[ih] Fwd: How Plato Influenced the Internet

Mon Aug 23 06:57:47 PDT 2021

To be clear, PLATO III (1963-1972) had an graphical, interactive
charset/bitmap editor (created to replace  the extremely tedious exercise
of creating character sets by declaring a series of octal codes), and that
graphical editor was ported to the more sophisticated PLATO IV  (1972
onwards). The PLATO III bitmap editor was first done around 1967.

I was never able to establish a direct linkage between the PARC’s bitmap
font editor and PLATO’s, but put ‘em side to side and the resemblance is
uncanny. Would welcome any insights from PARC alumni.

- Brian

On Sunday, August 22, 2021, Bob Purvy <bpurvy at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'll just pick up on one thing you said:
>
> *the charset editor (which inspired Xerox PARC to do a bitmap graphics
> editor for the Alto),*
>
> This is easily checked. Charles Simonyi is still around, as is Tom Malloy.
> Are they going to argue with that, or accept it?
>
> On Sun, Aug 22, 2021 at 8:35 PM Brian Dear via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
>> No disrespect, but I can’t help chuckle a tiny bit reading these
>> assessments/dismissals of PLATO by ARPANET folks and computer science and
>> engineering folks. (I’m reminded of the movie Amadeus, when Mozart is
>> commenting on Salieri’s music.)
>>
>> Of course there’s no PLATO influence on ARPANET or “the Internet” at the
>> low levels, including protocols, etc. PLATO’s utterly custom architecture
>> was designed for a very specific turnkey education system with homogenous
>> hardware. That was its mission.
>>
>> PLATO wasn’t designed for packet networks, which had too much overhead
>> for the fast responsiveness PLATO's creators insisted on (in my book I call
>> it “the fast round trip”—about 120ms character echo response time 100% of
>> the time).
>>
>> In 1973, a team at UC Santa Barbara spent about a year attempting to
>> connect a PLATO IV terminal, with the fancy gas-plasma graphics display, to
>> the ARPANET, in order to play the games that was quickly becoming legend on
>> PLATO (see RFC 600).
>>
>> Writing off PLATO as “just another time-sharing system” completely misses
>> the point of PLATO’s narrow, specialized purpose and mission, funded by
>> ARPA and NSF, and more importantly misses the historical significance of
>> the explosion, starting in 1973, of unexpected, yet incredibly clever and
>> creative applications that were built on top of an architecture intended
>> for delivery of interactive computer-based educational lessons,
>> simulations, testing, and so on. This explosion of unexpected apps
>> contributed by the user/hacker community included TERM-talk (live 2-way
>> instant messaging in character-by-character typed chat, which Unix people
>> later implemented as “talk” on that OS); chat rooms (akin to early IRC, but
>> also live character-by-character typed chat this time in multiple channels,
>> some open, some private); monitor mode (full screen sharing while in a
>> TERM-talk), Pnotes (PLATO’s email application), TERM-consult (live tech
>> support chat with online support teams), Notes (PLATO’s message forum
>> system), the charset editor (which inspired Xerox PARC to do a bitmap
>> graphics editor for the Alto), and of course the countless multiplayer
>> graphical games, including tons of MUDs, 3D space and airplane simulators,
>> etc. There was no other time-sharing system that had the applications PLATO
>> had, nor the platform for creative expression that PLATO had in the 70s.
>> But it meant nothing to the ARPANET crowd and was essentially dismissed as
>> unimportant.
>>
>> PLATO’s always seemed to me like a "digital Galapagos." It evolved off on
>> its own, with few if any predators, utterly disconnected from the rest of
>> the world. The rest of the world would choose—wisely—to build a
>> heterogenous network of protocols and standards to which all sorts of
>> hardware and networks of networks could connect. That was a brilliant
>> solution that enabled scale—something that was going to be exceedingly
>> difficult, impractical, and expensive to do with PLATO. So we wound up with
>> the Net and you had PLATO becoming more and more foreign and impossibly
>> exotic and detached. However, PLATO hackers went off and worked at Apple,
>> IBM, DEC, Data General, Sun, Atari, Google, and many other places.  (PLATO
>> Notes was the direct inspiration for Ray Ozzie, a PLATO software engineer
>> and student at U of I, who later who named his Lotus application “Notes”,
>> which about 100 million people used for a little while, but I digress.)
