{"id":46250,"date":"2024-12-23T16:34:43","date_gmt":"2024-12-23T21:34:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=46250"},"modified":"2024-12-23T16:34:43","modified_gmt":"2024-12-23T21:34:43","slug":"donald-bitzer-rip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/23\/donald-bitzer-rip\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Bitzer, RIP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/computerhistory.org\/blog\/in-memoriam-donald-bitzer-1934-2024\/\">Dag Spicer<\/a> (via <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=42406158\">Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/computerhistory.org\/blog\/in-memoriam-donald-bitzer-1934-2024\/\">\n<p>Bitzer studied electrical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), obtaining a PhD in 1960. Following graduation, he joined the UIUC faculty, where he learned of efforts to bring lessons to students over a closed-circuit television network. While a committee of engineers, psychologists, and educators were unable to agree on a single solution at the time, Bitzer wrote up a proposal within a week, got it approved, and immediately started developing his PLATO system for the university&rsquo;s groundbreaking ILLIAC I computer&mdash;the first electronic digital stored program computer built by a university. (PLATO stands for Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations).<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>To make things easier on the eyes for students sitting in front of computer terminals for many hours at a time, in 1964 Bitzer, with colleague Gene Slottow and graduate student Robert Wilson, invented the flat panel display: plasma screens do not flicker and their clever design also saved memory in the computer by having the display itself store data.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dag Spicer (via Hacker News): Bitzer studied electrical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), obtaining a PhD in 1960. Following graduation, he joined the UIUC faculty, where he learned of efforts to bring lessons to students over a closed-circuit television network. While a committee of engineers, psychologists, and educators were unable to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2024-12-23T21:34:45Z","apple_news_api_id":"1767eec6-1f00-40d0-8ef2-3097b0fc8b58","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2024-12-23T21:34:45Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AF2fuxh8AQNCO8jCXsPyLWA","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[838,235,295,208],"class_list":["post-46250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-display","tag-education","tag-history","tag-rip"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46251,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46250\/revisions\/46251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}