CDC thingy (was Re: About the Wang '669 patent)

From: Jack Peacock <peacock_at_simconv.com>
Date: Sat Apr 25 02:44:48 1998

>How about the CAI system that CDC had (I can't remember the
name off hand
>at the moment - I think my brain is broken - I couldn't even
remember the
>brand name of some wine I wanted to buy yesterday... Will
chewing on a
>floppy disk or two improve things :-). From my limited exposure
it's likely
>that the CDC thingy :-) had a browser style interface.
>
I saw a CDC demo of that once circa 1974, as I recall it was
called "Plato", used a nice orange plasma display, limited
animation, astronomical price. CDC had grandiose plans it would
be used in schools, like every high school in the country could
afford a $2 million CDC 6600 to support it. Kinda sad actually,
once Cray left CDC they didn't have a clue as to what to do
afterwards, the big iron Cyber 6000s went nowhere, the company
wound up running payroll services (the remnants of CDC are now
known as Ceridian, a batch payroll services company).
    Jack Peacock
Received on Sat Apr 25 1998 - 02:44:48 BST