Research Questions

• I need newspaper and magazine clippings -- preferably local papers or newsletters (I already have most of the national magazine stories on PLATO). I also need screen shots or photos of screens, photos of people using PLATO, etc. If you're willing to loan them to me so I can scan them in (or if you could scan 'em and send 'em to me), let me know.

• First, there's the technical stuff -- hardware and system software. PLATO terminals, CYBER mainframes, the microwave communications, the LINK, dialup lines, intersystem communications, multimedia hardware, you name it. Tell me what your experience was with any and all of these things.

• Then there's the educational side: did you design or develop courseware on PLATO? Did it make a difference? How so? Did you use courseware as a student on PLATO? What are the highlights of your experience? I'm especially interested in hearing from educators or former students who used PLATO's communications capabilities (personal notes, group notes, TERM-talk, etc.) as part of the learning experience.

• Then, there's the personal and social aspects: I'm interested in learning about how people made friends (or enemies) via PLATO; about their experiences in PLATO notesfiles and P-Notes and TERM-talk; how PLATO affected their lives and careers; those kinds of things. Who out there (besides me!) met their spouse through PLATO?

• "derfing" was a popular prank at PLATO sites. To be "derfed" meant that you'd left yourself signed on at a PLATO terminal, and someone else would come along and use your signon to go into a notesfile (often PAD or derfnotes) and write a note saying "I are a derf" or something similarly stupid. Were you ever derfed? Did you ever derf anyone? Let me know.

• What about Control Data Corporation? If you were an employee, what was it like to work there? If you were on the outside, but dealt with sales reps or consultants or whoever, what was your experience like interacting with this company? What did it do right? What did it do wrong?

• What are your best memories of using PLATO? What are your worst memories? What did you like best about it, and worst about it? For educators, what are some of your greatest success stories with PLATO? How about failure stories?

• Did you play PLATO online games, such as Avatar or EMPIRE? If you played EMPIRE, on what team? Did you attend the EMPIRE tournaments? What was that your PLATO gaming experience like? How important to you was it at the time? How many hours did you spend playing games?

• The Red Sweater (Bruce Parello) is sort of a legend on the CERL PLATO system. Did you read (or contribute material to) his "news report" program, available in the 70s on "cerl"? Any anecdotes, memories of this --- an ESPECIALLY printouts or screen shots --- would be very helpful!!

• zbrats were kids, usually gamers, who used CDC PLATO systems and prevented more senior PLATO users from signing on to do things like read notesfiles, and... play games. Were you a zbrat? Do you have any zbrat anecdotes? I've heard from an amazing number of zbrats out there :-) Have I heard from you? (Note: zbrats were not quite the same thing as "yprogs" or "jprs" on the CERL PLATO system. zbrats were usually children of CDC employees (often execs) who used their parent's signon... unbeknownst to other users on the system!)

• There were countless long-distance "PLATO romances", thanks to PLATO's wonderful communications capabilities. Any and all anecdotes are welcome! C'mon, tell all!

• When PCs and Macs and workstations became commonplace, how did your experience with PLATO influence your view of these new machines? How do you see the Internet and the Web and the online communities on systems like AOL, having seen and been a part of PLATO's community years ago?

• I'd especially love to hear from people who worked on or used PLATO at sites other than CERL, like CDC in Minneapolis, other universities across the U.S., and at sites like South Africa, Belgium, Sweden, Israel, you name it. Also, corporate/industrial users at the FAA, United Airlines, and all of the other far-flung places and organizations that were a part of what became the PLATO network in the early 80s.