>>
>> Years later, in a 25000-square-foot exhibit of the first 2000 years of
>> computing, the esteemed Computer History Museum chose not to include any
>> PLATO hardware or software or mention any of the countless innovations done
>> during that era by that community, and in fact the only fleeting mention of
>> the word “PLATO” in the entire exhibit space at all was (and I don’t even
>> know if it’s still there) found inside a small glass exhibit case near the
>> end of the long IKEA-like maze through the museum rooms, that depicted tiny
>> screen shots from AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy . . .  and PLATO . . .  with a
>> little caption dismissing the whole lot as examples of “walled gardens."
>>
>> So it goes.
>>
>> - Brian
>>
>>
>>
>> > On Aug 21, 2021, at 7:25 AM, John Day via Internet-history <
>> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>> >
>> > Yea, the display technology was interesting but otherwise it was just
>> another timesharing system, and really not all that great of one. Here is
>> part of what I sent them last night off-list. I didn’t think others would
>> be interested. I have said it here before:
>> >
>> > To refresh others:  Our group was the ARPANET node at Illinois and
>> developed 3 OSs from scratch. One proven secure, and one which experimented
>> fairly deeply with the leverage of an extensible OS language, in addition
>> to the what is recounted here. Pete Alsberg became the manager of the group
>> at one point (slightly tweaked):
>> >
>> >> Around 75, Alsberg was teaching an OS class at DCL. One of the Plato
>> guys was taking the course. They were in the process of building the new
>> Plato OS. They did a computation in class and predicted that the system
>> would top out at so many terminals. (Well, below their target.) Soon after
>> that, Alsberg was at a party with the guy in charge of the system
>> development. (The name is on the tip of my tongue, I can see his face.
>> Remind me of a few names, it wasn’t Bitzer, Finally came to me. (Weird) It
>> was Paul Tenszar (sp? that doesn’t look right) ). The guy got a funny look
>> on his face. They had hit the limit that day and it was within one or two
>> terminals of the prediction.
>> >>
>> >> As I said earlier, we put the first Unix on the ’Net in the summer of
>> ’75. Got a few of the Plato terminals. Stripped down Unix to fit on an
>> LSI-11, added touch to the screen. all on a short cabinet that so you could
>> sit at and use it. Hooked up to NARIS the land-use planning system for the
>> 6 counties around Chicago as an ‘intelligent terminal.’ You could do maps
>> down to the square mile with different patterns for use, the usual graphs,
>> etc. all without a keyboard. (it had a keyboard but it was only needed for
>> data entry.) We also installed a few of the terminals with different
>> application in DC (Reston), at CINCPAC in Hawaii, and possible a few others
>> I don’t remember. While we were doing that, we also added non-blocking IPC
>> to UNIX. All it had was pipes. NARIS was a distributed database application
>> that used databases on both coasts and we used the ARPANET. We did a fair
>> amount of distributed database research in that period as well and worked
>> out the issues of network partition, which as near as I can tell are still
>> not clearly understood.
>> >>
>> >> I am afraid we just didn’t see Plato as all that interesting, a
>> traditional mainframe and terminals system. And they pretty well kept to
>> themselves. We were probably both wrong.
>> >
>> > Take care,
>> > John
>> >
>> > The reason I remember the one at CINCPAC was that one of the stories
>> that got back was, that they had been invited to an evening at the CINC’s
>> home. The next Saturday morning our guy showed up at CINCPAC in a T-shirt
>> and shorts to work on the installation. The guard was giving him grief,
>> when the CINC strode in. Greeted our guy with a friendly remark about the
>> gathering a few nights before and headed on in. The following conversation
>> ensued: The guard a bit uncomfortable: You know the CINC? Yup. You know him
>> pretty well? Yup. Errr, I guess it would be okay.  ;-) And our guy was able
>> to get to work.
