by Brian Dear
“All these old guys, staying up late so they can be on NovaNET a little longer, just like when they were kids,” Don Appleman, another longtime PLATO/NovaNET systems programmer and regular participant in =pad=, posted at 2:11 a.m. “Me included,” he added as a postscript.
And then, a few minutes later, it came. The backout message. First the sixty-second warning. Then, “NovaNET service interruption in 30 seconds…” flashed at the bottom of everyone’s screens. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, no point in signing off—the system was going to sign you off before anybody could—so why not sit back, enjoy the ride.
“The backout message—it burns!” Don Appleman posted at 2:16 a.m., the system only alive for a few seconds more.
“NovaNET service interruption in 10 seconds…,” the message at the bottom of the screen now said. For the twenty-two people online, it was time to take a deep breath, and kiss goodbye the decades of digital fun, conversation, and, for many of them, a career spent on a system they loved.
The screen went dark. Then, a pause, followed by some white text, centered in the middle of the black screen, announced the dreaded moment:
—NovaNET not available—
NovaNET was history.
In 1967, Mac E. Van Valkenburg, then chairman of the department of electrical engineering at the University of Illinois, a man who had been one of Don Bitzer’s PhD advisors, had this to say about Bitzer’s technological baby: “Any predictions made for PLATO are speculation. It may be forgotten, or it may be the development of the century.”
Choose your answer, and press NEXT to continue.
Acknowledgments
The first person I must thank, a person without whom this book might have never existed, is Katherine Hourigan, managing editor of Alfred A. Knopf Books. In 1987, I dashed off a series of query letters to several editors who had edited a number of my favorite books. Shortly thereafter, she sent me a brief letter indicating she was interested, wanted to learn more, and to “please send the manuscript at your convenience.” Twenty-eight years later, in late 2014, it was finally convenient to reply and send in a large portion of it to her. Thankfully she was still managing editor and took my twenty-eight-year delay in stride. In 2015, she shared my work with a number of editors within the overall Knopf/Doubleday Publishing Group. The result was an offer from Pantheon. To Katherine, thank you for hanging in there and giving this book a chance to get out to the world.
Equal thanks to my literary agent, Regina Ryan, and to my Pantheon editor, Keith Goldsmith, both of whom always believed in the project and have offered unwavering support, wise counsel, and encouragement all along the way. Thanks also to the rest of the Knopf/Doubleday/Pantheon team: Dan Frank, Altie Karper, Fred Chase, Kevin Bourke, Mike Collica, Oliver Munday, Michiko Clark, Anna Dobben, and Danielle Plafsky.
I began this book in 1985 not knowing what form it would take; at the time I was considering a magazine article comparing and contrasting the dramatic differences I found in the PLATO and TICCIT cultures: the personalities of the people were so different, the designs of their respective systems were 180 degrees opposite; PLATO had a vast online community of people all over the world; in contrast, TICCIT was strictly a local-area network of terminals running training courseware.
I quickly became hooked on PLATO as a freshman at the University of Delaware in 1979, only to discover that Delaware was a mere remote outpost to the main event. Thus in 1980 I made my first pilgrimage to CERL, visiting again in 1982 to play in an Empire tournament. In 1986 I went again, this time spending several days interviewing the CERL staff. Every single person I met with was open, friendly, enthusiastic, willing to answer any and every question. Thanks to Tebby Lyman for providing me what turned out to be an invaluable stack of newspaper clippings, press releases, brochures, and miscellaneous documents and reports during that trip. In fact, over the course of the thirty-two years of this project, it has been a genuine pleasure, a blessing, to spend time with and hear the stories from such a vast number of people from around the world whose lives were touched by PLATO in some way. In addition, I found practitioners in the fields of psychology, instructional design, computer science, cognitive science, engineering, physics, biology, business, and education who knew about PLATO and were uniformly generous in their time to answer questions and guide me in the right direction.
