| ▲ | opo 4 hours ago | |
>[1] No, PLATO was never nearly so widespread Plato often gets overlooked, but it was highly influential. A well written book on it is: "The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture" The wikipedia page has some overview info on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_(computer_system) In terms of usage, there aren't many stats, but I saw this: "The CERL PLATO system logged 10 million hours of use between September, 1978 and May, 1985 (a period for which the most complete statistics are available). | ||
| ▲ | TMWNN 4 hours ago | parent [-] | |
> Plato often gets overlooked, but it was highly influential. A well written book on it is: "The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture" Quoting myself from 2023, in a discussion of computer history books:<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35405385> >The Friendly Orange Glow, about PLATO. Not because PLATO was super-influential on the later industry—far from it, with only minor exceptions—but that doesn't mean that it doesn't deserve examination. | ||