[HN Gopher] PLATO: An educational computer system from the '60s ...
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PLATO: An educational computer system from the '60s shaped the
future (2023)
Author : rbanffy
Score : 95 points
Date : 2024-12-14 12:57 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| EncomLab wrote:
| "The Friendly Orange Glow" is a wonderful book about the
| development, implementation, and ultimate downfall of the Plato
| system. Well worth the read!
| whatrocks wrote:
| Love this book. I did a short interview with the author Brian
| Dear about his writing tools + process a while back. Perhaps my
| favorite anecdote is that he started working on this book in
| 1985, using MSDOS and later a NeXT cube for his notes. The
| authorial process truly experienced the full gamut of personal
| storage mediums over the years.
|
| https://writeswith.com/interviews/brian-dear/
| disqard wrote:
| I discovered (and thoroughly enjoyed reading) the book thanks
| to that interview!
|
| Thank You So Much :)
| mst wrote:
| It's fantastic - I read very little book length non-fiction
| (because I largely read _books_ in bed to relax, 10k+ word
| essays or entire documentation sites are a different matter),
| but it was gripping, thoughtful, beautiful, and so, so much
| worth it.
|
| It made enough of an impression on a subset of the users that I
| believe the free-to-access cyber1 system is still going and has
| (just) enough people on it to retain some of the social
| aspects.
| waltbosz wrote:
| I remember Plato as a kid in the 80s. My mom wrote software for
| the at the University of Delaware. I remember using the touch
| screens. there was this game where you could drop a flowerpot on
| Mickey Mouse, and a game where you'd brew a potion and it would
| randomly generate a vector drawing of a monster.
| jblebrun wrote:
| It's cool to see this as one of the top comments. I grew up in
| southern Delaware, and remember messing around with Plato at
| Delaware Technical and Community College, which was also a
| satellite campus for UD, when I'd hang out there with an
| elementary school friend whose mom worked there. I feel
| grateful to have had exposure to things. I don't remember much
| about it, but I remember that it felt very futuristic and
| magical.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Posts like this make me very happy - I've never seen a real
| Plato terminal working and have little idea of the social
| context they'd be used.
|
| I love to quote William Gibson on this: "The future is
| already here - it's just not very evenly distributed."
|
| You had a glimpse of it. Treasure those memories.
| mellosouls wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Donald Bitzer has died_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42406158
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Here's a list of related threads--if there are others,
| please let us know.
|
| _Donald Bitzer has died_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42406158 - Dec 2024 (22
| comments)
|
| _How to make almost any computer a modern-day PLATO terminal_
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38024047 - Oct 2023 (4
| comments)
|
| _PLATO: An educational computer system from the 60s shaped the
| future_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35208286 - March
| 2023 (89 comments)
|
| _Irata.online: A PLATO service for retro computing
| enthusiasts_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32600338 -
| Aug 2022 (26 comments)
|
| _The PLATO Project_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29782661 - Jan 2022 (1
| comment)
|
| _Irata.online a modern implementation of the PLATO computing
| system_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24207044 - Aug
| 2020 (1 comment)
|
| _John Hunter's World Peace Game, Roger Ebert, and the PLATO
| System_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23460259 - June
| 2020 (9 comments)
|
| _A Look Back at the 1960s PLATO Computing System_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16615420 - March 2018 (45
| comments)
|
| _When Star Trek's Spock Met PLATO_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16019201 - Dec 2017 (1
| comment)
|
| _The Internet That Wasn't: Review of "The Friendly Orange
| Glow" by Brian Dear_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15784052 - Nov 2017 (24
| comments)
|
| _The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO
| System_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15747924 - Nov
| 2017 (1 comment)
|
| _The Greatest Computer Network You've Never Heard of (PLATO)_
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15703024 - Nov 2017 (3
| comments)
|
| _Performing History on PLATO: A Response to a Recent SIGCIS
| Presentation_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15542999 -
| Oct 2017 (1 comment)
|
| _Want to see gaming's past and future? Dive into the
| "educational" world of PLATO_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12957552 - Nov 2016 (7
| comments)
|
| _Ars Technica on the history of PLATO games_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12827672 - Oct 2016 (1
| comment)
|
| _PLATO (computer system)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6666430 - Nov 2013 (23
| comments)
| rbanffy wrote:
| Threads like this is why I come to HN and why I contribute to
| it. We are a wonderful community.
| rbanffy wrote:
| This is what motivated me to bring back PLATO to the
| discussion. More people should know it.
| Animats wrote:
| Why is it that, sixty years after PLATO, we don't have automated
| teaching programs that really work? By now, the hardware is
| cheap, everything up to and including VR can be easily delivered,
| and machines can have semi-intelligent conversations.
| Someone wrote:
| Teaching requires more than semi-intelligence.
