[ih] Internet-history Digest, Vol 7, Issue 9
John Shoch
j at shoch.com
Mon Apr 13 10:33:48 PDT 2020
1. As with the battle over "email" there will be lots of different
questions to dis-entangle here:
--What exactly is a hyper-link?
[Is a cross reference between 4000-year-old Egyptian tablets a
non-clickable hyper-link? An early example of a hyper-link, or a
pre-cursor to a hyper-link?]
--Who "invented" the "idea" of hyper-links?
--Who first published a description of hyper-links?
--Who first used the word "hyper-links" in any other context?
--Who first used the word "hyper-links" in our context?
--Who first implemented the idea of hyper-links (by any name)?
--Who first implemented the idea of hyper-links, and used that name?
--Who actually deployed the most systems with hyper-links, and won the
market share or PR battle?
--etc.
--etc.
2. My friends at the Computer History Museum have taught me that one needs
to be very precise in choosing the question.
I have taken the liberty of asking folks at the CHN to weigh in.....hope to
hear from them.....
John Shoch
On Sun, Apr 12, 2020 at 11:20 AM <internet-history-request at elists.isoc.org>
wrote:
> Send Internet-history mailing list submissions to
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> internet-history-request at elists.isoc.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> internet-history-owner at elists.isoc.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Internet-history digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. origins of the term "hyperlink" (vinton cerf)
> 2. Reminder about list post size (Joseph Touch)
> 3. Re: origins of the term "hyperlink" (Steve Crocker)
> 4. Re: origins of the term "hyperlink" (Edward Summers)
> 5. Re: origins of the term "hyperlink" (Darius Kazemi)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2020 12:41:05 -0400
> From: vinton cerf <vgcerf at gmail.com>
> To: internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> Cc: Jeff Rulifson <J.F.Rulifson at gmail.com>
> Subject: [ih] origins of the term "hyperlink"
> Message-ID:
> <
> CAAFtm_WGbcPUVC53NsKLE0q51ih_4++unJgBaT3LgMBOMjTN7A at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> I asked Jeff Rulifson if he could help us figure out when "hyperlink"
> entered into usage. Jeff was the principal programmer for Douglas
> Engelbart's NLS editing system in which such links were introduced. Ted
> Nelson coined terms like "hypertext" in his Xanadu concept - the two were
> contemporary in the 1960s.
>
> Here is Jeff's response:
>
> Vannevar Bush, (Atlantic Monthly, July 1945, p 107) introduces the idea of
> "associative indexing, the basic idea of which is a provision whereby any
> item may be caused at will to select immediately and automatically
> another." Bush goes on to discuss the idea of a named trail of such
> associations. Engelbart's contemporaneous handwritten marginal notes in his
> copy of the magazine call such a trail "links". The Computer History Museum
> has a photocopy of Doug's personal copy with his handwritten marginal
> notes. (I have a TIFF of their copy.)
>
> By the time of the 1968 demo, I had fully implemented links. I used a very
> general implementation. A link had two parts: the name of a document and a
> search command. The named document could be the current document or any
> other document available for searching. The search command was a regular
> expression. Users could make their links very simple or extremely
> sophisticated. As far as I know, this was the first general implementation.
>
> In 1965, Ted Nelson had coined the term hypertext but never had an
> implementation. I believe he used the term links but I cannot find the
> paper for verification.
>
> By 1967, not knowing about Nelson or Engelbart, Andy van Dam had built a
> system called HES. Andy's system had the notion of links and they were
> called "links". (See
> http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/4/1/000081/000081.html)
>
> Bush published the idea in 1945. Engelbart named the idea "links" about
> 1945 but did not tell anyone. Andy used links in a line editor in 1967 and
> I implemented a general version in 1968. Up till then, they were called
> links.
>
> When was "hyper" added as a prefix?
>
> The article at
>
> https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/seeing-what-others-dont/201801/the-invention-hyperlinks
> claims Ben Shneiderman invented them in 1988 and implies Shneiderman coined
> the term. You can see more of Shneiderman's claims at
> http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/hyperties/. Shneiderman added the prefix
> "hyper"
> 43 years after Doug named associative indexing "links" and 20 years after
> my implementation.
>
> The article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink#History attributes
> the term hyperlinks to Nelson in 1965. But, to my knowledge, Nelson used
> the term "links" at that time.
>
> My bet would be that hyper was added between 1980 and 1987. Maybe it was a
> journalist and we will never know.
