*** MICRONET 800 SERVICES ***

Personal Archive Terminal

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Writing file // Retro

The joy of numbered menus

Before every interface wanted to be invisible, some of them had the decency to tell you which number to press.

1 min readArchive ref: the-joy-of-numbered-menus
Featured file image // Retro

Transmission start

Reader mode // feature

There is something wonderfully honest about a numbered menu. It does not pretend to know you. It does not ask you to sign in with three separate services. It simply says: here are six things; choose one.

Micronet and Prestel had that directness. So did Teletext. You were not browsing in the modern sense. You were navigating a machine that made its structure visible.

That is part of the thinking behind this archive. A personal site can be warm and readable without becoming a brochure. It can show its joins. It can let visitors move through a career like they are paging through a service that has somehow stayed online.

Press 1 for home. Press 4 for writing. You know where you are. There is a lot to be said for that.

CONNECTED // PERSONAL ARCHIVE // PRESS START

SERVICE ACTIVE // 1980s MODE: TASTEFUL