CHM’s five-hour oral history w/ Dr. Donald Bitzer, recorded July 2022.
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PLATO IV animation sequences filmed with a 16mm stop-motion camera in 1977 by Dave Ziegler.
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Maryann Bitzer has passed away. Rest in Peace, Maryann.
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Beating out two of Walt’s books today on the Amazon’s Kindle List for computer history books. Go, PLATO!
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So excited to hear author Richard Powers, about whom I devoted a chapter of my book The Friendly Orange Glow, in an interview today. Absolute must-listen. nytimes.com/2021/09/28/opi
That's my 2003 photo of him next to a PLATO terminal at U of Illinois.
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Congrats, Ray!
[Hopefully some day will finally learn some history and no longer brush off PLATO as mere “educational software” but my expectations are low.]
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Congrats to collaborative software pioneer & entrepreneur Ray Ozzie @rozzie - CHM 2021 Fellow. We look forward to honoring Ray on 3/18 through storytelling, tributes, & a dynamic panel discussion about the present and future of tech for collaboration. computerhistory.org/events/buildin
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Funny how if you log in at 9:18 am or pm on Cyber1, you see what appears to be a frog, or is a puffer fish, on the welcome page
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Tomorrow I'm the guest on ' Podcast, talking about my book The Friendly Orange Glow on the history of the #PLATOsystem and talking about numerous other topics as well.
Wednesday Aug 12th 2020 at 12:30pm Eastern / 9:30am Pacific twit.tv/floss
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This is really terrible news - Living Computer Museum + Labs shutting down. The only place in the world where there were original, live PLATO terminals where you could sit down an interact with a real PLATO system. Hope those priceless terminals are safe.
rottedbits.blogspot.com/2020/07/on-clo
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Some great background here on Dave Liddle's career including his work on the PLATO plasma panel at Owns-Illinois. Thanks to CHM for doing this oral history.
platohistory.org/blog/2020/07/c
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Just published, in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the PLATO system: "The Story of John Hunter’s World Peace Game, Roger Ebert, and the PLATO System"
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This review of Brian Dear's The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the Rise of Cyberculture by #AmericanArchivist describes the importance of this book for those studying #archives. #cyberculture
Read the review here: americanarchivist.org/doi/full/10.17
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What a pleasant surprise, a big long favorable review of The Friendly Orange Glow from The American Archivist journal.
As I’ve long said, #archivists and research #librarians rock! Thanks !
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American Archivist: The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the Rise of Cyberculture zpr.io/tJ6fK
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It was a gigantic ~$50 million boondoggle by state of CA but hey they didn’t know that at the 1982 unveiling... a video of that news report surfaces...
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Later this year will mark the 60th anniversary of the start of the development of the PLATO system at the University of Illinois.
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Old enough to remember the Plato computer system from the 70s and 80s? On Video Games Weekly on tonight, we'll be talking to who's written the definitive history of the first real online multiplayer game system. amazon.com/Friendly-Orang
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Reading “The Friendly Orange Glow” about the Plato computer system, I was surprised to see a cameo by Silas Warner, who went on to write Castle Wolfenstein on the Apple 2, and eventually met the Id Software founders at Kansas Fest, giving us his blessing for Wolfenstein 3D.
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Just did a fun interview with the great of #TheRetroHour podcast talking all about PLATO and my book The Friendly Orange Glow. I'm told they'll be putting it out on the internet in a few days, so stay tuned: theretrohour.com
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Interesting Danish review of The Friendly Orange Glow — English translation by Google Translate: translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?de
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Historien om PLATO er meget lærerig. Den fortæller om, hvordan det ofte går gode ideer, når de ikke er i sync med tiden, og om hvordan store veletablerede virksomheder kan ramme fuldstændig ved siden af
#internationalbusiness ow.ly/5GDF30oTPfV
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Really nice Goodreads review of THE FRIENDLY ORANGE GLOW. Nice to know people are still discovering the book and the history it sheds light on for the first time.
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5 of 5 stars to The Friendly Orange Glow by Brian Dear goodreads.com/review/show?id
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In paperback TOMORROW! THE FRIENDLY ORANGE GLOW by Brian Dear. “Entertaining, anecdote-laden account waxes more than a little nostalgic about the little-remembered program...behind cyberculture’s flourishing global impact.”
— ow.ly/uhpN30m1kwb
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In paperbackTuesday! FRIENDLY ORANGE GLOW: The Untold Story of the Rise of Cyberculture by Brian Dear (). "...there is an equally long list of unknown computer pioneers, the people whose stories fill the pages of this book."
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Look what just arrived! First paperback edition of THE FRIENDLY ORANGE GLOW. In stores on October 2nd. Find out the hidden history of social computing that Silicon Valley (and tech historians in academia) would prefer you never know.
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In THE FRIENDLY ORANGE GLOW, "has done a great deal of heavy lifting here to tell a story that needed to be told and we are much the richer for this telling."
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117
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Nice to see so many copies of THE FRIENDLY ORANGE GLOW at the #SXSW bookstore. I’ll be speaking in 3rd flr rm 9C in convention center at 11am Sunday, followed by a booksigning at the bookstore at noon.
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Happy 84th Birthday to Dr. Donald Bitzer, creator and leader of the PLATO system project. Read about his life and work in the new book The Friendly Orange Glow from Pantheon in bookstores everywhere.
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"When Spock Met PLATO," an excerpt from THE FRIENDLY ORANGE GLOW published at WIRED's today: wired.com/story/when-spo
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WIRED's votes THE FRIENDLY ORANGE GLOW as one of its top picks of the year for books! They include an excerpt from the book on Star Trek's Leonard Nimoy's visit to the lab in 1974. Check it out:
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Here's the talk on THE FRIENDLY ORANGE GLOW that I gave recently at the awesome bookstore in Washington DC. This is the latest episode of 's just out today. c-span.org/video/?437708-
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The PLATO computer system may be as obsolete as it's interstellar namesake - but a local author doesn't want you to forget the system's place in cyber history.
sfnm.co/2nPUjKh
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New Pod: 159. The Forgotten Story of PLATO, with Brian Dear
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Plato. No, not than one. A good example of how the better doesn’t always succeed ow.ly/j4HD30h7pgZ #bschool #startsomething
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WOW. A super-glowing review of THE FRIENDLY ORANGE GLOW in the weekend efition (Dec 9) Wall Street Journal. Already online here: wsj.com/articles/revie
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Major review of THE FRIENDLY ORANGE GLOW in the science journal NATURE: twitter.com/weinbergersa/s
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My review of ' wonderful, uber-nerdy new book out from , "The Friendly Orange Glow": openlettersmonthly.com/book-review-th
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How a little-known computer network system changed the history of the internet
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Brian Dear shared amazing stories last night about the origins of PLATO, a computer system created in 1960 by CSL researcher Don Bitzer. With PLATO, students chatted with people across the world, learned new languages & built some of the first video games. friendlyorangeglow.com
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Big new story at on PLATO & #TheFriendlyOrangeGlow #edtech #games #socialmedia #history #techhistory
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