Colloquium Archive

Long ago, out on a prairie far, far away . . . back before PCs, the Internet, AOL, the Web, and USENET existed, back before Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Steve Case, and Scott McNeally had even graduated from high school, a rich, vibrant online culture was already booming at the University of Illinois, an online world complete with open-source hacking, email, message forums, Slashdot-like news blogs, chat, instant messaging, MUDs, and other intense multiplayer games. How could this be? Come to this presentation and learn all about the research Brian Dear has been undertaking for a book on the history of PLATO: the legendary and profoundly-influential system whose saga has long been overshadowed by the stories of ARPANET, Xerox PARC, and Silicon Valley. In this session, we'll explore a wide range of topics including: the quirky system architecture of PLATO; gas-plasma flat-panel displays (originally invented for PLATO); the origins of Lotus Notes (descended from PLATO Notes); the story of CERL (the PLATO laboratory that predates PARC by three years); and how numerous PC games (including Flight Simulator, Wizardry, FreeCell, CastleWolfenstein) all descend from PLATO.