Hypertext most often refers to text on a computer
that will lead the user to other, related information on demand. Hypertext
represents a relatively recent innovation to user interfaces, which overcomes
some of the limitations of written text. Rather than remaining static like
traditional text, hypertext makes possible a dynamic organization of
information through links and connections (called hyperlinks). Hypertext can be
designed to perform various tasks; for instance when a user "clicks"
on it or "hovers" over it, a bubble with a word definition may
appear, a web page on a related subject may load, a video clip may run, or an
application may open.
The prefix hyper- (comes from the Greek prefix "υπερ-" and means "over"
or "beyond") signifies the overcoming of the old linear constraints
of written text. The term "hypertext" is often used where the term hypermedia
might seem appropriate. In 1992 Ted Nelson - who coined both terms in 1965 -
wrote:
By now the word
"hypertext" has become generally accepted for branching and
responding text, but the corresponding word "hypermedia," meaning
complexes of branching and responding graphics, movies and sound - as well as
text - is much less used. Instead they use the strange term "interactive
multimedia" - four syllables longer, and not expressing the idea that it
extends hypertext. - Nelson, Literary Machines 1992
Hypertext documents can either be static (prepared and stored in advance)
or dynamic (continually changing in response to user input).
Static hypertext can be used to cross-reference collections of data in
documents, software applications, or books on CDs. A well-constructed system
can also incorporate other user-interface conventions, such as menus and
command lines. Hypertext can develop very complex and dynamic systems of
linking and cross-referencing. The most famous implementation of hypertext is
the World Wide Web.
Recorders of information have long looked for ways to categorize and
compile it. Early on, experiments existed with various methods for arranging
layers of annotations around a document. The most famous example of this is the
Talmud. Various other reference works (for example dictionaries, encyclopedias,
etc.) also developed a precursor to hypertext, consisting of setting certain
words in small capital letters, indicating that an entry existed for that term
within the same reference work. Sometimes the term would be preceded by a
pointing hand dingbat, ☞like this,
or an arrow, ➧like this.
Later, several scholars entered the scene who believed that humanity was
drowning in information, causing foolish decisions and duplicating efforts
among scientists. These scholars proposed or developed proto-hypertext systems
predating electronic computer technology. For example, in the early 20th
century, two visionaries attacked the cross-referencing problem through
proposals based on labor-intensive, brute force methods. Paul Otlet proposed a proto-hypertext concept based on his monographic
principle, in which all documents would be decomposed down to unique phrases
stored on index cards. In the 1930s, H.G. Wells proposed the creation of a World
Brain.
Michael Buckland summarized the very advanced pre-World War II development
of microfilm based on rapid retrieval devices, specifically the microfilm based
workstation proposed by Leonard Townsend in 1938 and the microfilm and photoelectronic based selector, patented by Emmanuel
Goldberg in 1931.Buckland concluded: "The pre-war information retrieval
specialists of continental Europe, the 'documentalists,'
largely disregarded by post-war information retrieval specialists, had ideas
that were considerably more advanced than is now generally realized." But,
like the manual index card model, these microfilm devices provided rapid
retrieval based on pre-coded indices and classification schemes published as
part of the microfilm record without including the link model which
distinguishes the modern concept of hypertext from content or category based information
retrieval.
Ted Nelson coined the words "hypertext" and
"hypermedia" in 1965 and worked with Andries
van Dam to develop the Hypertext Editing System in 1968 at
Funding for NLS slowed after 1974. Influential work in the following decade
included NoteCards at Xerox PARC and ZOG at Carnegie
Mellon. ZOG started in 1972 as an artificial intelligence research project
under the supervision of Allen Newell, and pioneered the "frame" or
"card" model of hypertext. ZOG was deployed in 1982 on the U.S.S.
Carl Vinson and later commercialized as Knowledge Management System. Two other
influential hypertext projects from the early 1980s were Ben Shneiderman's The Interactive Encyclopedia System (TIES) at
the
The first hypermedia application was the Aspen Movie Map in
In August 1987, Apple Computer released HyperCard for the Macintosh line at
the MacWorld convention. Its impact, combined with interest in Peter J. Brown's
GUIDE (marketed by OWL and released earlier that year) and
Meanwhile Nelson, who had been working on and advocating his Xanadu system for over two decades, along with the
commercial success of HyperCard, stirred Autodesk to invest in his
revolutionary ideas. The project continued at Autodesk for four years, but no
product was released.
In the late 1980s, Berners-Lee, then a scientist at CERN, invented the World
Wide Web to meet the demand for automatic information-sharing among scientists
working in different universities and institutes all over the world. In 1992, Lynx
was born as an early Internet web browser. Its ability to provide hypertext
links within documents that could reach into documents anywhere on the Internet
began the creation of the web on the Internet.
Early in 1993, the
After the release of web browsers for both the PC and Macintosh
environments, traffic on the World Wide Web quickly exploded from only 500
known web servers in 1993 to over
In 1995, Ward Cunningham made the first wiki available, making the web more
hypertextual by adding easy editing, and (within a
single wiki) backlinks and limited source tracking.
It also added the innovation of making it possible to link to pages that did
not yet exist. Wiki developers continue to implement novel features as well as
those developed or imagined in the early explorations of hypertext but not
included in the original web.
Hypertext writing has developed its own style of fiction, coinciding with
the growth and proliferation of hypertext development software and the
emergence of electronic networks. Two software programs specifically designed
for literary hypertext, Storyspace and Intermedia became available in the 1990s.
Storyspace 2.0, a professional level hypertext development tool,
is available from Eastgate Systems, which has also
published many notable works of electronic literature, including Michael Joyce's
afternoon, a story, Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl, Stuart Moulthrop's Victory Garden, and Judy Malloy's its
name was Penelope.
An advantage of writing a narrative using hypertext technology is that the
meaning of the story can be conveyed through a sense of spatiality and
perspective that is arguably unique to digitally-networked environments. An
author's creative use of nodes, the self-contained units of meaning in a hypertextual narrative, can play with the reader's
orientation and add meaning to the text.
Critics of hypertext claim that it inhibits the old, linear, reader
experience by creating several different tracks to read on, and that this in
turn contributes to a postmodernist fragmentation of worlds. However, they do
see value in its ability to present several different views on the same subject
in a simple way. This echoes the arguments of 'medium theorists' like Marshall
McLuhan who look at the social and psychological impacts of the media. New
media can become so dominant in public culture that they effectively create a
"paradigm shift" as people have shifted their perceptions,
understanding of the world and ways of interacting with the world and each
other in relation to new technologies and medias. So
hypertext signifies a change from linear, structured and hierarchical forms of
representing and understanding the world into fractured, decentralized and
changeable Medias based on the technological concept of hypertext links.
Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext
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