Looking back, looking forward

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Looking back, looking forward

Alex Wright

[email protected] | www.agwright.com

Monday, November 12, 12

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So, how did we get here?

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Ada Lovelace

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World’s first programmer

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Invented the machine algorithm

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“An analyst and metaphysician”

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William Morris

“If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it:

Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”

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Modernism

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Transformative movement in

twentieth-century architecture and design

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Key principles:

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Form follows function

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“Ornament is a crime”

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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)

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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)

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“The engineer’s and the architect’s designs approach one another in aesthetic effect.

Entirely different problems are being solved, but the same absolute sense of order and

harmony presides over each.”

- Herbert Read, Art and Industry, 1934

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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

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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

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Paul Otlet

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Creator of Universal Decimal Classification

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Founder of Mundaneum

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Author of Monde, Traité d^e

documentation

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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

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!

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Vote-links

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

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Otto Neurath

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Austrian philosopher and museum impresario

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Developed Isotypes (International System of TYpographical Picture Education)

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Collaborated with Otlet on syndicating museum displays

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“We are like sailors who have to rebuild their ship on the open sea,

without ever being able to dismantle it in dry-dock and reconstruct it

from the best components.”

Otto Neurath

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ISOTYPES

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Vannevar Bush

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Science advisor to FDR

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President of Carnegie Institution

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Author of “As We May Think”

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“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

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As We May Think

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Associative “trails” linking one document to another

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Two-way links

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User-generated content

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Doug Engelbart

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Former SRI Researcher

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Creator of oNLine System (NLS)

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Author of “Augmenting Human Intelligence”

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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

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Doug Engelbart

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1968 NLS Demo

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Xerox PARC

Founded by Alan Kay and several early Engelbart collaborators

Mission: “The Architecture of Information”

Invented the GUI, precursors of the modern PC

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TextText

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Apple Hypercard

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Ted Nelson

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Coined the term “hypertext” (1965)

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Author of Literary Machines, Dream Machines, Computer Lib

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Creator of Xanadu

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

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Andries Van Dam

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On Hypertext

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Transclusion to allow deep linking

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Bi-directional links to expose trails between documents

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Intellectual property controls

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Nelson-isms

Transclusion Docuverse

Stretchtext

Zippered lists

Window sandwiches Indexing vortexes

Part-pounces Tumblers

Collateral hypertext Humbers

Thinkertoys

Fresh hyperbooks Anthological

hyperbooks

Grand systems

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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

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Andries Van Dam

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Early collaborator with Nelson

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Created the first working hypertext systems:

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Hypertext Editing System (HES)

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File Retrieval and Editing System (FRESS)

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^Intermedia

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Wendy Hall

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Developed Microcosm at University of Southampton in mid-1970s

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First open hypermedia system

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“Linkbases” instead of markup language

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Don Norman

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Tim Berners-Lee

• Former researcher at CERN

• Built first version of Enquire in 1980

• Released WorldWideWeb in 1989

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Conclusions

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Reading list

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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Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages

by Alex Wright

http://alexwright.org/glut/

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Thank you

Alex Wright

[email protected]