> Now I never the saw the hardware running Plato. I only know
> that it used a CDC cyber. So I am thinking...
>
> What Cyber ran plato?
Well, it would run on anything from a CDC 6600 up to (I think)
the Cyber 850. However, Northwestern University created a Plato
clone, also using the Tutor language, that could handle more
terminal types than the classic Halloween terminal.
I used to have the source code (in COMPASS) for MultiTutor...
hopefully, the ex-so didn't trash it in '81 when she trashed
a bunch of my stuff; it may be in the possession of a comrade.
> How big were they?(I heard of huge! Did not find any pics on the
> internet of one...)
Look for CDC / Control Data instead... here's a link to a small
pic of a Cyber 73:
http://members.iglou.com/dougq/cyber73.gif
> What are my chances of fiding one?
CDC 6600 Serial Number 1, formerly owned by the Lawrence Livermore
Labs, is now at the Computer Museum of History (or is that Computer
History Musem) at Moffet Field in Kalifornia.
Syntegra (the remnants of CDC) are still supporting NOS, NOS/BE, and
NOS/VE, so I'm sure they've got one of the later Cybers running.
> And the plato software? (slim I guess...)
Among other platforms, Plato was ported to the TI99/A.
> If I remember well, there was a emulator for the IBMPC to run a plato
> terminal....no touch screen but still...anybody remember this?...that
> could save me from having to look for an old "plasma" terminal like they
> called them back then...
Well, I want one of the Halloween terminals (called that because the
plasma display was orange on black) anyway, just to have.
There have been a few incomplete attempts at starting an emulator for
the CDC/Cyber machines... so far, they implement only the 60-bit modes
of the early machines and not the later 64-bit mode needed to run NOS/VE.
But someone needs to bring these disparate efforts together. This one
will be *much* easier to do than the Multics emulator we often talk
about on alt.multics.org.
You might also post question in the USENET newsgroup comp.sys.cdc;
it hasn't seen much activity lately, so go light a fire!
regards,
-dq
Received on Fri Oct 20 2000 - 08:08:04 BST