>
> Jeff
>
>
> -------
>
> Also:
> [image: Bush with Engelbart Annotation.png]
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2020 09:50:06 -0700
> From: Joseph Touch <touch at strayalpha.com>
> To: internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> Subject: [ih] Reminder about list post size
> Message-ID: <E8E990C4-6CCB-4294-A5E4-A461969FBD9A at strayalpha.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
>
> Hi, all,
>
> Please note that this list is currently limited to 400KB posts. The size
> is intended to support most typed and included posts but is NOT intended as
> a way to post archival material. That info should be posted elsewhere and
> cited if possible. We unfortunately don?t have the space for arbitrary
> large posts and do not currently have a repository archive.
>
> Joe (as list admin)
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2020 12:54:06 -0400
> From: Steve Crocker <steve at shinkuro.com>
> To: vinton cerf <vgcerf at gmail.com>, Jeff Rulifson
> <J.F.Rulifson at gmail.com>
> Cc: internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org>, David Grier
> <dagrier.dc at gmail.com>, Stephen Crocker <steve at shinkuro.com>
> Subject: Re: [ih] origins of the term "hyperlink"
> Message-ID: <FFB7366A-6209-42D9-A797-0EA4D63A3FC7 at shinkuro.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
>
> Jeff and Vint,
>
> Thanks for this very informative dialog. One small question about a date:
>
> > Bush published the idea in 1945. Engelbart named the idea "links" about
> > 1945 but did not tell anyone.
>
> Was it really 1945 when Engelbart names the idea ?links?? I?m guessing
> this was an unintended typo.
>
> Steve
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Apr 12, 2020, at 12:45 PM, vinton cerf via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> >
> > ?I asked Jeff Rulifson if he could help us figure out when "hyperlink"
> > entered into usage. Jeff was the principal programmer for Douglas
> > Engelbart's NLS editing system in which such links were introduced. Ted
> > Nelson coined terms like "hypertext" in his Xanadu concept - the two were
> > contemporary in the 1960s.
> >
> > Here is Jeff's response:
> >
> > Vannevar Bush, (Atlantic Monthly, July 1945, p 107) introduces the idea
> of
> > "associative indexing, the basic idea of which is a provision whereby any
> > item may be caused at will to select immediately and automatically
> > another." Bush goes on to discuss the idea of a named trail of such
> > associations. Engelbart's contemporaneous handwritten marginal notes in
> his
> > copy of the magazine call such a trail "links". The Computer History
> Museum
> > has a photocopy of Doug's personal copy with his handwritten marginal
> > notes. (I have a TIFF of their copy.)
> >
> > By the time of the 1968 demo, I had fully implemented links. I used a
> very
> > general implementation. A link had two parts: the name of a document and
> a
> > search command. The named document could be the current document or any
> > other document available for searching. The search command was a regular
> > expression. Users could make their links very simple or extremely
> > sophisticated. As far as I know, this was the first general
> implementation.
> >
> > In 1965, Ted Nelson had coined the term hypertext but never had an
> > implementation. I believe he used the term links but I cannot find the
> > paper for verification.
> >
> > By 1967, not knowing about Nelson or Engelbart, Andy van Dam had built a
> > system called HES. Andy's system had the notion of links and they were
> > called "links". (See
> > http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/4/1/000081/000081.html)
> >
> > Bush published the idea in 1945. Engelbart named the idea "links" about
> > 1945 but did not tell anyone. Andy used links in a line editor in 1967
> and
> > I implemented a general version in 1968. Up till then, they were called
> > links.
> >
> > When was "hyper" added as a prefix?
> >
> > The article at
> >
> https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/seeing-what-others-dont/201801/the-invention-hyperlinks
> > claims Ben Shneiderman invented them in 1988 and implies Shneiderman
> coined
> > the term. You can see more of Shneiderman's claims at
> > http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/hyperties/. Shneiderman added the prefix
> "hyper"
> > 43 years after Doug named associative indexing "links" and 20 years after
> > my implementation.
> >
> > The article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink#History
> attributes
> > the term hyperlinks to Nelson in 1965. But, to my knowledge, Nelson used
> > the term "links" at that time.
> >
> > My bet would be that hyper was added between 1980 and 1987. Maybe it was
> a
> > journalist and we will never know.
