In 1973, the year social computing began on PLATO, the PLATO system got the perfect storm of apps that would forever change the use of the system: PLATO Notes (message forums), Talk-o-matic (chat rooms), and TERM-talk (instant messaging).
What were some of today's tech luminaries doing in 1973? Let's have a look:
| Claim to Fame |
Name |
Age in 1973 |
What They Were Doing |
| Apple |
Steve Jobs |
18 |
Dropped out of freshman year at Reed College in Oregon; stuck around for a while auditing classes in calligraphy. Later returns to Silicon Valley, winds up working at Atari. |
| Apple |
Steve Wozniak |
22 |
Joined Hewlett-Packard; began "Dial-a-Joke" hotline out of his home. |
| Twitter |
Evan Williams |
1 |
In diapers, on a farm in Clarks, Nebraska. |
| Facebook |
Mark Zuckerberg |
-- |
Would not be born for another 11 years. |
| Amazon |
Jeff Bezos |
9 |
Attending River Oaks Elementary School in Houston, TX. |
| DELL |
Michael Dell |
8 |
Attending Herod Elementary School in Houston, TX. |
| AOL |
Steve Case |
15 |
Student at Punahou School in Honolulu, HI. |
| Google |
Larry Page |
Infant |
In diapers, being raised in East Lansing, MI. |
| Google |
Sergey Brin |
Infant |
In diapers, being raised in Moscow, USSR. |
| Google |
Eric Schmidt |
18 |
Attending Princeton University. |
| Google |
Marissa Mayer |
--- |
Wouldn't be born for another two years. |
| Wikipedia |
Jimmy Wales |
7 |
Attending tiny one-room schoolhouse in Huntsville, AL. |
| The Web |
Tim Berners-Lee |
18 |
Graduated from Emanuel School and entered Oxford University. |
| Oracle |
Larry Ellison |
29 |
Working at Amdahl Corporation. |
| Netscape |
Mark Andreessen |
2 |
Two year old in Cedar Falls, IA; family would move to New Lisbon, WI. |
| craigslist |
Craig Newmark |
21 |
Student at Case Western Reserve University |
| eBay |
Pierre Omidyar |
6 |
Moved from native Paris, France to Potomac, MD; attended Potomac School. |
| eBay |
Meg Whitman |
17 |
Attending Cold Spring Harbor High School, Cold Spring Harbor, NY |
| Yahoo |
Jerry Yang |
5 |
Bouncy five-year-old growing up in Taipei, Taiwan. |
| Yahoo |
David Filo |
7 |
Attending school in Lake Charles, LA |
| YouTube |
Chad Hurley |
--- |
Would not be born for another three years. |
| YouTube |
Steve Chen |
--- |
Would not be born for another five years. |
| FourSquare |
Dennis Crowley |
--- |
Would not be born for another fourteen years. |
| LinkedIn |
Reid Hoffman |
6 |
Six-year-old kid growing up in Berkeley, CA. |
| Linux |
Linus Torvalds |
3 |
Toddler growing up in Helsinki, Finland. |
| Digg |
Kevin Rose |
--- |
Would not be born for another four years. |
| ChatRoulette |
Andrey Ternovskiy |
--- |
Would not be born for another twenty years. |
| Microsoft |
Bill Gates |
18 |
Graduated from Lakeside High School in Seattle, WA; worked as congressional page at the U.S. House of Representatives; enrolled in Harvard University in the fall. |
| Microsoft |
Steve Ballmer |
17 |
Graduated from Detroit Country Day School in Beverly Hills, MI; enrolled in Harvard University. |
| Lotus Notes, Groove, Microsoft |
Ray Ozzie |
18 |
Graduated from Maine South High School in Park Ridge, IL; enrolled in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Started using PLATO the following year. |
At the conference next week, Ray Ozzie will be on hand among many other PLATO folks to share their insights and experiences. Two other notable speakers are Dave Woolley, who wrote PLATO Notes when he was 17, and Kim Mast, who wrote Personal Notes (PLATO's email system) in early 1974 when he was 18. Doug Brown, author of Talk-o-matic, will be attending the conference. Among the panel sessions is one devoted to the topic of the emergence of online community -- and essentially the birth of social media -- on PLATO in 1973-74. Not to miss.
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