Computers for Cynics 6 - The Real Story of the World Wide Web
Nelson explains why he sees the Web as a shallow, one-way-link simplification of the hypertext he proposed.
TheTedNelson on YouTube; Ted Nelson speaking
Fan site, unofficial
Theodor Holm Nelson, born Chicago, 17 June 1937. Coined hypertext 1963. Founded Project Xanadu 1960.
He named hypertext in 1963. The Web, he says, is what he was trying to prevent.
Philosopher, sociologist, filmmaker, self-publisher of the manifesto that told a generation to understand computers, and for sixty-six years the keeper of the original hypertext project. This is a tribute to the man who gave the link its name and never accepted the one-way version.
Who is Ted Nelson?
Theodor Holm Nelson, born in Chicago on 17 June 1937, is the American information-technology pioneer, philosopher and sociologist who coined the words "hypertext" and "hypermedia" in 1963 and published them in 1965. In 1960, as a Harvard graduate student, he began Project Xanadu, the original hypertext project: a worldwide system of documents with visible, two-way connections, in which any passage can appear in any other document by reference (transclusion) while staying linked to its origin. His 1974 book Computer Lib/Dream Machines told ordinary people they could and must understand computers, and his 1981 book Literary Machines laid out the Xanadu design. He holds degrees from Swarthmore, Harvard and Keio, was made an Officier des Arts et Lettres by France in 2001, and is the son of film director Ralph Nelson and actress Celeste Holm.
That is the short answer. The biography gives the year-by-year version with a source on every line, the ideas pages explain hypertext, Xanadu, transclusion and intertwingularity, and the FAQ answers the usual follow-ups. His own sites are xanadu.com and hyperland.com.
1974 · one book, two front covers
Computer Lib
You can and must understand computers NOW. The political half: computers belong to people, not to priesthoods in air-conditioned rooms. Self-published with about $2,000 of his own money and a print run of a few hundred. Howard Rheingold called it the best-selling underground manifesto of the microcomputer revolution.
turn the book over
Dream Machines
The other half: hypertext, hypermedia and Project Xanadu, the future of the screen as a place for thinking rather than a simulation of paper. The word intertwingularity is coined in here, and the claim that there are no subjects, only all knowledge.
Why he matters
Six things he did first, or alone, each with the source it comes from.
He named the thing you are using
Hypertext and hypermedia are his words, coined in 1963 and printed in 1965, a quarter century before the Web. Every link on every page descends from that vocabulary. Source: Wikipedia, Hypertext.
He started the first hypertext project
Project Xanadu, begun at Harvard in 1960, was the first attempt to build a worldwide system of connected electronic documents. Tim Berners-Lee's own 1992 CERN pages list it and call Literary Machines essential reading. Source: Tim Berners-Lee's 1992 CERN page.
He told everyone to understand computers
Computer Lib/Dream Machines (1974) was self-published, two-fronted and shouted You can and must understand computers NOW, when computers were still locked in air-conditioned rooms. It became the underground manifesto of the personal-computer generation. Source: Wikipedia, Computer Lib/Dream Machines.
He invented transclusion
The idea that a passage can appear inside another document by reference, still connected to where it came from, with authorship and payment intact. Named in Literary Machines; present, he says, in the 1965 paper. Source: Wikipedia, Transclusion.
He kept the alternative alive
Two-way links, visible connections, version management, no copies without origins: Xanadu's design is the standing critique of the Web we got. OpenXanadu shipped in 2014, 54 years in. Source: Wikipedia, Project Xanadu.
He is the son of two artists
Celeste Holm won an Academy Award in 1947; Ralph Nelson won an Emmy in 1957 and directed Lilies of the Field. Their son took the show-business instinct into the machine room: films, musicals, a self-published manifesto, a YouTube channel of eighty videos. Source: Wikipedia, Celeste Holm.
Words he gave the language
From the list of coined terms on his own Who I Am page, with Wikipedia's additions.
- hypertext1963; published 1965
- hypermedia1963; published 1965
- hyperfilm1965
- transclusionLiterary Machines, 1981
- docuverseLiterary Machines
- intertwingularityComputer Lib/Dream Machines, 1974
- cybercrudComputer Lib/Dream Machines, 1974
- thinkertoysLiterary Machines subtitle
- stretchtexton his list of coined terms
- virtuality (computer sense)on his list of coined terms
- micropaymenton his list of coined terms
- teledildonics1975, per Wikipedia
The record
Six of the forty entries on the biography page. From a Harvard term project to a working deliverable, fifty-four years apart.
