BBC Micro (Model B)
TRS-80
Buon fresco
Fresco a secco
Mezzo-fresco
Egg tempera
Oil Paint
The latter was such an amazing advance for a platform that people committed murder for its secrets, at least allegedly.
http://www.facsnet.org/international-encyclopedia-4/Andrea-Castagno.html
Or in literature
the chisel
the pencil
the pen, quill through ballpoint
the typewriter
the word processor
JavaScript + HTML5 (with canvas) is definitely a great contemporary platform, one which I program for myself.
]]>Also, having tried to type in many listings from the BASIC Computer Games books, I quibble with BASIC as a platform, given how different (and incompatible) were MS-BASIC, TI Extended BASIC, Atari BASIC, etc.
On the other hand, I would say that Javascript-in-a-Web-browser is perhaps the “hottest” platform ever, though perhaps not for games (yet).
]]>Not sure why you list NES, but not SNES, Sega Genesis, or Playstation (1). Colecovision, too, possibly.
I could make an argument for the Vax as being important in the pre-home computer games; seems to have attracted more interesting game efforts than either mainframes or other minis.
]]>Adam, Facebook and Twitter are indeed computational platforms as well as communication platforms. We didn’t list them simply because they aren’t very clear-cut cases when compared to these others. Much of the reason they are interesting is because they are platforms for communications rather than for the development and distribution of programs. But yes, they are platforms in our sense.
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