[ih] origins of the term "hyperlink"

[Adam Sampson]

vinton cerf via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
writes:

> I asked Jeff Rulifson if he could help us figure out when "hyperlink"
> entered into usage.
[...]
> My bet would be that hyper was added between 1980 and 1987. Maybe it was a
> journalist and we will never know.

In the utzoo Usenet archive, the earliest use of "hyperlink" in the
sense you're after is by Dennis Hamilton <deh0654 at sjfc.UUCP> on 4th
February 1988 in a bibliography of articles about hypertext. The entry
in question is:

----

%A Keith Ferrell
%A Selby Bateman
%T Out to Change the World: A Conversation with John Sculley
%J Compute!
%V 9
%N 12
%D December, 1987
%P 18-22
%O Interview
%K Apple Hypercard Hypertext Odyssey literacy education Knowledge
Navigator
%X "Compute!: ... Hypercard has attracted a lot of attention as an
example of the sort of interactive software that will ultimately
make the Knowledge Navigator possible.  Underlying it are echoes
of hypertext -- the linkage of all information into an easily
accessible database.
   "Sculley: [Current technologies have their roots in the 1960s.]
The one fundamental idea that didn't make it across from the
sixties was hypertext. I felt very strongly that hypertext had to
be in the roots of future technology.
   "Compute!: Do we run the risk of hypertexting changing in
fundamental ways the nature of knowledge?  Will the continuous
flow of knowledge and culture be transformed into a collection
of *snippets*, hypertexted together by key phrases rather than
concepts.
   "Sculley: No, I think that what *Hypercard* will do is rather
let us avoid the problem of information doubling every three to
four years. ... Hypercard makes the process of organizing
information completely natural and intuitive.  ...
   I think hypertext and the zoom-trace view of being able to explore
information databases vy hyperlinks has natural appeal to computer 
technologists.  I also sense a non-sequiter in how this is going to
help abate the information-explosion and overload "problem."   Note that
the Knowledge Navigator is the name that Sculley gives to a vision of
an *active* hypertext-like system suitable for education.  Sculley sees
the Knowledge Navigator as a way of *engaging* students in ways in which
the educational system/process fails to do so today.  [dh:88-01-30]

----

Here's the article he's discussing: https://archive.org/details/1987-12-compute-magazine/page/n19/mode/2up

There are also several mentions around that time of a magazine for
Hypercard users called HyperLink (or Hyper-Link or Hyperlink...), the
earliest by murray at topaz.rutgers.edu on 16th November 1987.

-- 
Adam Sampson <ats at offog.org>                         <http://offog.org/>