How did 1973′ Talkomatic chat room work without Internet having been invented yet?
In: Technology
Now that’s one I can answer. I was on the PLATO IV project at U of I Chicago starting in 1973.
There were 2 programs — Talk-o-matic and Notes — that were written by *high school students* and were sort of dismissed by the senior admins. See? Old people *for random values of “old”* often miss the wave.
David Frankel and David Woolsey (I may have the names wrong, this was 50+ years ago) wrote 2 of the very first social media programs.
The reason this worked before the InterNet was because PLATO IV was hosted on a *massive* CDC Dual Cyber 6600. And it was connected to over [1,000 terminals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_(computer_system)) located all over the U.S and in many other countries, including the Soviet Union. This was realtime computing and The Davids understood it better than the Olds did. It was a form of [star network](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_network). It was extremely cool. There was literally *nothing* like it anywhere else in the world.
Good Times!
ETA: And I even had 2 of my students meet via Talk-o-matic and eventually marry. People are people.
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