What is Hypertext?

Many people have given definitions. Here are a few:

Ted Nelson (dubbed: "The father of hypertext" - The reading will discuss him)

"A combination of natural language text with the computer's capacity for interactive branching"

Ted Nelson (again)

"Dynamic display of a nonlinear text which cannot be printed conveniently on a conventional page"

P. J. Brown

"Representation of a body of information in a form that captures all the inherent interlinks in the information"

Elmer Sanvad (If anyone knows who he is, please let me know!)

"Organization of a document as a collection of nodes connected by direct links"

Richard Rubenstein (author of Digital Typography, published by Digital Press)

"A system in which a rich structure of interconnections is created & used within online electronic documents"

Jeff Conklin (author of an IEEE Survey article on hypertext. It's referenced in the bibliography of the reading)

"A computer-based system with the ability to perform high speed, branching transactions on textual elements, to aid thinking and to aid communication"

Anonymous 1

"Idea Processing"

Anonymous 2

"Basis for global scientific literature"

(This will be a question on the homework. so while you are reading about hypertext, think about a definition of your own)

There are 2 sets of readings - the second written in 1945!

Read chapters 1, 2, and 4 (+ any others that interest you) of State of the Art Review on Hypermedia Issues and Applications by V. Balasubramanian

Read Vannevar Bush's article from the Atlantic Monthly in 1945

What do these buttons mean?