Console Overview #02: PLATO - They Were Time Travelers

Alright, time for another console overview - finally. It'll be quite different to the Odyssey overview in a few ways, but should also be the template for console overviews going forward.

Timing wise, dealing with PLATO is a little awkward. I'm not covering it at its initial time of release (1960) because the development of PLATO is quite complicated, and we don't have access to the original PLATO I system. What we have is the fourth version of PLATO (PLATO IV), which was out around 1972-73.

So what is PLATO? Other than an ancient Greek philosopher, that is. This PLATO is described as a "computer-based learning system." The acronym stands for Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations. The system was originally intended as an exploration of the potential of computers to aid in education. Obviously that's not what I'm interested in (nor was that all it was used for.) We wouldn't be talking about it, otherwise. No, PLATO was also a highly significant gaming platform, housing the most experimental and innovative games of the 1970s. Some of today's most popular video game genres were invented in PLATO, and developers predicted trends and features that wouldn't be fully realised until decades later. 

If you don't know about PLATO already, prepare to have your mind blown. I know mine was when I started looking more deeply into it.

Among my sources for this article, I'm particularly indebted to Brian Dear's comprehensive 2017 book The Friendly Orange Glow. This book provides a wonderfully detailed overview of how PLATO came to be, with quotes from most of the major players in its development. Much like Ralph Baer in his book Videogames: In the Beginning, Dear delves into a huge amount of technical details that I won't be getting into here. 

Recommended reading.

However, one problem I have with Dear's book is that it's a chronologist's nightmare. As historical narrative, it's brilliant, but hardly anything is put in order, and there's masses of tangential details and stories everywhere, making putting together a solid timeline for my purposes difficult. It's not a book exclusively about PLATO, but computer culture as a whole in the 60s and 70s with PLATO as the unifying thread. Still, I have to try piece together the PLATO narrative from it.

PLATO I

PLATO has a long, long history. While those who know of PLATO most likely know it as being most active in the 1970s, its conception began in the late 1950s, and went through several iterations before becoming the system its known for being in 1972. 

Its story begins at the University of Illinois (UI) with one man - Daniel Alpert - a brilliant physicist who'd already had a long, storied career before arriving at UI. He came to UI in 1957, after being rejected for the role of director of Westinghouse Research Lab, where he joined an organisation known as CSL. CSL, at the time, stood for Control Systems Laboratory - a top-secret military research lab that developed radar tech and, most notably for us, computers. Its first computer project was the ORDVAC - a computer designed for calculating ballistic trajectory. Second came the ILLIAC (Illinois Automatic Computer), which would become the University's in-house computer for several years, and the very machine PLATO would originally be developed on.

Professor Daniel Alpert.

Alpert became CSL's director in 1959. By 1959, military research was not in demand as it had been earlier in the decade. Therefore, Alpert wanted to change CSL's focus, and thus worked on getting it declassified. Upon successfully declassifying CSL, he renamed the lab to Coordinated Science Laboratory. It's a seemingly pointless change to us, but it was important back then to denote the new purpose of CSL, while retaining the acronym for recognition. During Alpert's tenure, CSL would also assemble some of the brightest minds in the entire United States. 

One such mind was Chalmers Sherwin, also a physicist. He pitched to Alpert the idea of using computers in education - in his words, a "book with feedback" - later taking the idea to William Everitt, dean of the Engineering School at UI. Both men liked the idea, and so Alpert asked Sherwin if he'd lead a team to investigate it. Sherwin, however, was not interested. Alpert is quoted by Dear, recalling Sherwin saying "I want to have ideas, I don't want to do it." He was one of those types that had the ideas, but wanted someone else to make it a reality for him.

So, Alpert had to look elsewhere in CSL. He was able to enlist Richard M. Brown, another physicist, as head of this new team. Brown looked across all disciplines at CSL to form this team, recruiting engineers, psychologists, teachers. Sherwin and Alpert would also sit in on some of their meetings. Surely a team as varied in knowledge as that would be able to settle on a path forward... right?

Brown's team began meeting in early 1960. Alpert said of the team's meetings, "A worse Tower of Babel I have never heard in my LIFE!" I think that settles that question. In other words, they couldn't agree on anything. Brown wrote a letter to Alpert on May 3, lamenting the state of the team, questioning whether the project would ever get anywhere. However, Brown still believed in the idea. It was unquestionably worth pursuing, but they needed the right people to lead it. Who they had now wouldn't cut it, and Brown ruled himself out of leading the project. Alpert asked others in the team, but all declined. Alpert began writing (but never finished) a letter to Everitt on May 24, outlining the one thing everyone seemed to agree on: they needed to find the right person to lead the project, and nobody knew who that was yet.

