Editing Hypertext (section)

==History==
{{Main|History of hypertext|Timeline of hypertext technology}}{{See also|National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom)#Scrapbook}}
{{Cyber anthropology|related}}
In 1941, [[Jorge Luis Borges]] published "[[The Garden of Forking Paths]]", a [[short story]] that is often considered an inspiration for the concept of hypertext.<ref name="inspiration">{{Citation | chapter-url = http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=317431 | publisher = The Association for Computing Machinery | chapter = Hypertext and creative writing| doi = 10.1145/317426.317431 | title = Proceeding of the ACM conference on Hypertext - HYPERTEXT '87 | year = 1987 | last1 = Bolter | first1 = Jay David | last2 = Joyce | first2 = Michael | pages = 41–50 | isbn = 089791340X | s2cid = 207627394 }}.</ref>

In 1945, [[Vannevar Bush]] wrote an article in ''[[The Atlantic Monthly]]'' called "[[As We May Think]]", about a futuristic proto-hypertext device he called a [[Memex]]. A Memex would hypothetically store — and record — content on reels of microfilm, using electric photocells to read coded symbols recorded next to individual microfilm frames while the reels spun at high speed, and stopping on command. The coded symbols would enable the Memex to index, search, and link content to create and follow associative trails. Because the Memex was never implemented and could only link content in a relatively crude fashion — by creating chains of entire microfilm frames — the Memex is regarded only as a proto-hypertext device, but it is fundamental to the history of hypertext because it directly inspired the invention of hypertext by Ted Nelson and Douglas Engelbart.

[[File:Ted Nelson cropped.jpg|thumb|[[Ted Nelson]] gives a presentation on [[Project Xanadu]], a theoretical hypertext model conceived in the 1960s whose first and incomplete implementation was first published in 1998.<ref name="wiredwired"/>]]

In 1965, [[Ted Nelson]] coined the terms 'hypertext' and 'hypermedia' as part of a model he developed for creating and using linked content (first published reference 1965).<ref>{{Citation | publisher = Vassar | url = http://faculty.vassar.edu/mijoyce/Ted_sed.html | last = Joyce | first = MI | title = Did Ted Nelson first use the word "hypertext" {{sic|nolink=y}}, meaning fast editing" at Vassar College? | access-date = 2011-01-03 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130324010943/http://faculty.vassar.edu/mijoyce/Ted_sed.html | archive-date = 2013-03-24 | url-status = dead }}</ref> He later worked with [[Andries van Dam]] to develop the [[Hypertext Editing System]] (text editing) in 1967 at [[Brown University]]. It was implemented using the terminal [[IBM 2250]] with a [[light pen]] which was provided as a [[pointing device]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=4PM1DgAAQBAJ Belinda Barnet. Memory Machines: The Evolution of Hypertext], 2013, pp.103-106.</ref> By 1976, its successor [[FRESS]] was used in a poetry class in which students could browse a hyperlinked set of poems and discussion by experts, faculty and other students, in what was arguably the world's first online scholarly community<ref name=barnet>{{Cite journal|last=Barnet|first=Belinda|date=2010-01-01|title=Crafting the User-Centered Document Interface: The Hypertext Editing System (HES) and the File Retrieval and Editing System (FRESS) |journal=Digital Humanities Quarterly|url=http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/4/1/000081/000081.html|volume=4|issue=1 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231026044125/https://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/4/1/000081/000081.html |archive-date= Oct 26, 2023 }}</ref> which van Dam says "foreshadowed wikis, blogs and communal documents of all kinds".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://news.brown.edu/articles/2016/05/hypertext |date= May 23, 2016 |title=Where meter meets mainframe: An early experiment teaching poetry with computers |website=News from Brown |access-date=2016-05-24}}</ref> Ted Nelson said in the 1960s that he began implementation of a hypertext system he theorized, which was named [[Project Xanadu]], but his first and incomplete public release was finished much later, in 1998.<ref name="wiredwired">{{cite magazine |url=https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.06/xanadu.html |title=The Curse of Xanadu |author=Gary Wolf |magazine=[[WIRED]] |volume=3 |issue=6 |date=June 1995}}</ref> During this period, Nelson also proposed using Vladimir Nabokov’s 1962 novel ''Pale Fire'' as part of a demonstration to IBM, intending to show how hypertext could support complex, non-linear forms of literary analysis. The novel, structured as a long poem with an extensive, self-referential commentary and index, embodied the principles of associative linking and user-directed navigation that Nelson believed defined hypertext.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Nelson |first=Theodore |date=1987 |title=Literary Machines |url=https://monoskop.org/images/b/be/Nelson_Ted_Literary_Machines_c1987_chs_0-1.pdf}}</ref> Its layered design enabled readers to follow multiple interpretive paths through the text, resembling the branching structures later implemented in digital hypertext systems. However, IBM chose a more technically conventional presentation, and the literary demonstration was never realized.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rowberry |first=Simon |chapter=Vladimir Nabokov's pale fire: The lost 'father of all hypertext demos'? |date=2011-06-06 |title=Proceedings of the 22nd ACM conference on Hypertext and hypermedia |chapter-url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1995966.1996008 |language=en |publisher=ACM |pages=319–324 |doi=10.1145/1995966.1996008 |isbn=978-1-4503-0256-2|url=http://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/21810/1/Rowberry%20Pale%20Fire%20Hypertext.pdf }}</ref>