Special thanks go to Dan Alpert, without whose guidance and leadership PLATO never would have happened. He provided me with multiple interviews, priceless documents, and endless support. Dan lived to be ninety-eight, and never missed a ski season in over fifty years. Thanks also to the generosity, support, and ready availability of the extended Bitzer clan, who put up with my incessant questions over a period of thirty years: Donald and Maryann Bitzer and their son, David; relatives Earle, Ruth, Sandy, Carol, and Jack Leskera. To Don and Maryann especially I offer immense gratitude and thanks. I’m also grateful for the kindness and hospitality of Paul Tenczar (who made himself available for numerous interviews over the years) and his wife, Darlene; they let me rummage through a suitcase full of Paul’s photographic slides.
Thanks to Andy Hertzfeld, Paul Resch, Bill Galcher, Donald Norman, Dan O’Neill, and Ray Ozzie for reviewing all or portions of the manuscript over the years. Thanks also to writers Steven Levy and John Markoff, whose inspiring writing, support, and encouragement have helped give me the strength to finish this book.
Thanks to Ralph Nader and William C. Taylor, authors of The Big Boys: Power and Position in American Business (Pantheon, 1986), who without hesitation gave me two boxes full of all of their research on Control Data Corporation, including raw interview transcripts and handwritten reporter’s notes, which I put to extensive use in Part Three of this book.
When one works on a book across three decades, the list of people to thank grows immense. Thanks to everyone who agreed to meet in person, invariably extending their hospitality, kindness, and support, sometimes for many long hours of conversation; as well as to the many people who spoke via phone, sometimes for many hours; as well as to the many people who wrote and sent me long personal essays, or sent photographs, news clippings, and documents; as well as to the thousands of people who corresponded by email—sometimes over many years. Thanks to Mike Achenbach; Sam Adams; Alix (Gaby) Albert; Kathryn (Lutz) Alesandrini; Paul Alfille; Chris Alix; Mary Allan; Jim Allard; Brock Allen; David Allen; Michael Allen; Daniel Alpert; Mitch Altman; Ernest Anastasio; David Andersen; John Anderson; Richard C. Anderson; Thomas H. Anderson; Marc Andreessen; Tanner Andrews; Amotz Anner; Andy Anthony; Andrew Appel; Don Appleman; Jeffrey Armstrong; Brij Arora; Eric Artman; Bruce Artwick; Neil Ashby; Isaac Asimov; Tom Ask; Chip Aspnes; Richard Atkinson; M. S. Atkisson; Wagner James Au; Allen Avner; Scott Baeder; Ron Baerg; Bill Bahnfleth; Charles Baker; Cheryl (Eklund) Baker; Frederick Z. Banks; Quentin Barnes; David C. Barnett; Richard A. Bartle; Michael J. Bartosh; Jeff Bauer; Mark “Adam” Baum; Kurt Baumann; Rhona Baverman; Marilyn Beckman; Carl Behmer; Brian Bell; Gregory Benford; Mike Benveniste; Michael B. Bentley; Robert Berdahl; Rudy Berg; Mike Berger; John Bittner; David Black; Brian Blackmore; Richard