10 May
2007
10 May
'07
9:40 p.m.
On Wednesday 09 May 2007 14:26, Jason T wrote:
Then I remembered when my high school class took a
trip down to the U of I
at Champaign-Urbana for "Engineering Open House" and I was sat in front of
this monstrous wooden terminal with beguiling orange vector graphics. Only
many years later did I learn what it was, and where it fit in the timeline
of computing (thanks in part to Ted Nelson's "Computer Lib/Dream
Machines" books.)
So...who has one? What's become of the remaining infrastructure? I
recently used a Windows Plato client to connect to some descendant of
the system, but I asssume even the back end was running on modern
hardware then, and not old Data General equipment.
-j
Last time I saw one of those was way back in 1978, when I went with a guy I
worked with to Reading (PA) Area Community College, and watched this thing
draw its screen at an agonizingly slow rate over a 300 baud connection. :-)
It was pretty nifty, though.
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin