Oral History of Don Bitzer
Interviewed by Marc Weber on 2022-07-27 in Cary, NC
© Computer History Museum
Don Lester Bitzer is an American inventor and professor of engineering. This oral history begins with his recounting of his early upbringing, including his schooling and interest in taking things apart to understand how they worked as well as building new gadgets using parts he scrounged from local radio and TV stores. Bitzer wanted to be an engineer since age five, which was encouraged by his parents. After a solid high school preparation, especially in the sciences and mathematics, he moved on to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where he completed his bachelor’s, master’s and PhD in electrical engineering. He was asked to stay at Illinois and become a faculty member.
As a new professor, Bitzer quickly accepted a challenge from his department head to devise a way that students could learn using a computer. Bitzer began working on a solution – soon to be known as PLATO -- in 1959. Based on the first-generation ILLIAC I computer, Bitzer connected video lessons to a small number of terminals using ILLIAC I, a very early invention of timesharing. From these simple beginnings, the PLATO system grew into an ecosystem of learning modules and interactive lessons on hundreds of subjects with thousands of simultaneous users, running on Control Data Corporation supercomputers.
As part of co-developing the PLATO hardware to keep student terminal prices affordable but also capable of graphics, Bitzer, colleague Gene Slottow, and graduate student Robert Wilson invented the plasma display in 1964, a revolutionary technological development at the time which is still in wide use today. It was also the first practical flatscreen. The plasma display became the basis of the PLATO IV terminal, which combined a touchscreen with audio recordings and microfilm projection to create a multimedia terminal in the early 1970s. PLATO IV was the platform on which a vibrant pioneering community of users emerged, including email, online collaboration, news, chat, discussion groups, and sophisticated online games.
Bitzer spent the rest of his career at the University of Illinois contributing to PLATO but also directing research on many other projects for agencies such as NSF and ARPA on topics relating to radar, communications, high performance computing and artificial intelligence. He retired from the University of Illinois after 39 years to become Distinguished University Research Professor at North Carolina State, where he teaches and conducts research on a range of topics from DNA to nuclear fusion.
Note: Transcripts represent what was said in the interview. However, to enhance meaning or add clarification, interviewees have the opportunity to modify this text afterward. This may result in discrepancies between the transcript and the video. Please refer to the transcript for further information - http://www.computerhistory.org/collec...
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Catalog Number: 102792761
Lot Number: 2022.0124
