Subject: Ebay - Neat PLATO system (AOL before AOL)

From: "Chandra Bajpai" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Mar 3 12:38:18 2003

This is pretty neat.A Plato terminal.  I never knew a on-line community
existed before Lee Feldstein's Community Memory project.In hindsight it
looks like he was trying to copy Plato.
 
A Description:
Welcome to PLATO. 
 
The PLATO system, started way back in 1960, was developed as a
technological solution to delivering individualized instruction, in
thousands of subjects from algebra to zoology, to students in schools
and universities across the nation. As the system grew and evolved, it
became, pretty much by accident, the first major online community, in
the current sense of the term. In the early 1970s, people lucky enough
to be exposed to the system discovered it offered a radically new way of
understanding what computers could be used for: computers weren't just
about number-crunching (and delivering individualized instruction), they
were about people connecting with people. For many PLATO people who came
across PLATO in the 1970s, this was a mind-blowing concept

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem
<http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3404078052&category=
4193> &item=3404078052&category=4193

---

From: "Jeffrey S. Worley" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Mar 3 12:39:03 2003

Back in the 80's, one of my roommates turned me on to Plato.  We went
downtown to get the terminal cartridge for the Atari 8-bit.  We were
short of money and Fred ended up pawning his watch to cover the cart.

It was a pretty cool system.

Regards,

jeff

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
On Behalf Of Chandra Bajpai
Sent: Sunday, March 02, 2003 8:41 AM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Ebay - Neat PLATO system (AOL before AOL)

A Description:
Welcome to PLATO.

---

From: "Claude.W" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Mar 3 12:42:27 2003

My 2 cents....

Plato was 20 years ahead of its time.

I was one of the lucky ones that could take my bike or moped when I was
14-15 and ride for 10 minutes and could access a terminal and had unlimted
access time....I wrote a few games...I dont have anything from those days,
sadly...no tapes, no listings...

Almost every afternoon this guy in a GM plant in Oshawa Ontario Canada would
TEL-TALK (IIRC?) me and we would play dogfight for a hour or so....he was
writing automobile-building robot animations or something....slow...still
neet...

I miss those days...I wish I could see some screen shots again....

Later all...
Claude
http://computer_collector.tripod.com

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From: "Chandra Bajpai" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Mar 3 12:43:17 2003

What sort of end user programming language did Plato use?

What did you need to access the system...could anyone off the street use
it for free?

-Chandra

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
On Behalf Of Claude.W
Sent: Sunday, March 02, 2003 10:46 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Neat PLATO system (AOL before AOL)...plato memories....

My 2 cents....

I was one of the lucky ones that could take my bike or moped when I was
14-15 and ride for 10 minutes and could access a terminal and had
unlimted
access time....I wrote a few games...I dont have anything from those
days,
sadly...no tapes, no listings...

Almost every afternoon this guy in a GM plant in Oshawa Ontario Canada
would
TEL-TALK (IIRC?) me and we would play dogfight for a hour or so....he
was
writing automobile-building robot animations or
something....slow...still
neet...

Later all...
Claude