9 May
2007
9 May
'07
7:33 p.m.
In article <51ea77730705091126t2f22eb2bya3414fd18f3d35a at mail.gmail.com>,
"Jason T" <silent700 at gmail.com> writes:
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.
The infrastructure wasn't by Data General, it was by Control Data
(CDC). UDel had a large PLATO installation. I recently enquired of
the people still at UDel what happened to the terminals and I was told
that they were all returned to Control Data, who presumably scrapped
them. I think there is *one* PLATO terminal in the collection at the
Computer History Museum. I'm not aware of anyone who has a CDC Cyber
series mainframe other than the CHM, which has one on display in
"Visible Storage", but I don't think its the model that UDel had for
PLATO (6600 or something like that?).
Sadly, the terminals could have been rejuvenated and put back into
service had they survived, but Control Data apparently had a very
harsh "return for destruction" policy with *all* its equipment,
including the peripherals, so very little of it survives.
Since I left UDel in 1986 I have not seen a PLATO terminal in person,
in anyone's collection, or for sale online *ever*.
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