[ih] origins of the term "hyperlink"

[Tim Chown]

Hi,

I’d always assumed the term came from Ted Nelson, from his work in the mid 60’s, but looking back at papers such as https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/800197.806036 <https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/800197.806036> he uses “hypertext”, “hyperfilm” and “hypermedia” and discusses linking them, but doesn’t use “hyperlink” as a specific term, at least as far as I can see.  It’s implicit though :)

Tim

> On 14 Apr 2020, at 13:22, Adam Sampson via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> 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/>
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