[ih] Fwd: How Plato Influenced the Internet

[Bob Purvy]

+1 to that. I have a podcast interview for my book
<https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57138737-inventing-the-future> coming
up, and I do mention some of this, early in the book.
The host had heard about PLATO but not the Illiac demonstrations.

My (weak) recollection is that the PLATO people were in their own little
world, in a different building.

On Thu, Jun 10, 2021 at 3:21 PM John Day via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> The relation wasn’t toxic. But Illinois was big enough there really wasn’t
> much opportunity to interact.  They were doing their thing and were very
> possessive of their system which wasn’t really relevant to being on the
> ARPANET. While the Illiac group socialized with other aspects of the
> university, especially the music school, math, EE, and physics.  The Illiac
> group was embroiled in the student demonstrations against the project which
> ignored Plato, but was a major distraction for us. As I have noted before,
> which included our office being firebombed. Luckily radicals at UI were
> incompetent and it didn’t go off. But it was a distraction.
>
> John
>
> > On Jun 10, 2021, at 17:41, Steve Crocker via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> >
> > When I was working on the Arpanet in the 1968-71 time frame and at ARPA
> in
> > the 1971-74 time frame, I visited Bitzer at U of Illinois and also
> visited
> > the Corning factory in Toledo where the plasma panels were manufactured.
> > In those days there was a big hunger for displays but nothing was quite
> > viable.  We had an IMLAC in the Arpa office but didn't get much use out
> of
> > it.
> >
> > The plasma panel was definitely intriguing, and the Plato system was
> > noteworthy.  I don't recall where Bitzer got his financial support, but I
> > don't believe it came from ARPA.  That put the Plato project outside of
> the
> > ARPA community, even though we were fully aware of the technology.  At
> > Illinois there was a bit of rivalry between Dan Slotnick and his Illiac
> IV
> > project and Bitzer with his Plato project.  I couldn't tell whether the
> > rivalry was good natured or toxic, and I didn't spend much time worrying
> > about it.
> >
> > It would be quite a few years before we could buy displays that were
> truly
> > usable.  The Grid laptop was noteworthy but a bit expensive.  Apollo and
> > Sun came out with workstations and changed the world.  And then along
> came
> > Apple.  Lisp machines, from Lisp Machines Inc and also from Symbolics,
> were
> > very high end products.  Similarly, the products from Silicon Graphics
> and
> > from Evans and Sutherland were also at the high end.
> >
> > Steve
> >
> > On Thu, Jun 10, 2021 at 5:22 PM Stephen Casner via Internet-history <
> > internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> >
> >> On Thu, 10 Jun 2021, Stephen Casner via Internet-history wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Thu, 10 Jun 2021, Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I've had a similar experience as John.  In my time at MIT and BBN
> >> through the
> >>>> 60s/70s, I don't recall ever hearing anything about Plato, so it's not
> >> likely
> >>>> it had much influence in our work on ARPANET/Internet.
> >>>>
> >>>> IIRC, playing around with all sorts of graphics-capable terminals was
> >> popular
> >>>> back then - in the late 60s onward.   E.g., I had a student-job to
> >> create a
> >>>> graphical mechanical engineering simulation, and help the ME students
> >> do their
> >>>> designs, all using CTSS and an "ARDS" (Advanced Remote Display
> >> Station).  In
> >>>> another group at MIT, we had an Evans&Sutherland display, circa early
> >> 70s.
> >>>> People at another lab were playing with systems that used light pens.
> >> In the
> >>>> later 70s, at BBN, we had a 3D display that could show wire-frame
> >> models of
> >>>> stuff, and let you rotate and manipulate it.
> >>>>
> >>>> AFAIK, few if any of these had much obvious influence outside their
> own
> >>>> communities.   Although they all had interesting technology, there
> >> were too
> >>>> few of them available for use as everyday terminals to your favorite
> >> computer
> >>>> system.   So they were good for demos, but not for mainstream work.
> >>>
> >>> That Evans & Sutherland display may be the same one that Danny Cohen
> >>> used for the flight simulator that incorporated ARPAnet communication
> >>> between Harvard and BBN.  This was definitely a case where displays
> >>> and ARPAnet were both important, but it falls into your category of
> >>> demo not mainstream.  See the attached two slides from a Google Tech
> >>> Talk that Danny gave in 2010.
> >>
> >> Oops, the internet-history list does not allow the attachment.
> >>
> >> See: http://casners.us/flight-sim.pdf
> >>
> >>                                                        -- Steve
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