Back To the Social Media Future 40
theodp writes: Decades before WhatsApp, Gmail, Facebook, and multiplayer Call of Duty, there was TERM-talk, P-Notes, Notesfiles, and Battlestar. Brian Dear goes back to the future, penning A 1980 Teenager's View on Social Media, as written by his 19-year-old UDEL undergrad self, an avid user of PLATO, the 55-year-old granddaddy of today's MOOCs. (His article is a response to "A teenager's view on social media," published last week by a current teenager.) Of old-school texting, Dear notes that you-are-how-you-type: "Every character is displayed in real time as each of us types. So *how* you TERM-talk with folks becomes part of your reputation. Kind of like what your handshake is like. We all know when we shake somebody's hand and they have a firm, confident grip, full of vigor and life, a quick shake and release and you know this person is with it. And then there are those with cold, clammy fish hands that feel like they have no bones, it's all just cushion all the way down. Well in TERM-talk, if you type fast, that's cool."
aah yes the terminal! (Score:2)
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Yeah, that's when having entire rows punched out (errors to you young'ins) was uncool. Or at least unstable. I've had a number of spools of paper tape self destruct because they had too much air space and not enough paper.
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Only after typing my PIN Number.
Re:aah yes the terminal! (Score:4, Interesting)
Incredibly,PLATO had gas-plasma flat-panel bitmapped touch-screen display terminals [history-computer.com] in 1972, which was still back in the days of paper tape and punch cards!
Thanks for the informative link on PLATO hw! (Score:2)
William Norris, the founder of the company behind PLATO, was ahead of his time in other ways, too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W... [wikipedia.org]
"He is famous for taking on IBM in a head-on fight and winning, as well as being a social activist who used Control Data's expansion in the late 1960s to bring jobs and training to inner cities and disadvantaged communities."
See also:
http://www.cbi.umn.edu/hostedp... [umn.edu]
http://www.amazon.com/William-... [amazon.com]
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The company behind PLATO? Give me a break.
Other than providing the hardware, CDC did almost nothing and had to dragged, kicking and screaming, into marketing it at all (and at which they did a lackluster and shitty job). Almost all of the software (including rewriting a lot of the OS - the CDC OS'es were not known for their "real time" capabilities, being mainly designed for high-performance scientific computing) were developed by the folks at the University if Illinois. And that software development? Mostl
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Wow, I did not know that; thanks for the extra perspective. I had know the University of Illinois did great stuff with Smalltalk, so I'll have to extend my respect for them even further!
http://st-www.cs.illinois.edu/ [illinois.edu]
http://st-www.cs.illinois.edu/... [illinois.edu]
Re: aah yes the terminal! (Score:2)
Ignoring the many earlier, if less capable, models we know of....
On the contrary. (Score:1)
We all know when we shake somebody's hand and they have a firm, confident grip, full of vigor and life, a quick shake and release and you know this person is with it. And then there are those with cold, clammy fish hands that feel like they have no bones, it's all just cushion all the way down. Well in TERM-talk, if you type fast, that's cool.
Someone who gives a dominating handshake or typesreallyfastwallsoftext are more likely to be full of shit and talk before they think.
I like talking to people who spend time before they come to a conclusion. The best conversations are mostly spent in silent thought.
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Perhaps. But remember they can see the characters ... a...s ........ .y...........o............u...... t....y............p..... e....
A pause for reflection before a response is one thing. 3 minutes watching the response slowly how up as they hunt and peck the keys is something else.
(sigh, lameness filter encountered. Trying to add some filler here to convince it the ellipses had a point. Nope that's not enough. I guess I'll remove some dots. There were longer pauses between some of the letters.
News? (Score:4, Funny)
Being an old fart myself, I immediately recognized my wife's hand when she sent me a Morse message.
Am I cool now? Or is it my wife, I'm not sure.
Re:Live typing considered harmful (great link!) (Score:2)
AC wrote: http://jens.mooseyard.com/2009... [mooseyard.com]
"I could have told the Wave people about what I'd learned, except I didn't know Wave existed until April (shortly before the public announcement), and even then I was just some guy lost in the crowd at the demos....
Part of the problem, in both cases, is that live typing is one of those Cool Demo Features that looks really awesome when showing off the app. Features like that can be dangerous because they are legitimately very useful during the app's g
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My only real experience "Live Typing" was modem-to modem connection. When you want to send a file directly between PC's and not over a BBS.
First you'd call over the phone to arrange the connection, one of the users would agree to be the caller, the other would be the answerer. Hang up and then get ready for the call.
First user would ATDT5551234
When the second user hears the phone ring they'd ATA
You'd turn echo on so you'd see what you were typing, Live type chat a bit, and then send a file over KERMIT, or X
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Cool; don't recall trying that back then!
BTW, on your user name (LinuxIsGarbage), I resisted using Linux for years, because I knew better things were possible (like QNX and its microkernel for internals, or any software a more systematic approach to naming commands and command options as far as command line utilities). Ultimately though, those two factors will likely lead to its replacement -- although perhaps the result will still be called "Linux", just with a very different shell and a very different ke
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If you want to relive your youth you can try these days by first finding two computers with modems.
No need to hook them up to a phone line, just run a phone cord between the two (works every time I did it) for the poor man's null modem.
On one computer type ATD on the other type ATA.
On Linux, it is gaining great marketshare in the Smartphone realm! We passed the year of the Linux Cellphone years ago! However apparently it doesn't count because of the atrocious GNU frontend isn't used.
I want to like Linux, I
Still playing Avatar (Score:2)
But on Cyber1 I don't use Notes or Term. That got me kicked out of NovaNet a long long time ago.
Wbs.net (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W... [wikipedia.org] http://classic-wbs.net/ [classic-wbs.net] and Geocities/Freeyellow/Angelfire/Intelcities was the social media in the mid-late 90's even irc was pretty cool and met a few people off of fit. Of course new groups were the king at that time too.
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Ah yes, chatting to schoolgirls on kmail web chat. Those were the days...
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In reality they were all overweight dorks in their parent's basement, or federal officers.
UT OH! (Score:1)
ICQ had the real time (every key as it was pressed) text conversation in 1997.
I remember it being popular within my group of internet friends (we all came from a chat site about rock bands). None of us had any self consciousness about it and it was one of those things that made us confident that we were living in the friggin' future.
It's so weird that the feature has been absent from every modern chat client and system since. Is it because the vast majority of people would be embarrassed by how often they'r
Re: Handshake (Score:2)
Actually how a person comments on a handshake tells me a lot about their knowledge base.
People who say bad things when meeting folks from countries where shaking hands is against the culture show how little they know.
That doesnt sound like the 80s.. (Score:2)
He uses the term "social media" a lot, for an unknown term 35 years ago. He name drops both bill gates and steve jobs. I call bullshit, this article was not written 35 years ago.
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Re: duh (Score:2)
I thought it was hilarious, some people don't get satire.
And it was interesting to read about all the tech from way before my time. Its funny how many issues you faced we still do,like getting half decent amounts of file space.
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Given your level of understanding, it is probable that you have nothing useful or interesting to add to this discussion. Have you considered just reading other people's comments for a change?