Enter Donald Bitzer. The son of a successful automobile businessman, he was an effortlessly brilliant student who had completed his PhD in Electrical Engineering in January 1960. He also happened to work at CSL, and had done for a few years at that point. Bitzer had the reputation for being a very sharp engineer, but was not considered for Brown's team on account of his youth (he was only 26 at the time.) As fate would have it, he would be Alpert's man.

Donald L. Bitzer.

Not only was Bitzer earning a reputation as a brilliant engineer, but he also had a remarkable determination to overcome any challenge put to him. His personal qualities were what convinced Alpert that he was the right man. After returning from a business trip, sometime between May 24 and June 3, Alpert approached Bitzer. Bitzer and Alpert's recollections of how Bitzer was put in charge of the project differ. Alpert recalls that Bitzer was at first hesitant, and that it took a couple of weeks to convince him to take on the project. Bitzer states that he took it on immediately, and told Alpert that he'd take a few days to come up with a plan. Either way, Bitzer was in.

Bitzer came back with some ideas and a list of equipment he'd need. He also got assistance from programmer Peter Braunfield and technician Wayne Lichtenberger, who would form the original PLATO team with Bitzer. The project was officially announced to Dean (William) Everitt by Alpert on June 3, 1960. They would be creating "an automated, computerized teaching system." The acronym was something that Bitzer came up with, originally standing for "Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations." Braunfield suggested that "Automated" be changed to "Automatic," a change that stuck.

The early development of PLATO was rather unique. Something like it had never been done before, and it was a special side project of CSL that didn't really involve any of the big brains at the company, other than Alpert. Bitzer's management also contributes to its uniqueness. Bitzer could be described as a bit of a scavenger, keen to save money whenever and wherever possible. He also didn't bother documenting much of the process, which does my head in when trying to piece together a timeline of PLATO's development.

The hardware being used to get the PLATO project up and running was quite dated by 1960. The ILLIAC was 8 years old, and was a gargantuan, lumbering mess of vacuum tubes and wiring - with only 5000 bytes of memory, no less. Very few people could make it do anything. The PLATO team were part of the few wizards that could work the ILLIAC. CSL also had priority access to the machine, meaning Bitzer's team effectively had free reign work on PLATO as much as they liked.

The first PLATO prototype was constructed over the summer of 1960. It was based on a flowchart designed by Bitzer that well-summed up the purpose of PLATO throughout its entire existence (I couldn't find the image online, so I unfortunately can't show it.) It was a circular flowchart that began with the user (called a "student" in the chart) typing inputs on a "keyset," which the computer would process, store in its "electronic blackboard," and also determining what slide to select from the "slide selector." The processes would be fed back to the user through a TV display.

The "slide selector" is an unusual component meriting some explanation. The computers of the late 1950s/early 1960s weren't exactly graphical powerhouses, so a different approach needed to be taken if images were going to be utilised in PLATO's teaching process. So, Bitzer's team came up with the idea of using a programmable slide selector, with its input feeding into a storage tube ("electronic blackboard.") Early on, slides would have to be manually scanned into the system. Eventually PLATO programmers would be able to draw their own graphics thanks to the technological advancements of the following decade.

For PLATO's TV display, Bitzer's frugality came into play. He bought a cheap, broken TV and reworked it to display the output from the system's storage tube. A rudimentary "keyset" was also constructed, which only utilised 16 keys. One of the keys that would become a staple PLATO feature was the "HELP" key, which became associated with asking for assistance with a program, or opening instructional pages. From its earliest incarnation, PLATO would also be capable of collecting usage data, which instructors could later analyse to understand where students might need more specific help.

The PLATO I terminal. Source: arstechnica.com

Once the PLATO I prototype was constructed and functional, it obviously needed some programs made for it to see if it worked. Bitzer's team would create a variety of basic lessons over the later months of 1960, ranging from programming, to German, to mathematics.

While progress was rapid on PLATO, this first iteration was deemed insufficient for Bitzer. PLATO I could only support a single user, and Bitzer knew that, to achieve the project goal, multiple users would need to be able to use the system at the same time. And so, work continued.

PLATO II

The PLATO project continued to gain momentum into 1961. Bitzer had been working on expanding the capacity of PLATO back in December of 1960, creating a form of time-sharing that would allow multiple terminals to access PLATO remotely. UI and Bitzer had the opportunity to patent their form of time-sharing, but unfortunately the patent was lost by UI's president, David Dodds Henry, and UI lost out to MIT on the time-sharing patent. While a disappointment, work still continued.

Henry, a great supporter of PLATO, had planned for PLATO to be demonstrated at a conference entitled "Improving Our Educational Aims in the Sixties," which would be the first time PLATO would be demoed outside of the walls of UI - 30 miles away from it, to be precise. Bitzer enlisted Richard Blomme to play the role of the student in this demonstration, playing a simple lesson, his inputs being sent to UI via phone cables, with the TV display set to broadcast through UI's very own TV station. Blomme himself would later create a few games for PLATO, most notably its Spacewar! port.

