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Comment on Man and the Computer by John G. Kemeny (1972 book by the co-creator of BASIC)parent

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[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).

https://liz.nl/plato18.htm

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.
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