|
| Also I wouldn't trust the current crop of "AI" software to
| generate accurate VR images, say of the workings of a steam
| engine or mechanical clock.
| yorwba wrote:
| The part that's hard to automate is where the student actually
| makes an effort.
|
| Duolingo, probably the most widely used teaching program, is
| designed around motivating the user to come back every day to
| the point where learning takes a bit of a back seat, probably
| because a too-demanding curriculum would decrease engagement.
|
| On the other end of the motivation spectrum, a textbook with
| exercises and solutions is a teaching technology that really
| works, with hardly more interactivity required than flipping to
| the back to check your solution. Of course nowadays you can
| also ask an LLM to critique your understanding and try to
| pinpoint exactly where you got something wrong.
| keybored wrote:
| The problem with Duolingo is that it doesn't seem to work
| even when it perfectly triggers people to make multi-year
| streaks with its gamification.
| yorwba wrote:
| Yes, that's why I brought it up. We have teaching
| technology that works (textbooks) if you're motivated
| enough to put in the effort required, but insofar as
| learning requires effort and effort is demotivating, most
| people will gravitate towards the solution that demands the
| least effort (and provides the least learning) without
| being obviously useless.
|
| Decreasing the effort required to learn something is
| probably hard (though quality-of-life improvements like
| making information more readily available are certainly
| possible) and so is motivating people to exert more effort,
| but there might be some value in establishing exactly how
| much effort a specific student is willing to expend, and
| then providing them with the most useful exercises that
| don't exceed that level.
| eesmith wrote:
| Have you considered that it might be because computer-based
| education doesn't really work?
|
| There's a long history of technology which promised to
| revolutionize education - records, radio, film reels, TV
| broadcasts, VCR, microcomputer software, the constructionist
| faith in "One Laptop Per Child", MOOCs, and more.
|
| Add this to the pile.
|
| There are always some students who can learn on their own, and
| who will, for example, learn Latin from a book at the age of 6.
|
| Most kids are not thing way.
|
| I think most kids need someone to be there for the long-term
| emotional connection. Ideally (in my view), someone who
| respects them, and encourages them to learn, which the student
| can reciprocate by success in class and personal growth.
|
| Technology cannot make that connection.
| mst wrote:
| PLATO based lessons seem to have helped as an augment to
| normal style education.
|
| I don't think _revolutionize_ is particularly on the horizon,
| but "doesn't really work" really depends on what you're
| defining your success condition to be.
| eesmith wrote:
| Sure. Thing is, every one of those technologies I listed
| also "helped as an augment to normal style education."
|
| Including a copy of a book like "Introduction to Latin".
|
| I have to be hand-wavy because the full analysis has to
| include factors like the cost of licensing, the cost of
| hardware and maintenance, the time to integrate into the
| curriculum, how often the UI and content changes, and the
| loss of space for and access to other resources.
|
| Like, our local elementary school got rid of its staff
| librarian to have money for more student electronics, and
| now they are talking about bringing a librarian back.
|
| I've only ever seen PLATO-based systems used at the college
| level, which is where we also expect students to be more
| self-motivated. That would be another factor.
| Animats wrote:
| One person talking in front of thirty kids is not much of a
| connection.
| eesmith wrote:
| It's still more than with a computer.
|
| I don't think I had any teacher who only talked in front of
| us. Not only did that do more than that in class, and via
| marked papers, we also had teachers who helped out in
| school clubs, and attended bake sales, and set up the room
| for parent visits, and lead field trips, and organized
| sports days and fire drills. One teacher went the same
| church as my family, and I bumped into teachers a few times
| around town.
|
| 1 to 30 is higher than average for most of the US. https://
| nces.ed.gov/surveys/ntps/tables/ntps1718_fltable06_t... and
| https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ntps/estable/table/ntps/ntps202
| 1... tell me it's more like 1:25.
| danschuller wrote:
| I also find this an interesting thought. Maybe an inability to
| monetize ideas in the space?
|
| I've read many many anecdotes over the years of Europeans
| learning or perfecting their English language skills playing
| classic point and click adventure games that were either
| unavailable localised or the localisation was bad. It feels
| like that's an interesting language learning entry point.
|
| I also like the idea of an AI plugged into a glasses video
| camera just narrating what you're doing in your target
| language.
| silver-arrow wrote:
| I loved Plato on my TI-99/4A computer when I was a kid. I credit
| it with helping me become a much better student. When my oldest
| son was struggling in grammar school, 15 years ago, I got it
| running on the Mame emulator for him, and it turned him and then
| his sibling into excellent students!
|
| I don't understand why there isn't an even better version of this
| in the modern age. A complete curriculum K-12 that is self-driven
| in a similar manner. Mostly the same methodology of mostly
| reading and images with quizzes after sections. Then a total
| category exam. Maybe scatter in short effective videos, but it
| should not be video centered!
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