There's not much more information out there on PLATO II. Brian Dear kind of skips over it in favour of some stories that aren't all that relevant to PLATO itself, and my other sources say practically nothing about it. Bitzer was successful at implementing time-sharing for PLATO II, although it could only support two users, and PLATO II also introduced a full alpha-numeric keyboard. It seems PLATO II would quickly be moved on from, as the ILLIAC was approaching its 10th birthday by 1962, and the old dinosaur just wasn't cutting it anymore. It was cumbersome, difficult to work with, and was quickly becoming obsolete. So much so that it was decommissioned in 1963. PLATO needed to be migrated to a new computer.

PLATO III

PLATO's third iteration would be where the project truly began to flourish and innovate. Over the course of its 10 years of development and use, many software and technological innovations would occur that would not only morph PLATO into the system its known for being today, but would also produce technology that we still use today.

PLATO III terminal.

As for that computer issue, the new computer PLATO needed came courtesy of Control Data Corporation (CDC), and salesman Harold Brooks. Brooks visited CSL in 1963 to showcase the CDC 1604. It was the upgrade Bitzer and co. desperately needed to progress with their vision for PLATO. 

At this point, I found two differing accounts of how the 1604 came into CSL's possession. Brian Dear's account states that, while CSL were intent on purchasing the 1604 from Brooks, IBM also came forward with an offer for one of their 7090 computers. A ferocious bidding war ensued, getting to the point where IBM attempted to use local lawmakers to force CSL to accept their bid. It didn't work, of course, and CSL got the 1604. The other account, which multiple online sources proliferate, states that the CEO of CDC, William Norris, donated a refurbished 1604 to CSL.

Regardless of the method in which the CDC 1604 arrived, once it got there, Bitzer immediately got to work. He tasked Andy Hanson, a high school graduate who regularly visited CSL with a small group of friends, to develop the architecture that PLATO III would run on. It had to be a "multiuser, multitasking resident operating system... that would support 32 simultaneous users." Only a small task for a fresh-faced 19 year old. But Hanson was able to do it.

Also around this time, the National Science Foundation took notice of PLATO, and apparently liked what they saw. They provided funding for the PLATO project, which Dan Alpert used to form PLATO's new base of operations at UI, the "Computer-based Education Research Laboratory," otherwise known as CERL. From now on, CERL would be where all the magic happened with regards to PLATO development.

Not everyone at UI was a fan of PLATO, however. Larry Stourlow, who was on the original committee Alpert formed in 1960, didn't like the way PLATO operated, and so created his own computer-education system, which he thematically named SOCRATES. This caused a lot of tension at UI, as there were now two rival systems on campus. It's clear to us now that PLATO won out in the end, and in the fallout Stourlow ended up leaving UI completely.

Ironically, the failed SOCRATES project would actually provide PLATO with some much needed improvements, as some of the SOCRATES staff joined the PLATO project after SOCRATES' demise. Two important individuals were Scott Kreuger and a familiar name - Richard Blomme, the same guy who played the student at the first ever off-site PLATO demo. 

Kreuger's first major contribution was the creation of the "CHARPLT" bitmap editor. PLATO programmers before CHARPLT was developed underwent an arduous process to get any sort of graphics to appear on PLATO's display. Kreuger realised that no one had thought of using the display itself, and so created CHARPLT as the means for lesson designers to create character sets, font types and any sort of graphics they desired in a much, much easier manner. This made the old slide selector system completely obsolete.

The old storage tube system was also made obsolete by CERL's acquisition of a NCR 160 computer in mid-1967, complete with disk drives, which were a far superior storage solution compared to the ancient vacuum storage tubes from the ILLIAC days.

Next, Kreuger teamed up with Blomme to create the "MONSTER" program ("Multiple Online Nifty Speed and Terminal Editing Routine") as PLATO's earliest code editing software, which helped streamline further the process of programming lessons. A bit later on, in 1969, Blomme would also port Spacewar! to PLATO III as one of its earliest non-educational programs. He'd also go on to develop Bridge and Chess programs across PLATO III and IV.

Another program that was a huge development for PLATO's education goals was "TEXT TESTER". This program could essentially be considered the first "online" text book. It would be built into PLATO itself, and hundreds of lessons on every subject you could think of were added to it, and questions for students could also be added. Bitzer's wife, Maryann, got involved in designing lessons, too, creating accredited lessons for nursing students. PLATO's fame had been spreading so that terminals were now being installed in the first locations outside of the UI campus. 

