The fall... and rise and rise and rise of chat networks

From CompuServe to Telegram, chat has come a long way—and it's just getting started.

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[tricorn]

That Talkomatic screen shot was done in the last year or so (I'm one of the participants) on the Cyber1 system. It's the original program from the '70s, though, running on an emulated CDC 6500 (or thereabouts) that's running PLATO.

The Unix "talk" program is a two-person version of it. PLATO also had (has) something called TERM-talk, where both terminals are put into a mode where each sees the other's output, then just lets each type on their own line. You'd see the other person typing on their line, character by character, as you type on your own line. You could also switch to where one person could continue on doing other things while the other watched (and commented).

We also had forums and e-mail in 1974 (known as notesfiles and personal notes; Lotus Notes was created by one of the creators of the notesfile system, Ray Ozzie), and networked access between different PLATO systems across the country (and world) a few years later (pre-Internet).

 

[tricorn]

afedon[/url]":3smoaw1n]Great article so far, but I had to stop reading to comment on the Talkomatic screenshot: Peltz and Woolley are fools, Garcia's is (or at least was) way better than Papa Del's! Also, in case they are still wondering, I'm fairly certain that Garcia's still has at least one location open in Champaign, IL (though the quality seems to waiver from year to year).

Yes, Garcia's still has a store, but it isn't all that good. I was talking about now, not back in the '70s (that screen shot is recent). Papa Del's is much better (and they're moving to a new location).

Garcia's was very good in 1974, but they eventually changed their sauce to be much sweeter. Del's became the pizza of choice.

Note the delta symbol as my pseudonym, I was being historical, I've been tricorn since 1974.