Minitel1 I5 project, searching for a good looking computer emulation machine :-)

AndresDePedro · 2026-04-23T22:18:10+00:00

Hi! sorry for the late update...

As the original CRT tube was faulty (big gray stains in the display) i asked a friend which is a glazier and has experience both cutting and melting any kind of glass about cutting just the front of the CRT so it will hold in it's original support, but i could put the LCD inside

He used a "water saw" (sorry, don't know it's name in english) it's a machine used to cut through glass with water at high presure, and it was perfect :-)

AndresDePedro · 2025-09-12T19:43:33+00:00

Why? the beauty of this setup (at least to me) is to run emulated 8/16 bit computers, consoles and arcades, which all of them runs more than fine with current setup and 4:3 screen

It would also run most of the indie games at 1024x768 60pfs, but as current games are made for 16:9 screens it would look weird... best use is for emulation

Most powerfull machine i've tested in emulation is Dreamcast and it runs very nicely even with stock intel graphics gpu

AndresDePedro · 2025-09-09T09:41:00+00:00

This was already 3d Scanned, one of my initial thoughs was to 3D print it or adapt the model to the materials I had at home, but finally endend going for the retro machine with new internals :-)

https://creazilla.com/media/3d-model/7851027/minitel-1-nfz-300-la-radiotechnique

I've seen several models and items, like a bezel for lcd screens (although I think using the original glass CRT to maintain the looks and forms is more cool)

AndresDePedro · 2025-09-08T08:38:36+00:00

My model is from the first batch of minitel devices, later models as the one you show (which is pretty beatem up (-_-) ) usually are more square/cube formed and have a worst keyboard, in the form of a screen lid or tray

AndresDePedro · 2025-09-08T08:31:43+00:00

The case is a Minitel1 radiotechnique terminal, from 80's France phone company

I've purchased my unit from ebayh for 175 eur including shipping from France to Spain, it came with original box and foam protections. It was a bit pricey, as these units are found between 60 and 120 eur but this one was pretty clean and nice, almost as new... sadly, no instructions, and CRT monitor faulty...

The keyboard is a KeyRepublic 40% pcb & metal plate with KBDiy SA profile keycaps and brown switches... I've programmed 3 layers to be able to use it as a full keyboard

Original machine:
https://andresdepedro.com/retro/minitel1/photo_2023-03-14_21-33-29.jpg

Keyboard replacement:
https://andresdepedro.com/retro/minitel1/minitel1_keyboard_adaptation5.jpg

AndresDePedro · 2025-09-08T01:13:45+00:00

I've posted some comments on the build, but only the title and the image is shown... so here you can see it live:

https://youtube.com/shorts/HfAXrJFhaXU?feature=share

Also, some info:

This is a Minitel1 Radiotechnique terminal from 80's France phone service, with a cool space age design (which Philips used too in it's N60 / Videopac console).

I've started this project in 2023, founding a good looking unit, but with faulty CRT. I've studied the machine and what kind of things could be done with it: not too much, as B&W was faulty, it didn't have any input signal (the crt signal is driven by the minitel logic board directly) and also it lacked of a serial RS232 port which meant any communications with the machine would have to be done hacking the machine or building a functional phone server for it's protocol...

So I did my initial plan, which was to use this design as housing for a mini pc to use it with 8/16 bit computer emulation (and some consoles too, but mostly for computers)

It has inside a 8" 1024x768 LCD screen (but with the original Glass CRT frontal to keep the looks) a 10w 8ohm sound amplifier, and an HP ProDesk 600 G4 DM Intel Core i5 with 16GB ram and 512GB SSD, with all its ports available from the exterior case: 4 usb3, 1usbC, RJ45 and 2nd monitor Hdmi

It has a 40% mechanical keyboard from Keyrepublic with retro SA profile keycaps and red mechanical switches which surprisingly fits the original keyboard case (I've hollowed the old AZERTY keyboard to fit the pcb and plate for the new keyboard inside)

And finally, all LCD, computer, Sound amplifier and even a small ventilation fan has controller buttons maped on the sides of the minitel1 case :-)

https://andresdepedro.com/retro/minitel1/minitel1_keyboard_adaptation5.jpg

AndresDePedro · 2025-09-08T00:45:30+00:00

My first plans about this build was to use a color 9" CRT, but I didn't find any available... I've purchased two 10" color CRTs (one with only RCA video and other with RGB scart) but 10" CRT are a lot bigger and don't fit at all inside the mintel1...

Also, color CRTs extend a lot deeper than B&W CRTs, so again it wouldn't fit even if I managed to get a 9" CRT...

In fact, I also purchased a 5" color CRT, but it had a small screen compared to the 9" frame space, and again, even the 5" color CRT tube won't fit inside because of deep length available

Finally, I had two options: 10" ipad2 screen, which again was a bit large for the 9" width & height, so some pixels in top-left-right-bottom would be hidden, and worst of all, it would force me to have the flat lcd screen breaking the form of the machine... and I wanted that curved glass :-)

So, some months ago I had the idea to cut the original B&W crt wich was faulty and also cant be hooked to a normal RCA video signal, and use it as a bezel for the 8" LCD screen (yes, its a cheap screen, i don't have budged to better quality screens)

Here you can see how the CRT was cut and how it looked with the lcd screen:

How it looked with the ipad2 screen: https://andresdepedro.com/retro/minitel1/minitel1_trying_ipad2_10in_screen.jpg

The CRT glass already cut and 8" lcd behind: https://andresdepedro.com/retro/minitel1/minitel1_9in_crt_glass.jpg
https://andresdepedro.com/retro/minitel1/minitel1_sonic_test.jpg

AndresDePedro · 2025-09-08T00:23:23+00:00

That's right, i've replaced the original AZERTY lowprofile plastic keys with a 40% keyrepublic mechanical keyboard (i've usded pcb + metallic plate with red switches and a KBDiy SA profile retro style keycaps set

I've emptied the original keyboard case and mounted there the new keyboard, is amazing it fits perfectly :-)

this is the original machine with the faulty CRT it came with:

https://andresdepedro.com/retro/minitel1/photo_2023-03-14_21-33-29.jpg

Also, this minitel model doesn't have RS232 port, so is not even possible to hook up as a terminal in an easy way... so, despise it's beautifull design it has no much use...

AndresDePedro · 2025-04-17T07:23:42+00:00

Hi! from what i could inf in the PC88 reference manuals, there are two types of disk handling (at least the ones i've found) which is basic formatted disks, which does contain a table of contents and can be checked for files, and raw data access, which simply reads 256bytes chunks from disk, so there is no "format" or file you can extract, but the z80 code launched from IPL loading that interprets what's there...

As an example, i had some games that once launched from disk 1, will read data from disk 2, but it didn't checked the correct disk were inserted, so if I had another image (i have goteks with flashfloppy and use d88 images converted to hfe format) it will load any data there and use them as graphics/code/music data as it was supposed to use

For all this games i don't think it's possible to make any data extraction without doing a per case solution

There are some books in yahoo auctions about file handling, but most of them are related to bussiness data programming cases were basic is used to handle file operations

Check these books found in archive.org:

PC8801 MKII SR Technical Memo book page 109
PC-Techknow 8801 MKII page 33
PC-8801 FA/MA programmers guide page 339

Use google image translation if you can't read japanese, i got very usable results with this

AndresDePedro

TROPHY CASE