- 1960
Project Xanadu begins
As a Harvard graduate student he starts what becomes Project Xanadu, the original hypertext project, as a term project: a writing system in which text could be compared, versioned and linked. xanadu.com still carries the line Founded 1960. Source: xanadu.com.
- 1965
The paper that published the word
Presents Complex information processing: a file structure for the complex, the changing and the indeterminate at the ACM 20th National Conference (proceedings pp. 84-100, doi 10.1145/800197.806036). The first printed use of hypertext, and the paper that introduced zippered lists. Source: Wikipedia, Hypertext.
- 1974
Computer Lib/Dream Machines
Self-publishes the two-front-covered book with about $2,000 of his own money, a print run of a few hundred copies, and the slogan You can and must understand computers NOW. Computer Lib is the political half; Dream Machines is the hypermedia half. He coins intertwingularity and cybercrud in it. Howard Rheingold later calls it the best-selling underground manifesto of the microcomputer revolution. Source: Wikipedia, Computer Lib/Dream Machines.
- 1981
Literary Machines
Publishes Literary Machines through his Mindful Press (first edition typewritten; nine editions to 93.1). It defines hypertext as non-sequential writing, names transclusion, and lays out the Xanadu design and its docuverse. Tim Berners-Lee's 1992 CERN pages call it essential reading. Source: Wikipedia, Literary Machines.
- 1988
Autodesk backs Xanadu
After meeting Autodesk founder John Walker at the Hackers Conference (Wikipedia says 1983; the first Hackers Conference was in 1984), Autodesk acquires the Xanadu technology in 1988. Nelson becomes a Distinguished Fellow at Autodesk. Source: Wikipedia, Project Xanadu.
- 2014
OpenXanadu, SIGCHI, Chapman
OpenXanadu is released as a working deliverable, 54 years after the project began. ACM SIGCHI gives him its Special Recognition Award. Chapman University confers an honorary Doctor of Science at Intertwingled, a conference on his work with speakers including Steve Wozniak and Wendy Hall. Source: Wikipedia, Ted Nelson.
In his own words
By 'hypertext' I mean non-sequential writing-- text that branches and allows choices to the reader, best read at an interactive screen.
Everything is deeply intertwingled ... there are no 'subjects' at all; there is only all knowledge, since the cross-connections among the myriad topics of this world simply cannot be divided up neatly.
The Xanadu project did not 'fail to invent HTML'. HTML is precisely what we were trying to PREVENT.
Four decades on camera
Free-licence photographs from Wikimedia Commons, hosted here and credited. More on the biography and sources pages.
Three videos he would want you to see
His home page names the Xanadu explainer and the Engelbart eulogy as the ones that matter most. The third is his own account of the Web. All verified as him; the videos page has 19 recordings of him and 6 context videos labeled as such.
Xanadu Basics 1a - VISIBLE CONNECTION
Nelson's short explainer of the core Xanadu idea, visible two-way connections between documents, from his own channel.
TheTedNelson on YouTube; Ted Nelson speakingTed Nelson's Eulogy for Douglas Engelbart
His December 2013 eulogy for Douglas Engelbart at the Computer History Museum. His home page calls it his best writing ever.
Computer History Museum on YouTube; Ted Nelson speakingQuestions
Who is Ted Nelson?
Theodor Holm Nelson (born 17 June 1937) is the American information-technology pioneer, philosopher and sociologist who coined hypertext and hypermedia in 1963 and founded Project Xanadu, the original hypertext project, in 1960. He wrote Computer Lib/Dream Machines (1974) and Literary Machines (1981), and is the son of director Ralph Nelson and actress Celeste Holm.
Did Ted Nelson invent hypertext?
He coined the word in 1963 and published it in 1965, and he started the first hypertext project, Xanadu, in 1960. Vannevar Bush described the memex in 1945, Douglas Engelbart demonstrated a working linked-text system in 1968, and Nelson consulted on Brown University's Hypertext Editing System in 1967. The name and the fully worked-out idea of a worldwide connected literature are his; the Web is Tim Berners-Lee's 1989-91 narrowing of it.
What is Project Xanadu?
A design, begun in 1960, for a worldwide system of electronic documents with visible two-way links, transclusion (content shown by reference and still connected to its origin), version management and micropayment to authors. Autodesk backed it from 1988 to 1992; the source was released as Udanax; XanaduSpace appeared in 2007 and OpenXanadu, a working deliverable, in 2014. It lives at xanadu.com.
What is transclusion?
Nelson's word for the same content knowably in more than one place: a passage included in a document by reference rather than by copying, so it stays connected to its source, updates with it, and can carry payment back to its author. Named in Literary Machines (1981); Nelson says the idea is already in his 1965 paper.