Personal Notes

With Notes and "term-talk" in place, it began to seem natural to use PLATO as a means of communication. What it obviously lacked was a way to send private mail. Kim Mast tackled the job, and in August of 1974, Personal Notes was released.

Personal Notes was similar to Notes in many ways: each note appeared on a separate screen, and options such as moving to the next or previous note, deleting a note, or responding, were available as single key presses. There was no index of notes, however. Entering Personal Notes took you immediately to the first note you had not yet read. From there, you could move forward or backward through your notes.

Kim and I worked together to integrate all of PLATO's communication features into a seamless package. For example, while viewing a note, you could:

copy it to a notesfile
forward it to someone as a personal note
send a personal note to the author
initiate a "term-talk" with the author

All of these options were available in both Notes and Personal Notes, and the same keys were used in both.

Copyright (c) 1996 - 2006 Elizabeth Mattijsen
I appreciate comments, suggestions and bug-reports.
Please send these to liz-comments@dijkmat.nl.