Comment by opo
4 hours ago
>[1] No, PLATO was never nearly so widespread
Plato often gets overlooked, but it was highly influential. A well written book on it is: "The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture"
The wikipedia page has some overview info on it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_(computer_system)
In terms of usage, there aren't many stats, but I saw this: "The CERL PLATO system logged 10 million hours of use between September, 1978 and May, 1985 (a period for which the most complete statistics are available).
> Plato often gets overlooked, but it was highly influential. A well written book on it is: "The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture"
Quoting myself from 2023, in a discussion of computer history books:<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35405385>
>The Friendly Orange Glow, about PLATO. Not because PLATO was super-influential on the later industry—far from it, with only minor exceptions—but that doesn't mean that it doesn't deserve examination.