>> >
>> >> On Aug 21, 2021, at 07:58, Vint Cerf via Internet-history <
>> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> I worked on ARPANET from 1968-1972 and then started on Internet in
>> 1973. I
>> >> joined ARPA in 1976 and stayed there working on Internet until end of
>> 1982.
>> >> I visited the campus, met with Don Bitzer in the late 1960s (hazy
>> memory),
>> >> was impressed by the display technology, but, honestly, do not recall
>> much
>> >> influence on the Internet work. It was certainly an example of
>> time-shared
>> >> application that could be expanded by way of networks like ARPANET and
>> >> Internet but I don't recall direct influence on, e.g., protocol
>> >> development, packet switch design, application layer protocols.
>> >>
>> >> v
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 4:35 PM Bob Purvy via Internet-history <
>> >> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> I will. I was a DCL rat, and we'd just occasionally meet people from
>> PLATO,
>> >>> but that was it.
>> >>>
>> >>> I had a friend who took Latin and they used PLATO. I also used it in a
>> >>> Psych 100 experiment. And that's the extent of my contact.
>> >>>
>> >>> On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 1:30 PM Brian Dear <brian at platohistory.org>
>> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>>> Bob,
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Might I suggest, if you’re curious about PLATO, you rely on a more
>> >>>> in-depth history, available in my book The Friendly Orange Glow: The
>> >>> Untold
>> >>>> Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture (Pantheon,
>> 2017)
>> >>> [1]
>> >>>> which that 33-minute podcast episode seems to be a hodgepodge
>> summary of.
>> >>>> In the real deal, my book, you might find a more engaging
>> exploration of
>> >>>> the historical, technological, business, and societal influences of
>> PLATO
>> >>>> and why it’s important.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Regarding your being at U of I at the same time: if you were an
>> undergrad
>> >>>> from say 64-68, there’s a very good chance you would not have come
>> across
>> >>>> PLATO which was still in its formative stages and not deployed
>> widely at
>> >>>> all on campus. Things started scaling significantly around 1972 with
>> the
>> >>>> launch of the CDC CYBER mainframe-based system that grew to over 1000
>> >>>> terminals, all over campus. However, if you were working on a
>> Master’s
>> >>>> degree within the ivory tower of the CS dept from 68-73, a dept that
>> with
>> >>>> few exceptions looked down upon PLATO as a silly toy not worthy of
>> even
>> >>>> brief curiosity, it’s possible you still would have overlooked it.
>> Even
>> >>>> though DCL was very close the CERL lab on Mathews Ave.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Anyway, check out the book—it’s all about the Illinois story, as
>> well as
>> >>>> the influence (in both directions) between the PLATO project and the
>> >>> Xerox
>> >>>> PARC Alto/SmallTalk/Dynabook projects.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> - Brian
>> >>>>
>> >>>> [1] http://amzn.to/2ol9Lu6  (Amazon link for the book)
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> On Jul 5, 2021, at 6:06 PM, Bob Purvy via Internet-history <
>> >>>> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>> >>>>
>> >>>> I just listened to the episode
>> >>>> <
>> >>>>
>> >>> https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-history-of-
>> computing/id1472463802?i=1000511301793
>> >>>>>
>> >>>> about
>> >>>> PLATO on The History of Computing podcast, mostly because I'm being
>> >>>> interviewed for it tomorrow on my book
>> >>>> <
>> >>>>
>> >>> https://www.amazon.com/Inventing-Future-Albert-Cory/
>> dp/1736298615/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
>> >>>>>
>> >>>> .
>> >>>>
>> >>>> I know we've covered this before, but I think the "influence" of
>> PLATO
>> >>> is a
>> >>>> bit overstated. I hesitate to be too dogmatic about that, but after
>> all,
>> >>>> you would think I'd have heard more about it, being at the U of I at
>> the
>> >>>> same time as he's talking about here. Maybe it had more influence at
>> >>>> *other*
>> >>>> sites?
