Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: "John R. Covert" Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Access to the 'BTX' System of West German Telco Message-ID: <6204@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 9 Apr 90 12:42:31 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 36 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 243, Message 4 of 10 I'm certain that the German BTX system has an X.25 number, but the number the moderator provided (26245621040000) is not the BTX system; it is the Telebox Mail system (on which I have an account). Telebox Mail is a _completely_ separate system from BTX. Remember that BTX, like all European videotex (not to be confused with teletext or videotext) systems, does not speak normal ASCII. It uses the European CEPT graphics display language, usually built into videotex-ready television sets. Trying to talk to it without a television set or other device containing a CEPT display translator is doomed to failure. Peter Dotzauer whetted our appetite with the statement that Minitel can be accessed from the U.S. Would he be willing to describe exactly what's necessary to do so. /john P.S.: I'd like to ask the Moderator to please not refer to X.131 addresses on X.25 networks as "a network address on Telenet." This statement is the equivalent of saying that the telephone number +44-71-246-5368 in London is a telephone number on US Sprint. Telenet is only one of several X.25 services in the U.S. providing access to the worldwide X.25 network. Neither X.131 addresses nor telephone numbers outside the U.S. are "on Telenet" or "on US Sprint" anymore than they are "on Tymnet" or "on AT&T." They are, in fact, on some local X.25 network or telephone network in the country in which they are located. Only numbers beginning with "3106" are "on Telenet." [Moderator's Note: Mr. Dotzauer did indeed supply information on the use of Minitel from within the United States. It is quite a lengthy file and will be transmitted later this week. PT]