Despite these many software advancements, programmers still had to go through an awful lot of trouble to develop lessons. This is where arguably the most significant development for PLATO occurred - its own dedicated programming language, which would come to be known as TUTOR. TUTOR was created by a young biology grad student by the name of Paul Tenczar. For computer scientists, TUTOR wasn't exactly a "good" programming language, but its job was to make lesson programming more easy and accessible, and it did that job rather well. TUTOR came about in 1967, and by the end of the decade, there was over 720 hours worth of lessons written for PLATO.

PLATO IV

The timeline starts to get awfully hazy when we talk about the fourth iteration of PLATO. That's because PLATO IV was effectively being developed at the same time as PLATO III. Bitzer had even grander visions for PLATO IV - upgrading from the maximum of 32 terminals PLATO III could handle to a whopping 4,096 terminals. And using a supercomputer to manage it all, nonetheless.

Once again, CDC would be providing the computer for PLATO IV. Their 6400 was the smaller brother of the 6600 supercomputer, and would be plenty sufficient for PLATO IV's needs. CERL purchased it in 1968.

Bitzer realised that the cost of terminal manufacturing would prove hideously expensive if they persisted with the TV displays in use since the PLATO I days. He needed to come up with a cheaper alternative, and he found it in the form of plasma gas displays. Bitzer's work on the plasma display actually began all the way back in 1964, where the first patent was filed. It wouldn't be officially issued until 1971.

These plasma displays are where the famous "friendly orange glow" of PLATO originates. The gas sitting in between the glass layers of these screens could have its colour changed. When the first tests were being done, the gas glowed orange. However, when the first prototype screens were created, the gas glowed blue. Bitzer's team were confused by the blue colour, and wanted to bring the orange back, as there was something special about it. Eventually, by mixing the gases a certain way, they were able to reproduce the orange glow.

The eventual aim was to be able to produce 512 x 512 size screens, but that was a tall order considering the engineering that needed to go into the glass. By 1967, a four inch prototype had been constructed. It would take four more years to get to the 512 x 512 size Bitzer desired, right in time for PLATO IV. Journalists who saw the plasma displays remarked that such an innovation could be used in commercial TVs, perhaps as plasma flat-screen or wall TVs. Bitzer wasn't keen on the idea, insisting that they were for educational use only, but history shows that the journos were right - for once. 

Bitzer also wanted his plasma displays to include touch screen capabilities. He got a team to invent for him a touch panel that could be installed in the PLATO IV terminal displays. They came up with a 16 x 16 grid of LEDs that could detect the co-ordinates of a finger press on the screen. Like the plasma display itself, touch screens are a technology we take for granted today. The iPhone, Nintendo DS & 3DS and many more devices owe much to PLATO.

The first prototype PLATO IV terminal was knocked up for a demonstration Bitzer and Alpert did in Washington for the National Science Foundation. Jim Knoke and Ray Trogdon were responsible for the terminal, nicknamed the "Possum Trap." The dignitaries at this demonstration were initially skeptical, but were swayed by the abilities of PLATO. NSF got funding to CERL in 1972. On top of this and many other demos, Bitzer was trotting out PLATO demonstrations all across the globe in the early 1970s. Even the National Security Agency and CIA wanted in on PLATO!

The first proper PLATO IV terminals began construction in 1971. The company responsible for manufacturing? Magnavox. Yes, the very same Magnavox that was - at the same time - preparing the first home video game console, Odyssey, for market. It's a small world, innit?

PLATO IV - note the touch screen!

From there, PLATO increases in popularity and spreads across the US. There were other competing systems akin to the SOCRATES project, but none really came close to what PLATO could offer. Once the PLATO IV terminals began spreading to other institutions across the country, people started to use it for purposes other than education. Some political activism relating to Watergate was attempted by some professors at UI, but was quickly shut down under threat of the entire project losing funding.

However, the main point of interest for us is the video game scene that developed on PLATO in the early-mid 1970s. PLATO became a haven for some incredibly complex and innovative games that seem almost out of place for the time period. Using PLATO's connected terminals, programmers were able to create several networked multiplayer games - the very first "online" multiplayer games, if you will. It's also home to some incredibly in-depth simulation games. Probably the most notable genre invented by PLATO devs is the Role-Playing Game - RPGs! The very first RPGs were created on PLATO by men inspired by the first-ever edition of Dungeons & Dragons, which dropped in 1974. Not only single-player RPGs, but also multiplayer ones, the first ancestors of the modern MMORPG. All in the 70s! 

Game Library

A huge thanks needs to go to Joe Stanton and the team at cyber1.org. This group is dedicated to keeping PLATO up and running through the Pterm emulator, allowing us to experience the rich, diverse and innovative game library PLATO has to offer. You can sign up there and access PLATO completely for free, if you'd like to experience any of these games (and many others) for yourself.

Unlike with the Odyssey, I'll only be covering a small selection of games, as PLATO's library is far more expansive. Here, I've curated a list of some of the more innovative and popular PLATO games. It's also in alphabetical order, as opposed to chronological like the Odyssey list.

