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Georgia Tech had a lab of CDC 721 terminals and used PLATO for at least one class. It always felt weirdly futuristic (or Hollywood fake) for a seemingly "dumb"
by ja27 13y ago
Georgia Tech had a lab of CDC 721 terminals and used PLATO for at least one class. It always felt weirdly futuristic (or Hollywood fake) for a seemingly "dumb" terminal to switch into a graphical touchscreen mode. I wish we'd had some of the more fun stuff running on them, but they were already being overtaken by X-Windows (Sun 3s and Macs with A/UX), Macs, and PCs with a mix of DOS and early Windows.
- waterlesscloud 13y agoI remember using PLATO at tech, but can't remember what class it was for. Chemistry maybe? Or maybe, strangely, Intro To Psych. The terminals I remember were in the Lyman Hall building, which was also the freshman chemistry lecture/lab building at the time.
- rietta 13y agoI never saw this before. I used to like walking past the old data center in the Rich Building at Georgia Tech. It was hard to imagine what it was like in its hay day with punch cards and all.
- heaths1 13y agoYes, I remember taking a Fortran class there in 86 and using those terminals. The touchscreen felt like a plastic membrane over the glass, and gave a little wherever you touched it. What I remember most were the terminal keyboards. The keys were sprung like automotive suspensions, so you had to really hit each key with force to get it to register. When I got home after that quarter my dad yelled at me for pounding the keyboard at home - my typing habits had become almost violent. I also recall seeing the Plato system being shown off in a display at the Worlds Fair in Knoxville in 1982. I took a peek at the Wikipedia entry for the fair, and it notes that several new technologies were debuted at the fair, include touch screens. Follow the link to touch screens and there's a picture of our friend, the Plato V.