ANTIC Interview 465 - Vince Wu, The Learning Phone (Atari PLATO Terminal)

Sep 30, 2026

Vince Wu, The Learning Phone (Atari PLATO Terminal)

 

Vince Wu worked at Atari for about two and a half years. He was the programmer of The Learning Phone, the PLATO terminal for Atari 8-bit computers. Before that, he worked with PLATO at the University of Illinois, then in California for Control Data Corporation. PLATO was the first generalized computer-assisted instruction system, a groundbreaking graphical client-server computer system aimed at education.

 

To assist in this interview, I was joined by Thomas Cherryhomes and Michael Sternberg, who were on a road trip to a Vintage Computer Festival conference. In 2018, Tom Cherryhomes created IRATA.ONLINE, a modern working version of the PLATO server and terminals. Michael Sternberg helped reverse engineer the Atari PLATO cartridge for that project.

 

This interview took place on September 10, 2026.

Video version of this interview

1984 “PLATO Rising” article in Antic magazine

The Learning Phone review in ANALOG Computing magazine

The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture

Computer History Museum PLATO@50: PLATO Computer Learning System 50th Anniversary

IRATA.ONLINE, a modern PLATO server and terminals

ATARI PLATO Users Guide version 3.1 (1983)

ANTIC Episode 49 – Thomas Cherryhomes and PLATO

ANTIC Interview 10 – Mark Rustad

ANTIC Interview 117 – Landon Dyer

ANTIC Interview 183 – Lane Winner

Early versions of Atari PLATO released

PLATO on Wikipedia

Vince Wu – Follow the Arc of Justice

Vincent Wu’s birthday memories—jailed at Selma in 1965, worked security for MLK at the March finale