Airfight (1976)

It's insane that Airfight existed in 1976, when you think about it. This game is a flight simulator. A fully-fledged, combat-oriented, mass-multiplayer, first-person, three-dimensional flight simulator. With all the bells, whistles, and need of having the controls on hand at all times. In 1976. It's just wild. It has several pages dedicated purely to the instructions, which need several reads to fully comprehend.

These are the things you can do in Airfight.

It reports to simulate a 3-D dogfight, and the entire cycle of that form of combat. It does present you with a primitive, wireframe view of the world around you, which is pretty incredible for 1976. You take off, you fire missiles, you land to refuel and resupply to do it all over again. Most kills wins. Airfight may also have been the direct antecedent of the most well-known flight simulator series today, Microsoft Flight Simulator, as series creator Bruce Artwick worked at UI when Airflight was in development. I have memories of playing an older edition of Microsoft Flight Simulator in primary school. Our IT department was awesome. Knowing now that it came from here is staggering.

Well this isn't going to end well...

My brief attempt at playing the game had me struggle to figure out how to get the plane off the ground. Then, once I did, I stalled and subsequently crashed. I think it would take a fair bit of practice to get good at Airfight.

Avatar (1979)

Now that's what I call a title screen!

If anything, PLATO is probably known best in gaming circles for its RPGs. It's where the genre was likely invented, after programmers took the newly released Dungeons & Dragons in 1974 and applied its rules and concepts to computer games. Avatar represents a spin-off of early RPGs, known as a "Multi-User Dungeon," or MUD, for short. These are basically the genesis of today's MMORPGs - an open-world, multiplayer RPG supporting 60 simultaneous players. The first MUDs appeared around 1976 as purely text-based games. Avatar takes things much further, featuring a graphical interface and first-person dungeon crawling. It has some graphical bugs, from what I played. There are a few different versions of Avatar available on Cyber1, and I'm not sure which one is the most "complete." I played the first one I saw in the bigjump list.

A small sample of Avatar's instructions. I spent 10 minutes just reading over all of them.

I thought that Airfight's instructions were lengthy, Avatar's makes them look like a Twitter post by comparison. Avatar's instructions make up a small novel. It's another game that appears to have a steep learning curve. I tried playing it, and was very confused. I ended up dying in the dungeon because the bronze sword I bought wasn't equipped, and I couldn't figure out how to equip it and fight the goblins that attacked me.

What are you doing with that sword in your pack then, you buffoon?

Conquest (1974)

I have no one to conquer - what a shame.

Early on in PLATO's life, a one of it's most noteworthy games was developed. In 1973, John Daleske and Silas Warner made Empire, which started as a strategic resource management game. Over the years it would morph into a massively-multiplayer space combat simulation. 

Conquest was a spin-off from Empire, specifically the third iteration of the game. It was decided that the game had strayed too far from its original direction, and Conquest was created as a replacement. It focuses on management of planetary economies, armies, ships and colonising and conquering other planets.

I figured out how to make an Enterprise. That's something, right?

Unfortunately, it being an exclusively multiplayer game means I can't really explore it all that much. It also lacks any sort of help lesson, so I had no idea what I was doing after jumping into the game. It's a shame, because I think I'd like this game. I have an affinity for turn-based and real-time strategy games.

dnd [The Game of Dungeons] (1975)

The Dungeon is open for business.

Back to RPGs! The Game of Dungeons is likely the second video role-playing game ever made, after The Dungeon [pedit5]. It's possible these two games were developed concurrently. The Game of Dungeons is more expansive than the earlier The Dungeon, featuring a larger, multi-floor dungeon, a variety of equipment, items and potions, and an end objective and possibly the first ever boss in video games.

Cyber1 has two versions of the game available: 5.4 and 8.0. I played the earlier version here. The objective is simply to find the Orb. But finding the Orb is no simple task. This dungeon is 20 floors deep, and the Orb itself is guarded by the Dragon - the aforementioned "first boss" of video games.

A brief example of combat.

The game plays by fairly standard Dungeons & Dragons rules, as far as I'm aware. You start by rolling stats for a good character (I made sure to not start unless they were all double digits) and then you're dropped into the dungeon somewhere. The starting position appeared different each time. I didn't make it very far with the handful of characters I played, all dying to monsters or booby trapped items. It's a game I'm very excited to dive deep into once I get to 1975.

Empire (1973 - 1977)

Either the Federation sucks, or nobody likes playing as them.

I briefly mentioned Empire when talking about Conquest. Empire started as a resource management strategy game, and then morphed over time into its final form, Empire IV, in 1977. By then, it had become a networked space combat simulator more resembling an advanced version of Star Trek, supporting 30 players. Players were split up across 4 races/teams - all Star Trek references - and each controlled a ship. Each race worked together in an attempt to conquer the galaxy, made up of 25 planets. Empire is likely the most "iconic" game PLATO has to offer, and was beloved by many users of the system back in the 70s.

