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I read quite a bit and I read a lot of computer history because I find what the people went through fascinating. They built amazing technology out of nothing but copper wires.
I was quite shocked when I stumbled upon this book at Barnes & Noble at lunch today.
The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture[^]
That system had a touch screen in 1973 or so. Much more interesting things in there. They had developed Instant Messaging back then. Wow.
Looks like a really interesting read.
EDIT
Here's a bit of the summary:
amazon summary: At a time when Steve Jobs was only a teenager and Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t even born, a group of visionary engineers and designers—some of them only high school students—in the late 1960s and 1970s created a computer system called PLATO, which was light-years ahead in experimenting with how people would learn, engage, communicate, and play through connected computers. Not only did PLATO engineers make significant hardware breakthroughs with plasma displays and touch screens but PLATO programmers also came up with a long list of software innovations: chat rooms, instant messaging, message boards, screen savers, multiplayer games, online newspapers, interactive fiction, and emoticons.
modified 23-Feb-18 15:11pm.
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Platonic 
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Purely. 
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A system which was allegorically settled in a cave? I may have heard about it, a long time ago.
"I'm neither for nor against, on the contrary." John Middle
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Yep. I remember reading about it in the 60s, we had a manual which concentrated on (my befuddled elderly brain informs me) the computer aided learning aspects. I remember being impressed, but, given the cost of a suitable mainframe, wondered how it would ever be affordable. 
Never came across it again. Perhaps it was just too expensive a project that for us Brits.
Once the Swinging Sixties were over (1967), the White Heat of Technology chilled somewhat.
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raddevus wrote: Have you heard of the PLATO system?
Yes. I used it.
Great fun to play Star Trek with 32 other people across the country on a Friday night. Four teams of Federation, Klingon, Orion and Romulan. Each ship type had different abilities.
Touch screen didn't get used at all in that game nor much in general. As I recall it was very course, something like maybe 8 by 8 grid was the most resolution possible.
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Very cool that you actually used the system. It is amazing technology for that time.
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As additional information I didn't find the touch screen very useful. It was coarse as mentioned and at least at times failed to work.
However the system had a language that was set up to facilitate creating multi-user environments. So, for example, it was trivial to set up, as a non-administrator, my own workspace such that others could access it, and I could limit their access, and monitor what they were doing.
Creating graphics also seemed rather easy to do. Keep in mind that at the same time that I was using that system I was also still taking classes that required one to submit programs via punch cards and then wait for the output to come from the operations people as the output from a high speed line printer.
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Yep, I used it at the University of Illinois in the early 80’s.
Way ahead of it’s time.
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Very cool. U of I must've been quite ahead if its time with that.
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You're having a significant impact on my budget. I've already bought two of your other recommendations (C# 7 in a nutshell) and the book on microservices.
Latest Article - Code Review - What You Can Learn From a Single Line of Code
Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
Artificial intelligence is the only remedy for natural stupidity. - CDP1802
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I know. There have been some books I just can't pass up lately.
I've been a Safari bookshelf member for a 15 years or something and just about every tech book is on there so it really does save a lot of money in the long run.
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very interesting indeed.
side note: light-years is a measurement of distance, not time.
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If somethign is light-years ahead, how much time will it take to reach it?
GCS d-- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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SarahTheBlue wrote:
side note: light-years is a measurement of distance, not time.
Good point 
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side side note: "light-years ahead" is a colloquialism meaning very advanced, unrelated to distance or time
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Member 10082767 wrote: side side note: "light-years ahead" is a colloquialism meaning very advanced, unrelated to distance or time
Another good point.
I hope this keeps going...
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Didn't you read about it in Ted Nelson's "Computer Lib / Dream Machines"? 
Or was that book out of print when you became interested in computer books?
Computer Lib/Dream Machines - Wikipedia[^]
(CL/DM was first published in 1974 and is one of the most remarkable scrapbooks in computer litterature. This is the book where Ted Nelson introduded the hypertext concept, and Plato is one of the background elements for his Hypertext. If you can tet hold of a copy of that book, hold onto it!)
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Member 7989122 wrote: Didn't you read about it in Ted Nelson's "Computer Lib / Dream Machines"?
Or was that book out of print when you became interested in computer books?
Actually it prob was out of print by the time I was reading computer history. I did read Levy's Hackers though and must've missed the reference to it.
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I used it somewhere around 1970. The human interface was a custom terminal that connected to our IBM 360 mainframe. I think the mother ship was in Minnesota somewhere (U of Minn?). It had some interesting features but overall, I wasn't that impressed with it and didn't spend more than about 45 minutes on it.
Perhaps it was ahead of my time too.
I'm retired. There's a nap for that...
- Harvey
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The Quotes of Steven Wright:
1 - I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
2 - Borrow money from pessimists -- they don't expect it back.
3 - Half the people you know are below average.
4 - 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
5 - 82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
6 - A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.
7 - A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
8 - If you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.
9 - All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand.
10 - The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
11 - I almost had a psychic girlfriend, ..... But she left me before we met.
12 - OK, so what's the speed of dark?
13 - How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?
14 - If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
15 - Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
16 - When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
17 - Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
18 - Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now.
19 - I intend to live forever ... So far, so good.
20 - If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
21 - Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
22 - What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
23 - My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder."
24 - Why do psychics have to ask you for your name
25 - If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
26 - A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
27 - Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
28 - The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.
29 - To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
30 - The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
31 - The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.
32 - The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.
33 - Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don't have film.
34 - If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
35 - If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work?
Don't let your mind wander too far.
It's too small to be let out alone.
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Quote: I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time
Is one I remember from way back.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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Very clever.
Keep your friends close. Keep Kill your enemies closer.
The End
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Mike Hankey wrote: How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?
Touch the quill tip; if it's wet, you're not out.
Invisible does not denote untouchable.
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