Memory Lane

Today I had the pleasure and honor of spending a couple of hours over lunch at Papa Del's with some old PLATO folks.  I hope it sparks warm memories when I name drop Josh Paley, Steve Peltz, Susan Wrightson, G. David Frye, Ray Thomsen, Quentin Barnes, and James Quisenberry. 

There was reminiscing, with tales of Dr Bitzer and CERL PLATO.  And there was catching up with past lives, current activities, and future plans.  Many familiar names were mentioned.  A get-together like we had today reminds me of just how many smart people were drawn to PLATO.  It's an amazing community.

RIP Dr Don Bitzer

I just learned an hour ago that yesterday [10 December 2024], Don Bitzer, creator of the PLATO system, and friend to us all, passed away at age 90 in North Carolina.

I'm at a loss for words at the moment and can't think of much to say that I didn't say in my book, which, in hindsight, may kinda sorta be the closest attempt at a biography of Don, but I will say that I never ever met a more generous, supportive, enthusiastic person in the world.  He and his wife Maryann, who passed away in 2022, were incredibly generous.

He was an inspiration to us all, and to the world, which he made a better place.

-- Brian Dear, author of "The Friendly Orange Glow", announcing the passing of Dr Donald L Bitzer

[Meta - I got my start in computing through the good graces of Dr Bitzer in March 1974, and it led to my lifelong career.  And of course "trvth" itself originated on the University of Illinois PLATO system in notesfile =pad in February 1981, and has always been maintained on some PLATO system, somewhere.  Currently these posts are hosted in notesfile =pad on the "cyber1" CYBIS system (more info at cyber1.org).]

Analyze

You cannot analyze data you don't collect.

-- Don Appleman, while working for NovaNET a few decades ago, and occasionally since, on the subject of how much data (usually on work done and throughput) should be collected by software

Golden Anniversary

On this date 50 years ago today, 12 March 1974, my first PLATO signon "donald appleman / cerl" was created for me by Bill Golden.  

I was a 9th-grade student in Urbana at the time, and my Chemistry teacher had an "in" with Don Bitzer, and was able to arrange this for me.  That act on her part launched my lifelong career.

Chanute AFB

RANTOUL, Ill. (WCIA) — Chanute Air Force Base is officially in the hands of the Village of Rantoul after 30 years of environmental cleanup and redevelopment efforts.

Air Force and village officials held a ceremony celebrating the completion of the transfer on Wednesday.  The base was established in 1917 as a training center for pilots and ground crews.  It closed in 1993 as part of the base realignment and closure program, leaving behind more than 2,000 acres of land and hundreds of buildings.

Since then, acres have slowly been given back to the village.  Now, they own it all.

-- Will Simmons, "Rantoul celebrates official transferring of Chanute Air Force Base", wcia.com, 25 October 2023

[My dad went through meteorologist training at Chanute AFB at the beginning of WW II, and stuck around to teach for a year or so before being dispatched to the Pacific.  When I first started "trvth" on CERL PLATO in 1981 I was working as a PLATO lab manager and developer for the Department of Defense (3330th TCHTW/TTGH) at Chanute AFB as appleman/chanute.]

Bookends

Back in 2001, I was in my 8th year of working for NovaNET, the descendant of CERL PLATO.  Each year the company hosted a national gathering of its customers and employees in Phoenix.  As a long-time Cardinals baseball fan, I noted that the Cardinals would play the Arizona Diamondbacks, in Phoenix, during the conference.  I bought a ticket for the Diamondbacks home opener, Friday April 6th 2001.  

At the game that night, the Cardinals fielded a much-heralded rookie right fielder (later first baseman) by the name of Albert Pujols, who, at 21 years old, was playing in what I think was just his third MLB game.  In the 4th inning, facing Armando Reynoso on a count of 1 ball and 2 strikes, Albert Pujols hit his first career home run, a 2-run shot that tied the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUvUUQfYdRo

Fast forward to this weekend, and my daughter (who was 2 when that first home run was hit) treated me to a Labor Day Sunday game at Busch Stadium, as the Cardinals faced their arch-rival Cubs.  The game started more than an hour late due to rain, and it drizzled off and on, but it was well worth it.  Albert Pujols didn't start the game, but in the bottom of the 8th inning of a scoreless game, he emerged from the dugout to hit a pinch-hit, 2-run home run, and the Cardinals went on to win 2-0.  It was Pujols' 695th career home run as he aims for 700 before retiring at the end of this season.  There's a lifetime between those 2 home runs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqcLl9QSJgU

This post made possible by my daughter.  Thanks, kid!

