13 replies to this topic

[classics]

Was the cartridge or software for the Plato system ever released?

Going through this collection I found 2 disks (4 sides) labelled 'Plato Educational System Master'.

They dont do anything when booted, I assume they need the cartridge to work. They seem to be the real thing though, going through them with a hex editor I can see Control Data copyrights and such.

Steve

[Gury]

http://www.atarimaga...latorising.html

[www.atarimania.com]

Steve,

It was actually released as The Learning Phone a year after the initial announcement. Too little, too late again... We need to upload the cartridge dump as well (though it doesn't seem to work on emulators).

Control Data released the following disks as well but they were just adapted from PLATO, they didn't require anything else:
Basic Number Facts
Computer Literacy - Introduction
Decimals
Fractions
French Vocabulary Builder
German Vocabulary Builder
Physics - Elementary Mechanics
Spanish Vocabulary Builder
Whole Numbers

For the moment, only a cracked version of Physics - Elementary Mechanics is available online but the others were definitely released.

Could you see any release date on your disks? You may have some sort of beta as the PLATO network shut down its activities pretty quickly...

--
Atari Frog
http://www.atarimania.com

Edited by www.atarimania.com, Wed Mar 22, 2006 4:25 AM.

[classics]

There is a lot of educational stuff in here, I think I've seen at least two of those. I just came across the Krell SAT prep disks too.

Steve

Edited by classics, Wed Mar 22, 2006 4:38 AM.

[crash]

I may have a Learning Phone cart around here somewhere, if it is needed.

[www.atarimania.com]

crash, on Wed Mar 22, 2006 11:49 AM, said:

I may have a Learning Phone cart around here somewhere, if it is needed.

There may be two revisions actually... The screenshot on our site was taken from the cartridge that is attached.

Note that it doesn't seem to work on emulators. It tries to detect something I believe... Eric explained this to me but my technical knowledge is so feeble I forgot what he told me

--
Atari Frog
http://www.atarimania.com

Attached Files

•  The_Learning_Phone.zip   6.46K   44 downloads

[Tempest]

I also have a Learning Phone cart. Complete with a bright red label (it actually hurts the eyes). I can dump it if need be.

On an interesting side note, I believe this is the only Atari 8-bit cartridge I've ever seen with a 1985 copyright.

Tempest

[www.atarimania.com]

Tempest, on Wed Mar 22, 2006 3:23 PM, said:

I also have a Learning Phone cart. Complete with a bright red label (it actually hurts the eyes). I can dump it if need be.

This is the commercial version most people have so the dump should be the same. Now if it displays the following text on boot-up, you have a prototype and I don't think the image is floating around anywhere...

Quote

On an interesting side note, I believe this is the only Atari 8-bit cartridge I've ever seen with a 1985 copyright.

Doesn't AtariWriter (revision C) look like this? Not sure it's from 1985 though... There's an Eastern Front (1941) with that weird red label as well.

--
Atari Frog
http://www.atarimania.com

[Cybernoid]

Interesting. There is a live Plato System running.

/


Here is the link: http://www.cyber1.org/


I wonder if we could get the PLATO software working on an Atari, and use it along with APE's Internet modem to connect to the cyber1 system? This would rock! They have Empire and probably many other games installed....



Also interesting:

http://www.platopeople.com/

[Gunstar]

www.atarimania.com, on Wed Mar 22, 2006 3:16 PM, said:

Tempest, on Wed Mar 22, 2006 3:23 PM, said:

I also have a Learning Phone cart. Complete with a bright red label (it actually hurts the eyes). I can dump it if need be.

This is the commercial version most people have so the dump should be the same. Now if it displays the following text on boot-up, you have a prototype and I don't think the image is floating around anywhere...

Quote

On an interesting side note, I believe this is the only Atari 8-bit cartridge I've ever seen with a 1985 copyright.

Doesn't AtariWriter (revision C) look like this? Not sure it's from 1985 though... There's an Eastern Front (1941) with that weird red label as well.

--
Atari Frog
http://www.atarimania.com

I have some cassette programs I recently got from Englnad that are in bright red cases. I think Atari released all of this around the same time, soon after the XE hit the market. I think my cassettes were actually part of an Atai computer bundle sold in the U.K.

[Cybernoid]

classics, on Wed Mar 22, 2006 12:35 AM, said:

Going through this collection I found 2 disks (4 sides) labelled 'Plato Educational System Master'.

Can you turn these into ATR images and release them? Maybe with the cart ROM, this will work....

[deathtrappomegranate]

Gunstar, on Wed Mar 22, 2006 3:39 PM, said:

I have some cassette programs I recently got from Englnad that are in bright red cases. I think Atari released all of this around the same time, soon after the XE hit the market. I think my cassettes were actually part of an Atai computer bundle sold in the U.K.

You're right, these were sold as pack-in games by Atari UK. The cassette inlay cards are red, and they obviously spent very little on the printing.

[JackFlack]

I have this Plato Prototype. Labeled #12 dated 2-28-84

Attached Thumbnails

• 

[Pengwin]

I just found this on eBay if anyone is interested.
Although I found it via ebay.co.uk, the seller is in Oregon

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/The-Learning-Phone-A...1QQcmdZViewItem