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Text that can be read in a non-linear
fashion by following a series of links between related sections of material.
Typical applications for hypertext include encyclopedias or dictionaries,
where interesting or useful explanations of highlighted words in the text
can be reached by clicking on them with a mouse. Many computer help systems
use hypertext to guide users and illustrate common procedures; and hypertext
is slowly creeping into our culture in the form of novels and video
installations.
By far the biggest hypertext application is the world
wide web, which uses its html and http technologies to link together
billions of individual pages. (Strictly speaking, the web is a hypermedia
system, as it incorporates graphics, video and audio into the text
framework.) The web makes something of a mockery of the many lofty hypertext
theories that have been propounded over the years, most which want to impose
a predetermined structure and format on hypertext documents. Despite the
lack of consistent guiding principles among its builders, the wonderful
thing about the web is that it works.
The term hypertext was coined by Ted Nelson in the 1960s to
describe his xanadu system. But hypertext-like system had been
described before, most presciently in 1945 by Vannevar Bush, whose
theoretical microfilm-based "memex" device included features for linking
together information recorded on microfilm. In 2000, bt, a British
telecoms giant claimed that it owned the intellectual right to the hypertext
link idea, based on a patent originally filed in 1976. It subsequently
invited isps and other telecoms companies to license hypertext
technology, an invitation that was treated with derision by the internet
community and its legal representatives. In 2002, an American federal judge
rejected bt's claims for royalty payments from prodigy
communications, a large American isp. |