That's A Wrap

It was 1973 that I first had a job that shows up on my Social Security earnings record.  I now have 26 years credit in Social Security, and another 14 years credit at the University of Illinois.  All told, that's 40 years of what society deems to be gainful employment.  

My UI time includes working on the PLATO computer system around 1979, the Imaging Technology Group at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science & Technology in the early 2000s, and the Cybersecurity Directorate at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications around 2009-2011, before 9+ years at CITES/Technology Services.

There were bumps and detours (and working for myself for a few years) along the way, with layoffs, and venture funding that evaporated.  But it seems if you get up and go to work every day, eventually you've got something to show for it.

Today I worked my last day for the UI, turning in my office keys and my laptop.  I'm satisfied with my career.  Tomorrow my retirement officially begins.  But I'll only be semi-retired for the next 6(?) years or so; I've been teaching TaeKwonDo for 6 years in Monticello, and I'll see where that takes me.

Meta 40

Meta.  It occurred to me the other day that the 40th anniversary of the first Trvth note (on the CERL PLATO system, while I was working as a GS-9 Programmer for the Department of Defense at Chanute Air Force Base, Rantoul, IL (3330th Tech Training Wing)) was at hand.  I recollected it being May 1981, but a check of the archives shows a February 1981 entry as the first.

Anyway, 40 years.  In July 2019 I counted 5450 ish published, and it's been about 500 more since then, so now 6000 ish published.  The most recent 3500 ish (with titles that aren't "trvth", and images for each) are at trvth.org

***** appearances ~appleman / chanute ~2/24/1981 ~13:50
While nothing may seem to be as it first appears, there
are in fact some things which appear to be as they are,
amidst the other things which only appear to be as they
aren't.

Meta

Today's meta-trvth, from a response I wrote to a "trvth" note on cyber1, after I mentioned that I had 3050 Trvth's published here at trvth.org:


pad/cyber1 7/22/19  9:40pm don appleman/cerl/cyber1

According to my records, there were about 4700 published
Trvth notes in the archives that I saved the day NovaNET 
was decommissioned.  Of those, 2300 were published at
trvth.org, so about 2400 were present on NovaNET prior to
trvth.org.

So, 3050 + 2400, around 5450 ish published?

There were also about 2400 unpublished potential-trvth's
on the NovaNET system which are also archived, and not
counted in the above totals.

It takes 20 years to get 5000 weekdays, but this journey
started in 1981.

Orange Glow

Orange dots beckon.  They welcome with temptation, power, and promise.  All 262,000 of them reach out with their unearthly glow.

-- P. Gregory Springer, as quoted in Brian Dear's "The Friendly Orange Glow -- The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture", released 14 November 2017

Social Creation

The web is more a social creation than a technical one. I designed it for a social effect -- to help people work together -- and not as a technical toy. The ultimate goal of the Web is to support and improve our weblike existence in the world. We clump into families, associations, and companies. We develop trust across the miles and distrust around the corner.

-- Tim Berners-Lee (1955-), inventor of the World Wide Web and director of the World Wide Web Consortium, Weaving the Web (1999)

Origins To Cyber1

As you all are surely aware, NovaNET finally took the big sleep last night. It was a sad sight, and I'm sorry to see it go.

In February of 1981, I wrote my first note with the title "trvth" in =pad.  I was appleman / chanute at the time. Over the years, with breaks both short and long, I've posted more than 4700 notes with that title, in =pad. The most recent 2300 have been reposted, with accompanying images, at trvth.org

Two years ago, an area high school (Atwood-Hammond) was demolished after the school merged with Arthur-Lovington. The crowd that came to watch that demolition had a nostalgia that I felt again last night, when the room (=pad) was filled with veterans of 30 or more years of PLATO/NovaNET.

Final NovaNET backout

* sigh *

I Always Thought

I've seen fire and I've seen rain.
    I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end.
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend.
    But I always thought that I'd see you again.

-- James Vernon Taylor (12 March 1948-). American singer-songwriter and guitarist, "Fire And Rain" (1970)



Point of trivia, my "cerl" records were created on his 27th birthday, 40 years ago this spring.

Gains For All Our Losses

There are gains for all our losses,
There are balms for all our pain:
But when youth, the dream, departs,
It takes something from our hearts,
And it never comes again.

-- Richard Henry Stoddard (1825-1903), American critic and poet, The Flight of Youth

The Art Of Ending

Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), American poet, one of the five Fireside Poets, Elegiac Verse, stanza 14 (1879)

And You've Done It

Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end.  It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's a day you've had everything to do and you've done it.

-- Variously attributed to Margaret Thatcher or Lord Acton