Strange that the Balance was largely reliable. I recall one or two hiccups, but nothing that caused me lost work. There were other machines floating around, but they were pretty much reserved for faculty/staff/grad students, and undergrad plebes weren't welcome to use what passed for the internet at the time (but Usenet was was available, albeit via Ray Essick's "notes" software). Also, any student could get an account on the CDC Cyber 170, but few courses used it for actual coursework by the time I was there. Then there was PLATO, a world unto itself... it also ran on CDC hardware, with bespoke way-ahead-of-its-time touchscreen plasma display terminals, online forums, instant messaging, and multi-player online games.We only had a few of the 5620s in the 3B2 lab, and I remember a wacky mechanical mouse with a metal ball that I can't imagine would have held up in the long run. The PLATO touchscreens were optical, with a grid of infrared beams to pick up touches.
kjs3|2 days ago