmoore/) for download a while back. So if anyone is looking for these packages, that's where they're at until June 30. Eventually, I plan on hosting these packages on my own server, but that may take a while.
Hehe, the Minitel. So much to say on such a small but useful device. I've tried some, including one of the later colour models (that used ANSI colours). The Minitel network was totally secure by design, which is why the services lasted so long. The network checks automagically for breaches and there's only one central nameserver so hacking it never really happened. Many a mainframe shop ran a service or two for the numerous commercial BBSes. Great fun but no potato compared to the Internet although it was a better system probably till the late 80s. Fair well Minitel, you made a mint for many a future ISP entrepreneur (the owner of free.fr amongst others).
What are the chances that emulated minitel networks are now going to start popping up?