Another very detailed help index.

Empire has a very detailed help lesson going through all the history and details of the game. This version of Empire was created in response to the original Empire developers canning the game and replacing it with Conquest. Charles Miller began work on Empire IV in 1975, completing it in 1977-78.

I did a thing.

Since it's another multiplayer game, I couldn't do a whole lot in the game. I just messed around a bit, and eventually decided to orbit Earth for a bit. The gameplay itself is much slower than I thought, as the game only updates player positions every 10 seconds or so.

Futurewar (1977)

PLATO really knows how to do title screens.

I wanted to bring up Futurewar because I find it an incredibly interesting CRPG. Not only is it sci-fi themed, but it's also a first-person dungeon crawler with seemingly real-time combat and nascent first-person shooter elements. For one, you actually have to aim your weapon at your enemy instead of mindlessly pressing the shoot key.

Lovingly reconstructed from the original source material. Kudos.

There's some small bits of animation attempted here, too. It has an animated intro screen, and certain in-game sprites have animation frames also (I found a battery that rotated in my short playthrough.) Also here is an attempt at a story, set in the dreaded year of 2020. That was indeed an awful year, but not nuclear-holocaust levels of awful like in Futurewar.

The story synopsis for your perusal.

Futurewar has different races (or "teams" as it calls them) to the normal CRPG. I chose to be an American for the fun of it. They sounded somewhat Aussie-like anyway, a group mostly consisting of rednecks, bikers and convicts. In Aussie terms, we'd call them bogans. Your starting position in game is determined by class selection. There's also a set of "occupations" that are the game's name for classes or jobs. Hunter was the only one available to me at the start.

I'm getting Earthbound vibes from the strange enemies.

I wandered around for a bit in game, almost died to radioactive waste as I couldn't figure out how to get out of it. Managed to win a round of combat against an enemy called "Randall." The real-time aspect made it fairly fun and different to other RPGs I've played. It's more reminiscent of an action-RPG. Overall the game reminds me of the dungeons in the original Phantasy Star.

Game over.

Anyway, I shortly died after this fight to an enemy called "Wild Witz." I assume that's a reference to Eric Witz, one of the game's developers. This is a game to look out for when I get to it, as I enjoyed this little demo. It seems to be a bit more streamlined than some of the other CRPGs on PLATO, which makes it a bit more accessible and user-friendly.

Moria (1975)

How's that for a castle?

Another of the early CRPGs. Apparently Moria's developers were inspired by the earlier PLATO RPGs like dnd and The Dungeon. This one seems a bit more user-friendly than something like Futurewar or Avatar. It uses the first-person perspective like Futurewar also.

There's once again a massive help document to explain all aspects of the world of Moria. The basic premise of Moria is quite similar to most of the other CRPGs of the era - delve into the dungeons, fight monsters, get treasure. There's something of an end goal, it seems, which is to find the Reaper's Ring.

A message from the developers.

What sets apart Moria from the earlier PLATO RPGs is simply its scale. It's quite massive for 1975. You start in the city, where various supply shops can be found, and can venture out into the wilderness, where weaker monsters roam, allowing you to grind to prepare for the game's true test in the dungeons. Moria has four (maybe five) different dungeons: Cave, Mountain, Forest and Desert, all with 60 levels. This is also a multiplayer RPG, allowing you and your friends to form groups of up to 10 adventurers to explore the dungeons.

Arriving in the big 'ol city.

Moria simplifies some of the Dungeons & Dragons stats from previous CRPGs, but also amps up the realism in other areas. Your character needs food and water, and you must make sure you're stocks are adequate before you set out on any significant adventure. Characters also age. Get too old, and you just die. Alternatively, a character can sometimes become so old, they become immortal. There's a fairly robust economy and variety of equipment present also. 

Haggling with the weapons vendor.

Combat in the wilderness. I didn't die, which is nice for a change.

I could've kept going with this one, it's pretty easy to get into. I played for half an hour before I forced myself to stop. All I did was explore the city some, venture into the wilderness to kill a few monsters to get some gold for better equipment. Important to note that some means of map making will be necessary for this one.

Orthanc (1975)

Main menu.

Orthanc is an evolution of The Dungeon [pedit5], the first ever CRPG from 1974. It follows the same basic premise, but greatly expands the scope with larger, multi-level dungeons, more monsters, more spells... more everything, really. It's also an interesting case of the restored modern interest in PLATO, as it got an update some 25 years after its original creation. This update added a few more modern conveniences to make the start of the game easier, but the most notable new feature is an auto-map that draws out the dungeon layout as you explore it.