> >
> > Jeff
> >
> >
> > -------
> >
> > Also:
> > [image: Bush with Engelbart Annotation.png]
> > --
> > Internet-history mailing list
> > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2020 14:04:27 -0400
> From: Edward Summers <ehs at pobox.com>
> To: vinton cerf <vgcerf at gmail.com>
> Cc: internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org>, Jeff Rulifson
> <J.F.Rulifson at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [ih] origins of the term "hyperlink"
> Message-ID: <72DDCAD4-5C3E-4335-8481-CE3B444D04B3 at pobox.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
>
>
> > On Apr 12, 2020, at 12:41 PM, vinton cerf via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> >
> > Here is Jeff's response:
> >
> > Vannevar Bush, (Atlantic Monthly, July 1945, p 107) introduces the idea
> of
> > "associative indexing, the basic idea of which is a provision whereby any
> > item may be caused at will to select immediately and automatically
> > another." Bush goes on to discuss the idea of a named trail of such
> > associations. Engelbart's contemporaneous handwritten marginal notes in
> his
> > copy of the magazine call such a trail "links". The Computer History
> Museum
> > has a photocopy of Doug's personal copy with his handwritten marginal
> > notes. (I have a TIFF of their copy.)
>
> It's more than just a bit poetic that a Google Image search for "vannevar
> engelbart as we may think scan" leads to Engelbart's own website, that has
> a scan as well:
>
>
> https://www.dougengelbart.org/archives/artifacts/annotated-As-We-May-Think-withcredits.pdf
>
> The resolution unfortunately isn't the best. But it is good enough to see
> Engelbart's annotations. I tried to find one mentioning "link" when trails
> were being discussed. The best candidate I could find was in the second
> paragraph on the right side of p. 107. But he uses the "list" instead of
> "link". If Jeff or anyone can make a higher resolution copy of it available
> it be amazing to see it!
>
> //Ed
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2020 11:20:04 -0700
> From: Darius Kazemi <darius.kazemi at gmail.com>
> To: Steve Crocker <steve at shinkuro.com>
> Cc: vinton cerf <vgcerf at gmail.com>, Jeff Rulifson
> <J.F.Rulifson at gmail.com>, David Grier <dagrier.dc at gmail.com>,
> internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> Subject: Re: [ih] origins of the term "hyperlink"
> Message-ID:
> <CADHc3QFOY9NqzSQ9rBuO=UtQH_GLpcD+iWByHWtj7=
> UdmC-0Kw at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> I got curious and started with a google books ngram search, then started
> combing through individual records provided with their context. I made sure
> to filter for noise -- there are a lot of books indexed that are 1990+
> editions of earlier books that contain the term "hyperlink" in the
> additional notes.
>
> This DTIC report on on a hypertext project from 1987 does NOT use the term
> "hyperlink", only "link":
>
> https://archive.org/details/DTIC_ADA188179/page/n3/mode/2up/search/%22knowledge+garden%22?q=%22knowledge+garden%22
>
> The earliest *published* mentions I can find are from 1988.
>
> "PC AI" trade publication mentions hyperlinks and linked documents.
>
> https://books.google.com/books?id=dKYdAQAAIAAJ&q=%22hyperlink%22&dq=%22hyperlink%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwib6Omgt-PoAhXUFjQIHSPKDucQ6AEwAnoECAIQAg
>
> PC Magazine in December 1988 mentions a linked document product suite
> called PC-Hypertext from a company called MaxThink, which had an entire
> program called HyperLink:
>
> https://archive.org/details/PC-Mag-1988-12-13/page/n151/mode/2up/search/maxthink
>
> THE FINAL LINK HyperLink is not so
> > much a single product as it is a combina-
> > tion of related utilities. This $89 module
> > has programs that let you move MaxThink
> > and Houdini networks into hypertext net-
> > works. Since the PC-Hypertext system is
> > designed to connect separate files, Hyper-
> > Link has a utility that automatically divides
> > a large text file into many smaller ones.
> > Another program creates cross-reference
> > lists for each file and then combines them
> > into one long list.
> >
> > HyperLink also includes an ENCODE
> > program, which compiles text files into a
> > hypertext system that can be used with PC-
> > Hypertext. All jumps ate established by
> > placing a filename between the left and
> > right angle brackets. The files used by EN-
> > CODE can be created with any editor ca-
> > pable of writing ASCII files. HyperLink
> > even includes a utility designed to make a
> > mini-expert system out of a hypertext net-
> > work.
> >
> >
> Possible asides and dead ends:
>
> There is a concept in graph theory called a "hypergraph" and I found a 1977
> paper that uses the term "hyperlink" in a discussion of a data structure
> for a database system built around the hypergraph. I'm unsure if there is a
> direct connection with the hypertext terminology but since it's a computer
> science paper I thought I'd include it.
> https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-48908-2_3
>
> HyperLink magazine was a publication dedicated to HyperCard development,
> which is far as I can tell began publication in 1987 around the same time
> as HyperCard was released. Whether this was an intentional play on an
> already-established concept of a hyperlink or if it merely was for "linking
> up" HyperCard developers, I can't say.
