19 Sep
2011
19 Sep
'11
7:19 a.m.
On 19 Sep 2011 at 7:55, Vintage Coder wrote:
Amazing, I didn't realize any were still running.
Last time I saw
PLATO was in the 1970s. The terminals were touch screens, they blew .>
everyone's minds. .
With plasma screens yet. I understood that the screen was much of
the cost of one of those terminals. It also ran at a weird (even
for the day) comms rate.
CDC had a difficult time marketing the thing. I remember one year at
NCC, the folks at the CDC booth looking bored with the attendees sort
of shuffling through. I noted that they had a PLATO terminal, so I
asked one of the booth jockeys if I could try it. I brought up
Airfight and immediately collected a crowd. The folks at the booth
were a little upset at the idea of playing a game, when they were
tasked with selling "serious" stuff and eventually they put a stop to
it.
Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees.
It must have been around 1976, as I remember looking at the then-new
IBM 5100 and wondering how anyone could stare at that tiny screen for
more than 5 minutes at a time.
--Chuck