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Donald Bitzer has died
CHM remembers Fellow Don Bitzer, computer pioneer who co-invented the flat-panel plasma display and was called the "father of PLATO.”
Following graduation, he joined the UIUC faculty, where he learned of efforts to bring lessons to students over a closed-circuit television network. To expand multimedia for courses, later PLATO terminals incorporated microfilm projector that could combine detailed images with computer text on the screen, and some used an attached magnetic audio disk for language and music instruction. 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.
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