Blahut; David Blair; Douglas Laine Blair; Rick Blomme; Louis Bloomfield; Mark Boeser; Nick Boland; William Bonetti; Grady Booch; Eugene P. Bordelon; Alfred Bork; Frank Boros; Ben Borowski; Lyle Borton; Lisa Boucher; Martha Boudreaux; Marisa Bowe; Jim Bowery; Pete Boysen; Jim Brain; Craig Brannon; Mark Brennan; Andrew K. Bressen; David Brightbill; Tony Brinati; Geoffrey Brock; Doug Brown; Gary Brown; John Seely Brown; Mary Brown; Richard M. Brown; Joe Brownlee; Bertram Chip Bruce; Richard Brummer; Walter Bruning; Leif Brush; John Bryan; Art Brymer; John L. Buckingham; Rick Buckmaster; Jerry Bucksath; C. Victor Bunderson; Garrie Burr; Craig Burson; Gary Burton; Paul Buta; Michael Butler; Deborah (Skinner) Buzan; L. Leon Campbell; Lynn Campbell; Marc Canter; David Capron; James Capshew; Jim Card; John Carmack; Christine Batakis Carroll; Bruce Carter; George Carter; Soji Carter; Darren Casella; Ruth Chabay; Cully Chapple; Sylvia Charp; Darlene Chirolas; Frank Christ; Jeff Chung;
David Churches; Pat Clifford; Mike Cochran; Al Cohen; “Eddie” Cohen; Jeff Cohen; Stephen P. Cohen; Bill Cole; Corey Cole; Jerry Colonna; W. Dale Compton; Don Connelly; Ted Conway; Jeff Corey; Priscilla (Obertino) Corielle; Kaywin Cottle; Chris Crawford; David Crockett; Rich Crooks; Larry Cuban; John Cundiff; Carol (Bennett) Dalenko; John Daleske; Andy Dallas; Bernard Damberger; Jeff Dammeyer; David E. Daniel; Ronald Danielson; Dave Darling; Steve Deiss; Tom Deliganis; Thomas DeLoughry; Stewart Denenberg; Carl Dennis; Sam Denton; Tom DePlonty; Diane Desatnick; Jack Desmond; William Deutsch; Dean Dierschow; Andrew di Sessa; Orlando J. Dona; Eric Downey; Scott Dudley; Sharon Dugdale; Jim Dumoulin; Kevet Duncombe; Wesley Dunn; Natalie DuPont; Jim Dutcher; Kim Duvall; David Eades; Mark Eastom; Fred Ebeling; Chaz Ebert; Roger Ebert; Ernst Eichmann; John David Eisenberg; Richard A. Ekblaw; Mary Eliot; Robert Elmore; Douglas Engelbart; Rupert Evans; Scott E. Fahlman; Peter Fairweather; Margot Fass; Martin Fass; Gerry Faust; J. Michael Felty; Wallace Feurzieg; Lee Fillman; Brad Fincher; Steve Fine; Brice Finkelstein; Chester Fitch; Declan Fleming; Estelle Fletcher; J. Dexter Fletcher; Jim Flinsch; Michael Folk; Bill Forsyth; Brand Fortner; Monica Fortner; George Frampton; Larry Francis; David Frankel; Marvin Frankel; Bob Fratini; Stephen Freyder; H. George Friedman; Duane D. Friedrich; Mort Frishberg; Sue Frishberg; Gary Fritz; G. David Frye; Jim Fuerstenberg; Chris Fugitt; David Fumento; David Futrelle; Owen Gaede; Eugene Galanter; Bill Galcher; Samwise Galenorn; Paul Garceau; Chester Gardner; Sean Gardner; Stephen Gee; Andy Geiger; Louis V. Genco; Melanie Geyer; Jim Ghesquiere; Andrew Gibbons; Don Gillies; Joel S. Gillman; Brian Gilomen; John Gilpin; John Giourdas; Gary Gladding; Robert Glaser; Jim Glish; Adele Goldberg; William Golden; Richard Goldhor; Jack Goldman; Edwin (Ned) Goldwasser; Sherwin Gooch; Mike Gorback; Kevin Gorey; Barbara Grabowski; Barb Grajewski; David Graper; Dave Grattan; Steve Gray; Douglas