[[Douglas Engelbart]] independently began working on his [[NLS (computer system)|NLS]] system in 1962 at Stanford Research Institute, although delays in obtaining funding, personnel, and equipment meant that its key features were not completed until 1968. In December of that year, Engelbart demonstrated a 'hypertext' (meaning editing) interface to the public for the first time, in what has come to be known as "[[The Mother of All Demos]]".

In 1971 a system called [[National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom)|Scrapbook]], produced by David Yates and his team at the UK's [[National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom)|National Physical Laboratory]], went live. It was an information storage and retrieval system that included what would now be called word processing, e-mail and hypertext.

[[ZOG (hypertext)|ZOG]], an early hypertext system, was developed at Carnegie Mellon University during the 1970s, used for documents on Nimitz class aircraft carriers, and later evolving as  [[KMS (hypertext)|KMS]] (Knowledge Management System).

The first hypermedia application is generally considered to be the [[Aspen Movie Map]], implemented in 1978. The Movie Map allowed users to arbitrarily choose which way they wished to drive in a virtual cityscape, in two seasons (from actual photographs) as well as [[Polygon mesh|3-D polygons]].

In France, the launch of the Minitel system in 1982 provided widespread public access to interactive digital content via telephone lines and videotex terminals. Minitel allowed users to search directories, make purchases, read news, and access databases using a system of on-screen menus and numbered links. Although it was based on videotex rather than the dynamic linking protocols of later hypertext systems, Minitel introduced many users to the practice of navigating non-linear networks of information. Its use of branching menus and user-selected paths anticipated key aspects of hypertext interaction, particularly the idea of browsing through interconnected data by following associative or logical links. As one of the earliest large-scale deployments of an online information service, Minitel helped familiarize the public with interactive computing and laid cultural groundwork for the broader adoption of hypertext and web technologies in the 1990s.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Cats-Baril |first1=William L. |last2=Jelassi |first2=Tawfik |date=March 1994 |title=The French Videotex System Minitel: A Successful Implementation of a National Information Technology Infrastructure |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/249607 |journal=MIS Quarterly |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=1–20 |doi=10.2307/249607|jstor=249607 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Between 1984 and 1987 Frank Halasz, Randall Trigg, and Thomas Moran developed NoteCards at Xerox PARC. This early hypertext system was designed to support information analysis and idea processing, employing a central metaphor of "notecards" which operated as discrete units of information that could contain text or graphics. These notecards could be interconnected through typed, directional links, enabling users to create semantically distinct relationships. A key component of NoteCards was the "Browser card," which provided a graphical overview of the structure of linked notecards, facilitating navigation within complex information networks.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Conklin |date=September 1987 |title=Hypertext: An Introduction and Survey |url=https://doi.org/10.1109/mc.1987.1663693 |journal=Computer |volume=20 |issue=9 |pages=17–41 |doi=10.1109/mc.1987.1663693 |issn=0018-9162|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Operating on Xerox Lisp machines, NoteCards' primary impact was within the research community rather than as a commercial product. Its most significant contribution to the field of hypertext is often attributed to the insights gained from its use, Halasz identified critical challenges such as search and query in large hypertexts, composite structures, versioning, and collaborative work.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Halasz |first=Frank,G. |date=July 1988 |title=Reflections on NoteCards: seven issues for the next generation of hypermedia systems |url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/48511.48514 |journal=Communications of the ACM |language=en |volume=31 |issue=7 |pages=836–852 |doi=10.1145/48511.48514 |issn=0001-0782}}</ref>

In 1980, [[Tim Berners-Lee]] created [[ENQUIRE]], an early hypertext database system somewhat like a [[wiki]] but without hypertext punctuation, which was not invented until 1987. The early 1980s also saw a number of experimental "hyperediting" functions in word processors and [[hypermedia]] programs, many of whose features and terminology were later analogous to the [[World Wide Web]]. [[Guide (hypertext)|Guide]], the first significant hypertext system for [[personal computer]]s, was developed by Peter J. Brown at the [[University of Kent]] in 1982.

