Editing Project Xanadu (section)

=== 1980s ===
The group continued their work, almost to the point of bankruptcy. In 1983, however, Nelson met [[John Walker (programmer)|John Walker]], founder of [[Autodesk]], at [[The Hackers Conference]], a conference originally for the people mentioned in [[Steven Levy]]'s ''[[Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution|Hackers]]'', and the group started working on Xanadu with Autodesk's financial backing.

According to economist [[Robin Hanson]], in 1990 the first known corporate [[prediction market]] was used at Xanadu. Employees and consultants used it for example to bet on the [[cold fusion]] controversy at the time.

While at Autodesk, the group, led by Gregory, completed a version of the software, written in the [[C (programming language)|C programming language]], though the software did not work the way they wanted. However, this version of Xanadu was successfully demonstrated at [[The Hackers Conference]] and generated considerable interest. Then a newer group of programmers, hired from [[Xerox PARC]], used the problems with this software as justification to [[Rewrite (programming)|rewrite]] the software in [[Smalltalk]]. This effectively split the group into two factions, and the decision to rewrite put a deadline imposed by Autodesk out of the team's reach. In August 1992, Autodesk divested the Xanadu group, which became the Xanadu Operating Company and struggled due to internal conflicts and lack of investment.

Charles S. Smith, the founder of a company called [[Memex Technology Limited|Memex]] (named after a [[memex|hypertext system]] proposed by [[Vannevar Bush]]<ref name="AWMT">{{cite web |last1=Bush |first1=Vannevar |author1-link=Vannevar Bush |title=As We May Think |url=http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1969/12/as-we-may-think/3881/4/ |publisher=[[The Atlantic]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101114081102/http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1969/12/as-we-may-think/3881/4/ |archive-date=14 November 2010 |date=July 1945 |url-status=dead}}</ref>), hired many of the Xanadu programmers (including lead architects [[Mark S. Miller]], Dean Tribble and Ravi Pandya)<ref name="WiredCurse" /> and licensed the Xanadu technology, though Memex soon faced financial difficulties, and the then-unpaid programmers left, taking the computers with them (the programmers were eventually paid). At around this time, [[Tim Berners-Lee]] was developing the [[World Wide Web]]. When the Web began to see large growth that Xanadu did not, Nelson's team grew defensive in the supposed rivalry that was emerging that they were losing. The 1995 [[Wired (magazine)|''Wired'']] Magazine article "The Curse of Xanadu" provoked a harsh rebuttal from Nelson, but contention largely faded as the Web dominated Xanadu.<ref name="good faith collaboration">{{cite book|last=Reagle|first=Joseph Michael|title=Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia|url=https://archive.org/details/goodfaithcol_reag_2010_000_10578531|url-access=registration|year=2010|publisher=[[MIT Press]]|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |isbn=978-0-262-01447-2}}</ref>