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PAIMPONT, France -- A faint trail of mud and manure leads from the door of Yves Denais's barn-floor office, overlooking the pens for his Holstein calves, to a cluttered desk atop which sits a compact beige plastic box that once placed Mr. Denais at the cutting edge of information technology. The Minitel, the once-revolutionary online service that prefigured the Internet in the early 1980s, allowed the French to search a national phone registry, buy clothing and train tickets, make restaurant reservations, read newspapers or exchange electronic messages more than a decade before similar services existed almost anywhere else in the world. The network is now largely relegated to the realm of nostalgia, though, with its dial-up connection, black-and-white screen and text that scrolls out one pixelated character at a time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on a shift in France from the use of Minitel, a national videotex system, to the use of the Internet for information access. How acceptance of the Internet in France was slower than elsewhere in Europe, due in part to French cultural protectionism that viewed it as an American concept; Role of Minitel in Internet acceptance in France; How videotex systems work; Popularity of Minitel with older generations and the Internet with younger generations.

Details the plan of the France Telecom company to update Minitel, an online information service. Plans to be implemented with International Business Machines (IBM) Corp.; Purpose for developing the service; Uncertainties faced by the executives on the plan.