In 1980, [[Roberto Busa]],<ref>{{cite web |url-status=dead |language=it |first1=Andrea |last1=Tornielli |url=http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/documenti/dettaglio-articolo/articolo/web-busa-6893/ |title=Padre Busa, il gesuita che ha inventato l'ipertesto |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141229160656/http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/documenti/dettaglio-articolo/articolo/web-busa-6893/ |archive-date=2014-12-29 |publisher=[[La Stampa]] |website=VaticanInsider |date=2011}}</ref> an Italian [[Society of Jesus|Jesuit]] priest and one of the pioneers in the usage of computers for linguistic and literary analysis,<ref>Matthew Zepelin, "[https://www.academia.edu/8457616/Computers_and_the_Catholic_Mind_Religion_Technology_and_Social_Criticism_in_the_Postwar_United_States Computers and the Catholic Mind: Religion, Technology, and Social Criticism in the Postwar United States]", July 5, 2014.</ref> published the ''[[Index Thomisticus]]'', as a tool for performing text searches within the massive corpus of [[Aquinas]]'s works.<ref>[http://corrieredelveneto.corriere.it/veneto/notizie/cronaca/2011/10-agosto-2011/morto-padre-busa-stato-pioniere-informatica-linguistica-1901272086173.shtml ''Morto padre Busa, è stato il pioniere dell'informatica linguistica''], ''Corriere del Veneto'', 15. August 2011</ref> Sponsored by the founder of IBM, [[Thomas J. Watson]],<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20080322012519/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,867529,00.html#ixzz1Ug8KDNnn "Religion: Sacred Electronics"], ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'', 31 December 1956, 15 August 2011</ref> the project lasted about 30 years (1949–1980), and eventually produced the 56 printed volumes of the ''Index Thomisticus'' the first important hypertext work about [[Saint Thomas Aquinas]] books and of a few related authors.<ref>Thomas N. Winter, " Roberto Busa, S.J., and the Invention of the Machine-Generated Condordance", Digital commons, University of Nebraska [http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1069&context=classicsfacpub]</ref>

In 1983, [[Ben Shneiderman]] at the [[University of Maryland Human - Computer Interaction Lab]] led a group that developed the [[The Interactive Encyclopedia System|HyperTies]] system that was commercialized by [[Cognetics Corporation]]. They studied many designs before adopting the [https://blog.mozilla.org/en/internet-culture/why-are-hyperlinks-blue-revisited/ blue color for links]. Hyperties was used to create the July 1988 issue of the [[Communications of the ACM]] as a hypertext document and then the first commercial electronic book ''Hypertext Hands-On!''.

In August 1987, [[Apple Computer]] released [[HyperCard]] for the [[Apple Macintosh|Macintosh]] line at the [[Macworld Conference & Expo|MacWorld convention]]. Its impact, combined with interest in Peter J. Brown's [[Guide (hypertext)|GUIDE]] (marketed by [[Office Workstations Ltd|OWL]] and released earlier that year) and Brown University's [[Intermedia (hypertext)|Intermedia]], led to broad interest in and enthusiasm for hypertext, hypermedia, databases, and new media in general. The first ACM Hypertext (hyperediting and databases) [[academic conference]] took place in November 1987, in Chapel Hill NC, where many other applications, including the branched literature writing software [[Storyspace]], were also demonstrated.<ref>Hawisher, Gail E., Paul LeBlanc, Charles Moran, and Cynthia L. Selfe (1996). ''Computers and the Teaching of Writing in American Higher Education, 1979–1994: A History'' Ablex Publishing, Norwood NJ, p. 213</ref>

Meanwhile, Nelson (who had been working on and advocating his [[Project Xanadu|Xanadu]] system for over two decades) convinced [[Autodesk]] to invest in his revolutionary ideas. The project continued at Autodesk for four years, but no product was released.

In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, then a scientist at [[CERN]], proposed and later prototyped a new hypertext project in response to a request for a simple, immediate, information-sharing facility, to be used among physicists working at CERN and other academic institutions. He called the project "WorldWideWeb".<ref name = "WWW_proposal">{{Citation |url=http://www.w3.org/Proposal.html |title=WorldWideWeb: Proposal for a HyperText Project |publisher=The World Wide Web consortium}}.</ref>

{{blockquote | HyperText is a way to link and access information of various kinds as a web of nodes in which the user can browse at will. Potentially, HyperText provides a single user-interface to many large classes of stored information, such as reports, notes, data-bases, computer documentation and on-line systems help. We propose the implementation of a simple scheme to incorporate several different servers of machine-stored information already available at CERN, including an analysis of the requirements for [[information access]] needs by experiments... A program which provides access to the hypertext world we call a browser. ― T. Berners-Lee, R. Cailliau, 12 November 1990, CERN<ref name="WWW_proposal" /> }}

In 1992, [[Lynx (web browser)|Lynx]] was born as an early Internet web browser. Its ability to provide hypertext links within documents that could reach into documents anywhere on the Internet began the creation of the Web on the Internet.

As new web browsers were released, traffic on the World Wide Web quickly exploded from only 500 known web servers in 1993 to over 10,000 in 1994. As a result, all previous hypertext systems were overshadowed by the success of the Web, even though it lacked many features of those earlier systems, such as integrated browsers/editors (a feature of the original WorldWideWeb browser, which was not carried over into most of the other early Web browsers).