Green; Jay Green; William Green; Andrew Greenberg; Tom Grillot; George Grimes; Tom Grohne; Alan Groupe; Justin Grunau; C. K. Gunsalus; Yechezkal Gutfreund; Lenny Gutierrez; Eric Hagstrom; Lippold Haken; Ed Hall; Steve Hallberg; John Haltiwanger; Tim Halvorsen; Jonathan Handel; Cecil Hannan; Andrew Hanson; Al Harkrader; Ron Harstad; Michael S. Hart; Shawn Hart; Miles Harvey; Skip Haughay; David Haycraft; Mark Haynes; Rick Hazlewood; Harold Hendricks; Carole Herriman; Karl Hess; Jock Hill; Fred Hofstetter; Laura Hofstetter; Lenny Hoover; Lara Hopkins; Jim Horne; Mike Horner; Valli Hoski; Ernest House; Charles Hresil; Bob Hubel; Beverly Hunter; Tom Hunter; Jeff Huston; James Hutchinson; Daniel C. Hyde; Renee Inman; Aron K. Insinga; Mike Jacobs; Bryna Lee Jacobson; Greg Janusz; Eugene Jarecki; Gloria Jarecki; Henry Jarecki; Bob Johansen; Chris Johnson; James Johnson; Jeff Johnson; Keith Johnson; Lee Johnson; Mark A. Johnson; Roger Johnson; Douglas W. Jones; Jeremy Jones; Steve Jones; Richard Jorgensen; Ted Kaehler; Dennis Kane; Samuel Kaplan; Mitch Kapor; Goran Karlsson; Kent Karraker; Aaron Karsh; Milton Katz; Luke Kaven; Len Kawell; Alan Kay; Greg Kearsley; B Keefe; Mark Kehrli; Andrew Keller; Elaine Keller; David Kibbey; Dick Kibitt; Kaywin Kidd; Tom Kiester; Rayburn Killion; Greg Kirkpatrick; Ron Klass; Paul Kohlmiller; Nathaniel Kohn; Christopher Kolar; Rob Kolstad; Paul Koning; D. A. Kopf; Colin Koteles; Diane Kovacs; Glenn Kowack; Jim Knoke; Daphne Koller; Celia Kraatz; Jim Kraatz; Michael Krasny; Neil Krasovec; Peter Krause; Jody Kravitz; Scott Krueger; Richard Kubat; Mike Kulas; Fred Kutell; Mitch Kutzko; Helen Kuznetsov; Valarie Lamont; Carol Lampe; John Lampe; Murray Lappe; David Lassner; David Lawrance; Andy Lawrence; Sheridan Layman; Tom Layman; Lauren Leach; Ted Leach; Robert Lebowitz; Carolyn (Leech) Leeb; Gene Leichner; Jeannine Leichner; David L. Lendt; George Leonard; David LePage; Rick Levine; Alan Levy; Wayne W. Lichtenberger; Judith Liebman; John Limber; Sean Lincoln; Jon Lineweaver; Steve Lionel; Arthur Lipper; Greg Lipper; Howard Lipsitz; Larry Lipsitz; Terry Lisansky; Todd Little; Brodie Lockard; Eric Loeb; Ed Logg; Gary Loitz; Harvey Long; Chris Lopez; Ken Lopez; Scott Lucado; Phyllis (Hall) Ludwig; Arthur Luehrmann; Mark Lundberg; Tebby Lyman; Bill Lynch; Roger Macdonald; Peter Macinnis; Eddie Maes; Bruce Maggs; Peter Maggs; Kurt Mahan; Jonathan Manton; Jim Manzi; Dillon Mapother; Scott Marcy; Ted Marcy; Jed Margolin; Charles F. Marino; Rosalie (Dietrich) Marley; David Martin; Paul Martin; Ted Martz; Stephan Masica; Phil Mast; John Matheny; Melissa (Dammeyer) McCormick; Nancy McDonald; Brendan McGinty; Jude McLaughlin; Rob McQuown; Erik McWilliams; Terry Meadors; Russell Medford; Mike Medved; David Meller; Arthur Melmed; Bill Melohn; M. David Merrill; Marshall Midden; Beth Ann Miller; Chuck Miller; David Miller; Joe Miller; J. Michael Milner; Sam Milosevich; Robert A. Moe; Andrew Molnar; William Montague; Carl Moore; Catherine Morgan; Bob Morris; Ron