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The Web That Wasn’t

Alex Wright
alex@agwright.com | www.alexwright.org

Monday, November 12, 12

So, how did we get here?


Ada Lovelace
• World’s ﬁrst programmer
• Invented the machine algorithm
• “An analyst and metaphysician”


Charles Cutter

“The desks had ... a little key-board at
each, connected by a wire. The reader
had only to ﬁnd the mark of his book in
the catalog, touch a few lettered or
numbered keys, and [the book] appeared
after an astonishingly short interval.”
Charles Cutter, “The Buffalo Public Library of 1983” (Library
Journal, 1883)


Mark Twain
“The improved 'limitless-distance'
telephone was presently introduced, and
the daily doings of the globe made visible
to everybody, and audibly discussable
too, by witnesses separated by any
number of leagues."
From the London Times of 1904 (1898)


H.G. Wells

“The whole human memory can be,
and probably in a short time will be,
made accessible to every individual."
H.G. Wells, World Brain, 1938


H.G. Wells

• Global encyclopedia with numerous
“tentacles” and “ganglia”

• Secure ID mechanism so that everyone can
“promptly and certainly be recognized”

• Elite class of technology “samurai” will guide
the world’s progress


Photo: Evan Brus


Paul Otlet
• Creator of Universal Decimal
Classiﬁcation
• Founder of Mundaneum
• Author of Monde, Traité de
documentation


Paul Otlet
“The Universal Book, formed of all
books, would become a kind of annex
of the brain itself, a substrate of
memory… ubiquitous and eternal.”
- Traité de documentation, 1934


Françoise Levie / The Man Who Wanted to Classify the World


Vote-links

http://microformats.org/wiki/vote-links


Vannevar Bush

• Science advisor to FDR
• President of Carnegie
Institution
• Author of “As We May Think”


As We May Think
“Wholly new forms of
encyclopedias will appear,
ready-made with a mesh of
associative trails running
through them, ready to be
dropped into the Memex and
there amplified.”


As We May Think

• Associative “trails” linking one
document to another
• Two-way links
• User-generated content


Eugene Garﬁeld

Founder of Science Citation Index
Inventor of citation ranking
Forefather of PageRank


Doug Engelbart
• Former SRI Researcher
• Creator of oNLine System (NLS)
• Author of “Augmenting Human
Intelligence”


Doug Engelbart
“Hunches, intangibles, and the human ‘feel
for a situation’ usefully co-exist with
powerful concepts, streamlined terminology
and notation, sophisticated methods, and
high-powered electronic aids.
- Augmenting Human Intellect, 1962


Doug Engelbart

• 1968 NLS Demo


Xerox PARC
Founded by Alan Kay and several early
Engelbart collaborators
Mission: “The Architecture of Information”
Invented the GUI, precursors of the
modern PC


Text
Text


Apple Hypercard


Ted Nelson
• Coined the term “hypertext” (1965)
• Author of Literary Machines, Dream
Machines, Computer Lib
• Creator of Xanadu


• http://www.digibarn.com/collections/books/computer-lib/dm-cover.jpg


Andries Van Dam


http://www.cs.brown.edu/memex/ACM_HypertextTestbed/papers/HARTadj5in.jpg


On Hypertext
• Transclusion to allow deep
linking
• Bi-directional links to expose
trails between documents
• Intellectual property controls


Nelson-isms
Transclusion Collateral
Docuverse hypertext
Stretchtext Humbers
Zippered lists Thinkertoys
Window sandwiches Fresh hyperbooks
Indexing vortexes Anthological
Part-pounces hyperbooks
Tumblers Grand systems


I Don’t Buy In

The Web isn’t hypertext, it’s DECORATED DIRECTORIES!

What we have instead is the vacuous victory of
typesetters over authors, and the most trivial form of
hypertext that could have been imagined…

There is an alternative.

Markup must not be embedded. Hierarchies and files must
not be part of the mental structure of documents. Links
must go both ways. All these fundamental errors of the
Web must be repaired. But the geeks have tried to lock
the door behind them to make nothing else possible.

We fight on. More later.

- Ted Nelson


Andries Van Dam
• Early collaborator with Nelson
• Created the first working hypertext
systems:
• Hypertext Editing System (HES)
• File Retrieval and Editing System
(FRESS)
• Intermedia


Intermedia


Wendy Hall
• Developed Microcosm at University
of Southampton in mid-1970s
• First open hypermedia system
• “Linkbases” instead of markup
language


Tim Berners-Lee
• Former researcher at CERN
• Built first version of Enquire in 1980
• Released WorldWideWeb in 1989


Glut: Mastering Information Through the
Ages
by Alex Wright

http://alexwright.org/glut/


Final thoughts


Thank you

Alex Wright
alex@agwright.com | www.alexwright.org


Further reading
H.G. Wells, “World Brain”
Teilhard de Chardin, Phenomenon of Man
Boyd Rayward, “Visions of Xanadu”
Vannevar Bush, “As We May Think”
Ted Nelson, Literary Machines
Doug Engelbart, “Augmenting Human
Intelligence”
Tim Berners-Lee, Weaving the Web

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Alex Wright - The Web That Wasn't

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Alex Wright - The Web That Wasn't