Once again, Orthanc has a very in-depth help section.

Orthanc's help lesson tells you everything you need to know about the game. It follows a fairly familiar RPG progression. Fight monsters, gain EXP, level up, get stronger and earn more spell charges, delve deeper into the depths of the dungeon to get more loot, better equipment and fight stronger monsters. The aim of the game is to "retire," which is functionally the same as The Dungeon.

The game in action.

There's also some multiplayer connectivity, as is PLATO's signature. You can, if others are online, run across them as "wanderers." You can either talk with them and make peace, or fight, a la PvP in an MMO. Apparently, the developers would also occasionally change the layout of the dungeon completely. Just to mix things up, I guess?

I wandered around the first level of the dungeon for a few minutes, running into some basic enemies - skeletons, rats, goblins and the like. The Sleep spell is often your best friend in combat, I used it liberally and never died with this character. Came close once, but was able to escape. Leaving the dungeon fully restores your health and spell charges.

I have no idea what a "Tsathouga" is meant to be. But it sounds dangerous.

I even ran into a level 4 Minotaur at some stage and thought I was a goner, but once again the Sleep spell saved my rear end. Definitely feel like I'm only scratching the surface with this one. So much to look forward to in the '74-'75 coverage.

Oubliette (1977)

IPod? IPhone!? A message from the future??

Oubliette takes its name from the French word for dungeon. It is, according to MobyGames, "one of the earliest party-based role-playing games." Exciting! That predates probably one of the more well-known early party-based RPGs, the original Wizardry, by four years (turns out that Wizardry was heavily influenced by Oubliette.) The intent of the game is to get together a group of players together to form a party and tackle the dungeon together. Alternatively, a solo character can buy hireling monsters to adventure with him/her.

Oubliette is also rather interesting as it's one of the only PLATO games I know of that's been ported to other systems, having Commodore 64, MS-DOS ports, and... iPod and iPhone. CRPG Addict also noted that the game has received constant updates throughout the years, so the form that the game takes now is likely vastly different to the apparent behemoth it is now.

Yet another chunky help guide...

I probably spent more time in the instructions than actually playing the game here - this is an incredibly complex looking game. It goes deep into Dungeons & Dragons systems, and even has minigames. Mess around in the casino, play cards, or bet on the roach races. Male characters can even enjoy the "healing services" of the health-spa. Sounds like a load of puff-puff to me.

My stat rolls didn't give me a lot of class choices.

Upon creating my character, I immediately got lost in the castle area. Wandered around for a bit, trying to find the general store to no success, and decided that I didn't want to continue as I'd probably need to make a map of the castle just to get my bearings. As I'm only doing a brief overview of the games, I'm not committing to doing that until I play the game for the blog proper. The help lesson also recommends not traversing the dungeon with a party of less than 4, so I'll have to work out what to do there also. Very curious about this game, to say the least.

This is what you're greeted with when entering into the game.

The Dungeon [pedit5] (1975)

As an RPG lover, this one holds a special place in my heart. Pedit5, otherwise known as The Dungeon, is probably the first video role-playing-game (RPG) ever made. It was developed by Reginald "Rusty" Rutherford while working at UI, and said it took him 4-6 weeks to create. There were larger plans for it, which never came to fruition, as Rutherford left UI early in 1976. There are reports that the game was taken and modified into Orthanc, which checks, as Orthanc plays like an expanded version of The Dungeon. And, as mentioned earlier, dnd was also in development at the same time as The Dungeon.

The story. Yes, it has a story.

It's only natural, by way of being the first RPG, that it's far less developed and complex than the other RPGs we've demoed here. Not all of its systems were even fully implemented - some of the spells don't work (you're told about this in-game.) 

A far cry from the help guides of Avatar and Oubliette.

The Dungeon works in a pretty simple way - you roll a character, and enter the titular dungeon in search of monsters and treasure. There is no big-bad to defeat at the back of the dungeon, you simply explore, fight and earn treasure until you hit 20,000 EXP. Upon reaching that mark and leaving the dungeon, you retire a hero with glory and riches. That's if you make it out. 

A decent character. Not like it matters all that much.

This game is quite merciless with killing your characters. Stats don't seem to matter all that much - you can roll great stats (like I did), and still get knocked over quite comfortably by lowly monsters. The key to success, as far as I'm aware, is smart usage of your spells.

This level 2 zombie would be the end of me.

I wandered in and out of the dungeon with this character. Usually I wouldn't stray too far from the entrance, and use my one spell charge on Sleep or Charm whenever a monster appeared, monster type dependent. Once that monster was defeated, I'd hightail it out of the place to get my spell charge back. Sometimes the spells don't work, like with the above zombie, which saw my demise as I attempted to fight it after my Sleep spell failed. I couldn't remember if Sleep worked on zombies - oh well.

