13 November 2007
The Hypertext.
- What is hypertext.
- History of hypertext.
- Implementation of hypertext.
- Current status of hypertext.
- Future of hypertext and its alternatives.
We live in the information age — the age of mass media, computers and the internet. An age when vast amounts of information are published, modified, categorised and archived all the time. There are many technologies and systems that make this possible and this article is about one of them — hypertext.
1. The definition and description of the hypertext.
So the question is: what is hypertext? — Hypertext is a system where information is interconnected by references in a non-sequential and unconstrained way.
The type of reference used in today’s hypertext is a hyperlink — a command that tells the computer to navigate to a different location when the reader clicks on the text marked as a link. There are other ways of addressing the blocks of data: for example with notes on the book’s margins which refer to a page with the relevant information; or a superimposed number after a word in a text which correlates to the number of a footnote. Basic systems of references were used as long as 3000 years ago.
2. History of hypertext.
There are examples of systems similar to hypertext that date far back
in history. In 1150 A. D., Gilbert de la Porrée has used a system of links in his Psalterium: notes on page margins work as references to another locations in the book.
A similar system is used in the Talmud (200 C. E.) —
a record of Hebrew teachings about law, ethics, customs and history.
In 1945, Vannevar Bush published the description
of Memex — the memory extender: “a mechanised stand-alone device in which an individual stores all his books, records,
and communications”, conceived as a desk. In its description he explains a process of tieing together the items projected on the screens, and the further possibility of instantly recalling a linked item
“merely by tapping a button”.
At the San Francisco computer conference on December 9th 1968, Douglas Engelbart and a small team of researchers presented a two-way interactive online system (NLS), which had a graphical user interface, a mouse and worked with hyper-documents among its many other functions.
The term ”hypertext” was first mentioned by Ted Nelson in his description of Xanadu — a system capable of visualising parallel documents, in 1972.
In 1987 Bill Atkinson presented HyperCard — a programming environment, made up of a virtual stack of cards, which could be customised with different types of media and linked together, much like today's web-pages.
In 1989 Tim Berners-Lee wrote a proposal called ’HyperText and CERN‘ - a solution enabling scientists to share research. In 1990 he introduced a concept of the WWW (World Wide Web, a system of interlinked hypertext documents), developed html and a first web browser to use it (Nexus), and refined the initial proposal together with Robert Cailliau. Tim’s idea was sourced from a program called Enquire, developed by him in 1980 for “keeping track of software” that he was working with.
3. Implementation of hypertext.
WWW was released to the public in 1993, this caused a shift of interest away from the gopher protocol — an alternative of http at the time, which had just stopped being free of charge to users two months before. The Web accommodated all the features of stand-alone hypertext systems like HyperCard, but had the added functionality of a multi-user platform. Everybody was taking advantage of making links, fuelling the Web’s rapid growth.
The benefits of accessing information on the web, such as the simplicity of getting the most up-to-date data almost instantly, meant that finding the information was now quick, and more or less straight forward, as long as there was enough published data about the subject. It also meant that there was less interest in paperback reference materials, such as encyclopaedias and dictionaries, and therefore lower profits for printing houses. Television, radio and newspapers suddenly faced a competitor which offered a wide range of information and media, and gave users the ability to choose what they wanted to see. As more people used the web, the growth of internet technology created a risk for telephone companies — free calls over the internet.
The hypertext, initially designed to aid the scientists, ended up benefiting the general public; it also created another specialist area of web developers, and opened up huge opportunities for advertising and media industries.
4. Current status of hypertext.
As the web is the largest and the most advanced hypertext system available at present, one can use its usage statistics to model the hypertext’s development curve: 
1245 million people use the web today, which amounts to approximately 19 percent of the world’s population, and it is getting more popular all the time. People aged 15 to 65 make up 65 percent of the world’s population, and only 19% of them use the internet. So assuming that the statistics are correct and the 15-65 year-old group is more likely to use hypertext, there is still 46 percent of the world’s population that are not familiar with it. That is over three billion potential users, so there is a huge growth capacity.
The statistics are in favour of hypertext, and one might say that the system is perfect: loads of links, accessible data, many references, and search engines to aid you if the plain links are not enough to reach the right information. But what happens if one wants to create hypertext? Suddenly one discovers that one has to learn bits of html and the principles of http to present the data and make links, learn style-sheets in order to apply some formatting to the text, find and learn additional software to prepare media for the web, and if one wanted any interactive functionality — there is a dozen different programming languages to choose from. Now you will ask: is it is worth learning all that in order to share some information? — It is not for most of people, so some of them seek compromises: they join forums, communities and start blogs.
5. Future of hypertext and its alternatives.
Hypertext had a late birth, its principles are known to date back to 1150 A. D.. After three thousand years of being idle, it has evolved by digital technology. Hypertext is still young, and it is hard to make any predictions about a system that would replace it. Perhaps hypertext's progeny will be similar to the science-fiction concept of a library that contains all the possible 410 page books (Jorge Luis Borges), but where the relevant data is interlinked with references and without the handicap of the numbers of pages. Or, the future hypertext alternative may as well be fully operable by computers, and humans will receive only the final result of work carried out by an artificial intelligence program which collects and stores data, makes references and outputs result directly to the brain.
As for a realistic prediction — today's hypertext is good at delivering and presenting the information, it seems unlikely that there will be a change in the way it works. What really needs changing is the way of creating hypertext, in order to enable everyone to contribute. The alternative to current technology must be simple to use, intuitive and powerful enough to create and manage websites with complex and dynamic content. It should be able to place the result content online and update it when any changes are made, with as little input from the user as possible. All the listed features are already available separately: somebody just needs to combine them into a single framework
Sources of information:
History of the internet:
A Little History of the World Wide Web w3c.org
History of internet ask.com
The original proposal of WWW w3c.org
History of WWW cern.ch
History of hypertext:
Short History of Hypertext useit.com
Hyper-short history of hypertext artlebedev.com
Tim Berners-Lee:
Tim Berners-Lee w3c.org
Weaving the Web wsc.org
Vannevar Bush, Memex:
As we may think multimedialab.be
Douglas Engelbart, NLS:
Engelbart's Unfinished Revolution stanford.edu
Douglas Engelbart Develops The Mouse, GUI, And First Hypertext System livinginternet.com
Bill Atkinson, Hypercard:
The Genius behind HyperCard: Bill Atkinson savetz.com
Apple's Revolutionary HyperCard siliconuser.com
Gopher protocol:
The Internet Gopher Protocol faqs.org
Internet statistics:
Internet growth statistics internetworldstats.com
Population statistics:
Population Reference Bureau prb.org
Library of Babel:
Biography of J. L. Borges themodernword.com
The Library of Babel westnet.com