>
> I'm also finding some commercial product naming, like "hyperlink" referring
> to a special kind of networking interface here:
>
> https://books.google.com/books?id=Cc4EAQAAIAAJ&q=%22hyperlink%22&dq=%22hyperlink%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwib6Omgt-PoAhXUFjQIHSPKDucQ6AEwBnoECAcQAg
>
> My conclusion:
>
> It seems that in 1987-1988, "hyper" was a popular prefix to attach to
> anything to make it seem more "techie", like "cyber-" was for some years in
> the 1990s. There was a general flowering of things called hyper-[noun] in
> those two years. This of course matches up roughly with the invention of
> the WWW in 1989. The idea that "hyperlink" was coined by Ben Shneidermanin
> 1988 seems wholly plausible to me! At least I can find nothing to
> contradict the claim. My guess is that multiple people independently coined
> "hyperlink" in 1988, including whoever was working at MaxThink on their
> HyperLink product in 1988.
>
> -Darius
>
> On Sun, Apr 12, 2020 at 9:54 AM Steve Crocker via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
> > Jeff and Vint,
> >
> > Thanks for this very informative dialog. One small question about a
> date:
> >
> > > Bush published the idea in 1945. Engelbart named the idea "links" about
> > > 1945 but did not tell anyone.
> >
> > Was it really 1945 when Engelbart names the idea ?links?? I?m guessing
> > this was an unintended typo.
> >
> > Steve
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
> > > On Apr 12, 2020, at 12:45 PM, vinton cerf via Internet-history <
> > internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > ?I asked Jeff Rulifson if he could help us figure out when "hyperlink"
> > > entered into usage. Jeff was the principal programmer for Douglas
> > > Engelbart's NLS editing system in which such links were introduced. Ted
> > > Nelson coined terms like "hypertext" in his Xanadu concept - the two
> were
> > > contemporary in the 1960s.
> > >
> > > Here is Jeff's response:
> > >
> > > Vannevar Bush, (Atlantic Monthly, July 1945, p 107) introduces the idea
> > of
> > > "associative indexing, the basic idea of which is a provision whereby
> any
> > > item may be caused at will to select immediately and automatically
> > > another." Bush goes on to discuss the idea of a named trail of such
> > > associations. Engelbart's contemporaneous handwritten marginal notes in
> > his
> > > copy of the magazine call such a trail "links". The Computer History
> > Museum
> > > has a photocopy of Doug's personal copy with his handwritten marginal
> > > notes. (I have a TIFF of their copy.)
> > >
> > > By the time of the 1968 demo, I had fully implemented links. I used a
> > very
> > > general implementation. A link had two parts: the name of a document
> and
> > a
> > > search command. The named document could be the current document or any
> > > other document available for searching. The search command was a
> regular
> > > expression. Users could make their links very simple or extremely
> > > sophisticated. As far as I know, this was the first general
> > implementation.
> > >
> > > In 1965, Ted Nelson had coined the term hypertext but never had an
> > > implementation. I believe he used the term links but I cannot find the
> > > paper for verification.
> > >
> > > By 1967, not knowing about Nelson or Engelbart, Andy van Dam had built
> a
> > > system called HES. Andy's system had the notion of links and they were
> > > called "links". (See
> > > http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/4/1/000081/000081.html)
> > >
> > > Bush published the idea in 1945. Engelbart named the idea "links" about
> > > 1945 but did not tell anyone. Andy used links in a line editor in 1967
> > and
> > > I implemented a general version in 1968. Up till then, they were called
> > > links.
> > >
> > > When was "hyper" added as a prefix?
> > >
> > > The article at
> > >
> >
> https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/seeing-what-others-dont/201801/the-invention-hyperlinks
> > > claims Ben Shneiderman invented them in 1988 and implies Shneiderman
> > coined
> > > the term. You can see more of Shneiderman's claims at
> > > http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/hyperties/. Shneiderman added the prefix
> > "hyper"
> > > 43 years after Doug named associative indexing "links" and 20 years
> after
> > > my implementation.
> > >
> > > The article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink#History
> > attributes
> > > the term hyperlinks to Nelson in 1965. But, to my knowledge, Nelson
> used
> > > the term "links" at that time.
> > >
> > > My bet would be that hyper was added between 1980 and 1987. Maybe it
> was
> > a
> > > journalist and we will never know.
> > >
> > > Jeff
> > >
> > >
> > > -------
> > >
> > > Also:
> > > [image: Bush with Engelbart Annotation.png]
> > > --
> > > Internet-history mailing list
> > > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> > --
> > Internet-history mailing list
> > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> >
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Subject: Digest Footer
>
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of Internet-history Digest, Vol 7, Issue 9
> **********************************************
>
More information about the Internet-history
mailing list