Horizon Information Portal

HSPLS site

eBooks/Audiobooks

Reading Program

The friendly orange glow : the untold story of the PLATO system and the dawn of cyberculture / Brian Dear.

by Dear, Brian, 1961- author.

View full image

New York : Pantheon Books, [2017]

PLATO (Electronic computer system) -- History.

Cyberspace -- History.

9781101871553 (hardcover)

1101871555 (hardcover)

xv, 613 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm

Part I. The automatic teacher. Praeceptor ex machina ; An educational emergency ; The super-achiever ; The diagram ; Soldering irons, not switchblades ; Gas and glass ; Two's a crowd ; Knocking on the same doors ; A fork in the road ; Lessons learned -- Part II. The fun they had. Impeachment ; The new wave ; The Big Board ; The killer app ; Empire ; Into the dungeon ; The zoo ; Red Sweater ; The Supreme Being and the master of reality ; Climbing the ziggurat ; Coming of age -- Part III. Getting to scale. The business opportunity ; The whim of iron ; Diaspora ; The crash pit ; A changing of he guard ; Leaving the nest.

Documents the story of the 1960s computer program and platform that marked the true beginning of cyberculture, revealing the role of PLATO ideas in inspiring countless technological innovations, from flat-panel wall TVs to multiplayer games.

"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. Together, the PLATO community pioneered what we now collectively engage in as cyberculture. They were among the first to identify and also realize the potential and scope of the social interconnectivity of computers, well before the creation of the internet. PLATO was the foundational model for every online community that was to follow in its footsteps. The Friendly Orange Glow is the first history to recount in fascinating detail the remarkable accomplishments and inspiring personal stories of the PLATO community. The addictive nature of PLATO both ruined many a college career and launched pathbreaking multimillion-dollar software products. Its development, impact, and eventual disappearance provides an instructive case study of technological innovation and disruption, project management, and missed opportunities. Above all, The Friendly Orange Glow at last reveals new perspectives on the origins of social computing and our internet-infatuated world."--Dust jacket.

Horizon Information Portal 3.25_9884

Powered by Dynix

© 2001-2013 SirsiDynix All rights reserved.

Horizon Information Portal