15 Apr
2014
15 Apr
'14
1:50 p.m.
I have the 'guts' to the earlier Plato terminal (the one with the
512x512 plasma.) By 'guts', I mean the keyboard and display - no box or
electronics.
These were picked up from Godbout, I think (way back when...) The
terminal itself had been damaged significantly enough to render the rest
of the electronics unusable - they were not part of the sale. I picked
up the display and keyboard thinking I would someday 'do something with it.'
Fortunately, I did later obtain the four documents describing how the
plasma worked, with connection information, etc. It's basically a
512x512 one-bit-word memory with some special functions. Since there is
a resurrection (of sorts) in an interest in Plato, I thought it might be
interesting to put this beast back together, using some modern
uProcessor to control it, with the end result making it work (from the
serial port) like the old system. I *do* realize the original Plato
terminals were 'strange' with non-8 bit characters in the data pathways.
1) Does enough information exist to do this? I've checked on bitsavers
and find the II and III manuals, but nothing regarding the earlier device.
-and-
2) Does this even make sense? Would one of these connected to the
"Plato Network" vie TCP/IP be able to do the stuff it could do native
(e.g. control the music synth, slide projector, etc.)
It's been siting in my 'todo' box for 30+ years. Thought I should
eventually do something with it. They were REALLY NEAT displays.
-Gary
On 04/15/2014 10:02 AM, William Donzelli wrote:
I?m not sure
about Bill?s comment that "it is one of the most sought after terminals that a
serious collector could actually acquire.? If I were looking for a PLATO terminal, the
last place I would look is the CDC ISTs. Those were always weird mongrels. ?Real PLATO
terminals have plasma panels.? :-)
These earlier PLATO terminals, however, are
extremely unobtainable.
The IST-IIs, on the other hand, are still out in the wild in small
quantities. Serious collectors of terminals could expect, after some
amount of legwork, to get an IST-II for their collection, but could
not reasonable expect to get one of the plasma types.
From my not-a-dedicated-terminal-collector perspective, what other
reasonably obtainable terminals are as high on the list as the CDC
IST-IIs? DEC VT05, IBM 2260*, early Tek 4000, maybe a Uniscope? Just
about all the other collectable terminals would be quite a bit further
down the list.
*Although good luck getting the brain.
--
Will - WILL!