Excerpted from The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture by Brian Dear. Out now from Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Contrary ...

It seems obvious now: People are the “killer app” for computers. Computers are less about computing and much more about communication, connection and community. Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, email, ...

"So I was drawn in and hooked pretty fast," said Dear, an intended English-journalism major who eventually left college to work on PLATO — the Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations ...

"First, a quick jump back to the mid-70s – your online day starts as you sit down to your computer, with its gas-plasma flat-panel graphics display and built-in touch screen. Once signed on, you're ...

NMAH copy purchased with funds from the NMAH Library Endowment. Documents the story of the 1960s computer program and platform that marked the true beginning of cyberculture, revealing the role of ...