Do I really have to wait until 1975 to get to this game?

Spasim (1974)

This last game is an odd one. Spasim, is, as its name suggests, a space flight simulation. The current state that the game is in renders it nigh-on unplayable - not that you'd want to try it by yourself, anyway. It's exclusively multiplayer, and I couldn't figure out what to do at all. One of the notes in the note file suggested that one had to be a physics major to understand how to play Spasim! Jim Bowery, the game's creator, did a video on the workings of Spasim some 13 years ago. He does a much better job of explaining Spasim than I ever could.

Help - under construction.

The version present appears to be an "under construction" version, with the help note stating that some features were yet to be implemented. MobyGames suggests that the later overhaul changed the game focus to include more 4X-style features, such as resource collection and political manevuerings.

That's a planet... I think? I have no idea how anything works.

I include this not necessarily because it's a good game, but rather because it represents the ambition in scope PLATO developers had. Many of their ideas weren't fully realised on the system, and took years, even decades to be fully realised. Spasim's developer, Jim Bowery, calls it the "first multiplayer 3d first person shooter." In a way, he's not wrong. How long would it be before the first mainstream online 3d first-person shooter would come onto the scene?

Legacy

Something that I didn't know going into writing this article was that work on improving PLATO continued beyond PLATO IV. In 1977, PLATO IV terminals would be upgraded with their own internal processors and RAM - a PLATO microcomputer! PLATO V would be CERL's attempt to launch PLATO into the nascent home computer market. 

Unfortunately for it, it had to deal with the famous trinity of microcomputers launched in 1977 - Apple II, TRS-80 and Commodore PET. With PLATO being intended originally as a networked machine, many compromises had to be made to its structure in order for it to work as a microcomputer alongside those three behemoths. Unsurprisingly, it didn't work, and the PLATO V machines were a commercial flop.

PLATO V

What happened instead was that the pared-down version of PLATO's resident programming language, called micro-TUTOR, would get ported to the next generation of home machines. Texas Instruments, Commodore, Apple, Atari and IBM would all port micro-TUTOR to their home computers over the next decade. Even CDC themselves, who had a long standing partnership with CERL and PLATO, tried their hand a getting a commercial version of PLATO out there, but they could never quite get it to catch on.

All sorts of movements of the PLATO name would occur over the next several decades, but PLATO's relevance was long gone. Don Bitzer, the wizard inventor of PLATO, would leave UI in 1989 - a loss CERL would never recover from. They closed their doors only 5 years later.

Today, as you can see, PLATO has been preserved. Cyber1, which is the service I use to play all these PLATO games, has been around since 2004. It's most easily accessed in tandem with the Pterm emulator for PLATO. Many more games and programs are preserved there, free to access so you can play PC games like its 1975... before the home computer was actually invented. So, you too can be a time traveler.

I just think the fact that PLATO existed at all to be incomprehensible. This was the 1960s and 70s, with incredibly ancient and cumbersome technology. What Bitzer and co. did with it is mind-boggling with how ahead of its time PLATO ended up being. From the plasma touch screens to all the video games genres that were invented on PLATO, plus networked multiplayer, you'd think Bitzer had secretly discovered the secrets of time travel, built himself a Tardis and looked into the future of technology and thought "I'll make that." PLATO and its creators don't get the credit they deserve. More recently, it feels like they're being recognised more for their accomplishments, and I'm glad for that. Sadly, Alpert, Bitzer and many others who were crucial to PLATO's development are no longer with us. However, their legacy remains.

 

Final Thoughts

I found this article a lot harder to write than the Odyssey article, hence the huge delay in getting it done. Mostly because there was so much information to sift through from my major sources, and my suffering from illness and burnout at the end of last year. Dear's book is almost 600 pages (in Kindle form), and most of it - while a great read - was irrelevant for my purposes. Also - surprisingly hard to find relevant images. I also struggled because have a tendency towards laziness, and ended up procrastinating a lot. I do think this article could've been a lot better, but I'm quite sick of having this thing looming over my shoulder every week.

As for what's next in this series... I'm not sure. The Wang 2200 minicomputer came out in 1973, but we don't have any games for it until 1974. That also happens to have a working emulator, which is quite nice. So that's probably the next system to look at, as it appears to be one step away from being a home microcomputer, and has over 50 games listed on MobyGames, so I think it's worthwhile. 1975 is where things are going to start getting really interesting for my system overview series.

My other thought was to do a piece on the entire First Generation of home consoles. The whole thing because it's an insane mess of literally hundreds and hundreds of Pong clones and other assorted devices, but that makes it totally fascinating to me. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on these ideas. Am I missing something else in between? Let me know, and I'll look into it.

If you made it all the way to the end of this beefy article, I just want to say thank you - your readership - and patience - is so very much appreciated.