Quote

Let me introduce the word 'hypertext' to mean a body of written or pictorial material interconnected in such a complex way that it could not conveniently be presented or represented on paper.

Ted Nelson

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Ted Nelson
Age: 87
Born: 1937
Born: June 17
Philosopher
Sociologist
Teacher
Paris
France
Theodor Holm Nelson
Paper
Introduce
Written
Represented
Word
Presented
Body
Introducing
Mean
Complexes
Hypertext
Way
Complex
Conveniently
Material
Pictorial
Materials
Interconnected

More quotes by Ted Nelson

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I thought I was going to be a filmmaker but at the same time I was an intellectual and I felt that I could make a contribution to some field, as yet, not invented.
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Any fool can use a computer. Many do.
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The four walls of paper are like a prison because every idea wants to spring out in all directions - everything is connected with everything else, sometimes more than others.
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Power corrupts, and obsolete power corrupts obsoletely.
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The purpose of computers is human freedom.
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So, the point was to be able to have a medium that would record all the connections and all the structures and all the thoughts that paper could not. Since the computer could hold any structure in any form, this was the way to go.
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Computers are hierarchical. We have a desktop and hierarchical files which have to mean everything.
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A user interface should be so simple that a beginner in an emergency can understand it within ten seconds.
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The problem is not software 'friendliness'. It is conceptual clarity. A globe does not say, 'good morning'. It is simple and clear, not 'friendly'.
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Any nitwit can understand computers, and many do.
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So in my uncertainty, I went to graduate school and there it all happened.
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They were saying computers deal with numbers. This was absolutely nonsense. Computers deal with arbitrary information of any kind.
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The Web is trivially simple - massively successful and its like Karaoke - anybody can do it.
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The good news about computers is that they do what you tell them to do. The bad news is that they do what you tell them to do.
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But it seemed to me that as soon as you have computer storage you could put every point you wanted in - make the ones that are less relevant to your central topic, further away or allow the central topic to move as the reader proceeded.
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Project Xanadu is essentially my trademark. It was originally, and has returned to my arms as that.
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We live in media, as fish live in water.
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If computers are the wave of the future, displays are the surfboards.
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The objective of hypertext research is to save the planet.
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The technicalities matter a lot, but the unifying vision matters more.
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