This is actually why I posted this. It seems PLATO has never gotten its due for the truly revolutionary concepts it introduced. I remember - in the early eighties - playing networked games and participating in tournaments, sending "personal notes" which were emails, participating in discussion forums with people from universities all over the world, taking lessons to augment my schoolwork...There was even instant messaging. All from a PLATO terminal which was made out of wood and metal and connected to the university mainframes at 1200baud.