Mortensen; A. Kent Morton; David Moursund; David Mudrick; Barry Munitz; Mike A. Murphy; George B. Myers; Don (Black) Nelson; Mara (Stolurow) Nelson; Ted Nelson; Mary Ann Neuman; Bob Niederman; Jon Niedfeldt; Jurg Nievergelt; Douglas Noble; Steve Nordberg; Mats Nordin; William C. Norris; Bob North; Kevin Nortrup; Sal Nuzzo; Mike O’Brien; Terry O’Brien; Brian M. O’Connell; John O’Hara; Mike O’Hara; Dan Oberlin; Anthony Oettinger; Steve Okonski; Michael Olivier; Kevin Osterhoff; Ron Ozer; Ray Ozzie; George Pake; Josh Paley; Nina Paley; Mark Papamarcos; Seymour Papert; Bruce Parrello; Jim Payne; Dirk Pellett; Flint Pellett; Jack Peltason; Steve Peltz; Glenn Pence; Dean Perra; George D. Peters; Stephen Petrina; Frederick Peyser; Scott Pfeffer; Bob Philhower; Don Piven; Robert C. Platt; Jason Pociask; Cindy Polus; Dorothy Pondy; Richard Powers; Robert M. Price; Frank Propst; Peter D. Pruyne; Andy R.; Bob Rader; Manfred Raether; Max Rahder; Susan Rankaitis; Rick Rashid; Diane Ravitch; Brian Redman; Dennis Reed; Dan D. Reeves; Rick Reichenbach; Bill Reichenborn; Lindsay Reichmann; Alex Reid; Mark Reifkind; Paul M. Resch; Steve Rhodes; Brent Rickenbach; Rick Rickenbach; Pat Ridgely; John Risken; Nancy Risser; Grant Ritchey; Peter Rizza; Chuck Roberts; Paul E. Robertson; Eric Robeson; Alaine (Warfield) Robinson; Mike Rodby; Dan Rohner; Tony Rollo; Bill Roper; Steve Rose; CJ Ross; Robb Ross; Eric Rotberg; Andrew Rothenberg; Randall Rothenberg; Mary M. Rowan; Peter Rowell; Owen Rubin; Dave Runte; George A. Russell; Mark Rustad; Donna Saar; Jonathan Sachs; Jim Salmons; Stephen Satchell; Aaron Sawdey; Nate Scarpelli; Bill Schaeffer; Tom Schaefges; Grant Schampel; Jerry Schermerhorn; Dave Schoeller; Peter Schow; Jeff Schramm; Robert Schroeder; Foster Schucker; Donald Schultz; Jan Schultz; Steve Schutt; Michael Schwager; Bill Scott; Vince Scuro; Paul Sebby; Joseph Seeley; Alberto Maria Segre; Robert J Seidel; Bonnie (Anderson) Seiler; Chris Seitz; Gary Shaffer; Leslie Shaffer; Brian Shankman; Andrew Shapira; Brian Shears; Bill Sheppard; Kevin Sheridan; Larry Sherman; Chalmers Sherwin; Anton Sherwood; Bruce Sherwood; Judy Sherwood; Kaitlin Sherwood; Don Shirer; David Sides; Laurene (Ragona) Sides; Marty Siegel; Paul Silver; Rick Simkin; Steve Singer; Lisa Singh; Henrk Sjodin; Dominic Skaperdas; B. F. Skinner; Danny Sleator; Irene Slottow; Jeffrey Slovin; David Small; Larry Smarr; Anthony Smith; Kenneth Smith; Mike Smith; Shannon K. E. Smith; Stan Smith; Vernon Smith; Walter Smith; Jim Snellen; Joel A. Snow; Patricia Sokolove; Cynthia Solomon; Elliott Soloway; Larry Sonna; Robert L. Sproull; Rae Stabosz; Bill Stainton; Robert Stake; John Starkweather; Tom Starr; Rich Stawicki; Alfred Steele; Esther Steinberg; Lou Steinberg; David Steinberger; Rob Steinberger; Neal Stephenson; Ken Stetten; Robin Stevens; Jack Stifle; Lawrence Stolurow; Ben Stoltz; Maureen Stone; Lawrence Stover; Jeffrey Strang; Scott Strickland; Patrick Stubbs; Jack Suess; Maurice E. Suhre; Patrick Suppes; Rachael (Preiss) Susman; Alistair