>> >>>>
>> >>>> On Thu, Jun 10, 2021 at 11:48 AM John Day via Internet-history <
>> >>>> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Forgot reply-all.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Begin forwarded message:
>> >>>>
>> >>>> From: John Day <jeanjour at comcast.net>
>> >>>> Subject: Re: [ih] How Plato Influenced the Internet
>> >>>> Date: June 10, 2021 at 14:46:35 EDT
>> >>>> To: Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Plato had very little if any influence on the ARPANET. I can’t say
>> about
>> >>>>
>> >>>> the other way.  We were the ARPANET node and saw very little of
>> them. We
>> >>>> were in different buildings on the engineering campus a couple of
>> blocks
>> >>>> from each other, neither of which was the CS building. This is
>> probably a
>> >>>> case of people looking at similar problems and coming to similar
>> >>>> conclusions, or from the authors point of view, doing the same thing
>> in
>> >>>> totally different ways.
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> I do remember once when the leader of our group, Pete Alsberg, was
>> >>>>
>> >>>> teaching an OS class and someone from Plato was taking it and
>> brought up
>> >>>> what they were doing for the next major system release. In class,
>> they
>> >>> did
>> >>>> a back of the envelope calculation of when the design would hit the
>> wall.
>> >>>> That weekend at a party, (Champaign-Urbana isn’t that big) Pete found
>> >>>> himself talking to Bitzer and related the story from the class.
>> Bitzer
>> >>> got
>> >>>> kind of embarrassed and it turned out they had hit the wall a couple
>> of
>> >>>> days before as the class’ estimate predicted.  ;-) Other than having
>> >>>> screens we could use, we didn’t put much stock in their work.
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> (The wikipedia page on Plato says it was first used Illiac I. It may
>> be
>> >>>>
>> >>>> true, but it must not have done much because Illiac I had 40 bit
>> words
>> >>> with
>> >>>> 1K main memory on Willams tubes and about 12K on drum. Illiac I (
>> and II
>> >>>> and III) were asynchronous hardware.)
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> As Ryoko always said, I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> John
>> >>>>
>> >>>> On Jun 10, 2021, at 11:48, Clem Cole via Internet-history <
>> >>>>
>> >>>> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> FWIW: Since Plato was just brought up, I'll point a vector to some
>> >>>>
>> >>>> folks.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> If you read Dear's book, it tends to credit the walled garden' system
>> >>>> Plato with a lot of the things the Internet would eventually be
>> known.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> How
>> >>>>
>> >>>> much truth there is, I can not say.  But there is a lot of good
>> stuff in
>> >>>> here and it really did impact a lot of us as we certainly had seen
>> that
>> >>>> scheme, when we started to do things later.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> So ... if  you have not yet read it, see if you can get a copy of
>> Brian
>> >>>> Dear's *The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO
>> System
>> >>>>
>> >>>> and
>> >>>>
>> >>>> the Dawn of Cyberculture* ISBN-10 1101871555
>> >>>>
>> >>>> In my own case, Plato was used for some Physics courses and I
>> >>>> personally never was one of the 'Plato ga-ga' type folks, although I
>> did
>> >>>> take on course using it and thought the graphics were pretty slick.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> But, I
>> >>>>
>> >>>> had all the computing power I needed with full ARPANET access between
>> >>>>
>> >>>> the
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Computer Center and CMU's EE and CS Depts.  But I do have friends
>> that
>> >>>>
>> >>>> were
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Physics, Chem E, and Mat Sci that all thought it was amazing and
>> liked
>> >>>>
>> >>>> it
>> >>>>
>> >>>> much better than the required FORTRAN course they had to take using
>> TSS
>> >>>>
>> >>>> on
>> >>>>
>> >>>> the IBM 360/67.
>> >>>> --
>> >>>> Internet-history mailing list
>> >>>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>> >>>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> --
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>> >>>>
>> >>>> --
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>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>> --
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>> >>>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
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>> >>
>> >> until further notice
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