Editing PLATO (computer system) (section)

=== Multimedia experiences (PLATO IV) ===
[[Image:PLATO4kb.jpg|thumb|A standard [[Computer keyboard|keyboard]] for a PLATO IV terminal, {{Circa|1976}}]]

In 1972, with the introduction of PLATO IV, Bitzer declared general success, claiming that the goal of generalized computer instruction was now available to all. However, the terminals were very expensive (about $12,000).   The PLATO IV terminal had several major innovations:

* Plasma Display Screen''':''' Bitzer's orange [[plasma display]], incorporated both memory and bitmapped graphics into one display. The display was a 512×512 bitmap, with both character and vector plotting done by hardwired logic.  It included fast vector line drawing capability, and ran at 1260 [[baud]], rendering 60 lines or 180 characters per second. . Users could provide their own characters to support rudimentary [[bitmap]] graphics.
* Touch panel: A 16×16 grid infrared [[Touchscreen|touch panel]], allowing students to answer questions by touching anywhere on the screen.
* Microfiche images: Compressed air powered a piston-driven [[microfiche]] image selector that permitted colored images to be projected on the back of the screen under program control.
* A hard drive for Audio snippets: The random-access audio device used a magnetic disc with a capacity to hold 17 total minutes of pre-recorded audio.<ref>{{cite report |title=Critical Incidents in the Evolution of PLATO Projects |editor-last=Steinberg |editor-first=Esther R. |date=June 3, 1977 |publisher=[[ERIC]] |page=1 |id=ERIC Number: ED148298 |url=https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED148298}}</ref> It could retrieve for playback any of 4096 audio clips within 0.4 seconds. By 1980, the device was being commercially produced by Education and Information Systems, Incorporated with a capacity of just over 22 minutes.<ref name="CERL Report A-13">{{cite report|title=A Digitally Addressable Random-Access Image Selector and Random-Access Audio System|last1=Bitzer |first1=Donald D.L. |last2=Johnson |first2=Roger L. |last3=Skaperdas |first3=Dominic |date=August 1970 |publisher=CERL Report A-13}}</ref>
* A [[Votrax]] voice synthesizer
* The [[Gooch Synthetic Woodwind]] (named after inventor [[Sherwin Gooch]]), a [[synthesizer]] that offered four-voice music synthesis to provide sound in PLATO courseware. This was later supplanted on the PLATO V terminal by the [[Gooch Cybernetic Synthesizer]], which had sixteen voices that could be programmed individually, or combined to make more complex sounds.

[[Bruce Parello]], a student at the [[University of Illinois]] in 1972, created the first digital [[emoji]]s on the PLATO IV system.<ref name="Kalantzis">{{cite book |last1=Kalantzis |first1=Mary |last2=Cope |first2=Bill |title=Adding Sense: Context and Interest in a Grammar of Multimodal Meaning |date=2020 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-49534-9 |page=33}}</ref>