Sutherland; Bob Swanson; Scott Swanson; Nathan Syfrig; Mike Szabo; Joshua Tabin; Dave Tall; David Tanaka; Jack Taub; Bob Taylor; Dick Taylor; Frank Taylor; Dan Teitelbaum; Chuck Thacker; Jonathan Thaler; Jim Thomasson; Charlene Thompson; Tim Thompson; Sebastian Thrun; Jim Tobias; Anthony Tomasic; Timothy Trick; Dan Tripp; David Trowbridge; Jim Trueblood; Earl Truss; Paul Tucker; Sherry Turkle; Murray Turoff; Phil Twiss; Richard Twiss; Yarko Tymciurak; Judy Tyrer; Stuart Umpleby; James M. Unger; Al and Diane Urbanckas; Ken Vanderhoff; Wendy van Dijk; Julie (Skinner) Vargas; Steve Vetter; Emil Volcheck; Louis D. Volpp; Daniel Walczak; Bill Walker; Mike Walker; Silas Warner; Chuck Warren; Greg Warren; Marcus Watts; Gordon Weast; Harriett Weatherford; Charles Weaver; Larry Weber; Donald Wedding; Mike Wei; Scott Weikart; Morton Weir; Jessica Weissman; Steve Weyer; K
en Whaley; Gary Whisenhunt; Larry White; Charlie Wickham; Tom Wicklund; Ron Widitz; Claude Wilkin; Dan Williams; Mike Williams; Richard Williams; Steve Williams; Tom Williams; Robert H. Willson; George Wayne Wilson; Susan Winter; Erik K. Witz; R. J. Wolfe; Marilyn Wood; Ray Wood; Robert Woodhead; Jim Woods; David Woolley; Alan Wostenberg; Darren Wright; Guy Wright; Kim Wright; Pam Wright; Allen Yang; Bob Yeager; Laura M. Young; Andy Zaffron; Paul Zarnowski; George Zebrowski; Matt Zelchenko; Peter Zelchenko; Dave Ziegler; Roy Zingg; and Karl Zinn. If I forgot anyone, the omission was inadvertent.
The following businesses and organizations helped in numerous ways: NovaNET Learning, Inc., which from the early 1990s all the way through to the Pearson Education years waived the expensive hourly connection fees so I could access the system for research. Control Data Corporation, for loaning me a complete PLATO workstation, printer, and online account to capture screen shots and printout notesfiles in 1987–1988. Hazeltine Corporation’s Training Systems Center (later a division of Ford Aerospace) for allowing me copious use of its high-speed Kodak photocopier. I also owe a debt of gratitude to twenty years of search engines: AltaVista, InfoSeek, Yahoo, and Google.
Since grade school I have held both a fascination with and indebtedness to libraries and librarians, some of the most helpful people on earth. If there is a Twitter hashtag that epitomizes exactly how I feel about research librarians, it is #LibrariansRock. This book would not have been possible without the eager, enthusiastic support of the staffs at the Library of Congress; the University of Illinois Archives; the University of Illinois Library; Brigham Young University Library and Special Collections; the University of Washington Library; the University of Maryland Baltimore County Library; the University of Maryland College Park Library; the University of California San Diego Library; San Diego State University Library; the University of New Mexico Library; the Ohio State University Library; and the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota.
