[ih] hypertext, was FTP Design

[Larry Press]

On 7/3/2012 11:39 AM, John Levine wrote:

> Ted Nelson has been trying to implement his Xanadu model of hypertext
> since about 1969 when he did some work on a 7090 with punch cards.

Do you mean 1960?  The 7090/4 was pretty well finished by the System 360 
in 1964.  By 1969, a hypertext experiment would have been interactive.

I was on a panel with Ted Nelson at the 1970(?) NCC, and all he had 
"running" was a cardboard mockup of a portable computer that he 
envisioned being carried around as a back pack.

I also saw him in the mid-late 70s at an Asilomar workshop at which time 
he had a small group of people trying to implement Xanadu, but as far as 
I know, it was never in general use.

He was an imaginative, counter-culture kind of a guy, but his 
contribution can't be compared to Doug Engelbart's.

Also, Doug acknowledges the influence of Vannevar Bush's 1945 article 
"As we may think" in which he speculates on the idea of networked 
workstations on which one could publish and link to documents:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/3881/?single_page=true

Larry