Rosemary Michelle Simpson


CS-002
Hypertext - More Than Just a Goto Link -
Talk given to CS-002 on March 7, 1997

Prof. Wegner asked me to talk with you because 12 years ago I created a hypermedia system called Gateway at about the same time Intermedia was being created here at Brown and because I am currently webmaster for the Graphics Group web site and the Memex and Beyond hypertext research web site.

Prof. Landow, who participated in the creation of Intermedia and who pioneered the use of hypertext in education will be speaking to you on Monday; you can access an article on Intermedia from his web site whose URL you have in your assignment. Gateway, unfortunately, died before being released when the company I was working for - Lisp Machines Inc. - died in 1986.

My concern is that in this era of the WWW most people think that the web is hypertext. Well, it is in the lowest common demomenator sort of way. Real hypertext systems provide much much richer tools for structuring your thoughts. You've had a taste of one kind of alternative hypertext editing system in Storyspace, and the Storyspace Dicken's Web is available for you to browse.

Nonetheless, thanks to both the creativity of people working in this medium and to the increasing use of Java applets to provide greater richness of tools and flexibility, there are some extremely interesting things to see on the web.

So, what I'd like to do today is to both point you in the direction of useful resources about hypertext as an information structuring medium and to point you to some really neat sites using hypertext, created by people who are pioneering in the use of hypertext as both a fiction and non-fiction medium.

I'm using slides because I only have ten minutes and as you are all well aware, net response at this time of day can be very iffy!

Everything I will show you can be reached from one of the four sites Prof. Wegner has included on your assignment.

About Hypertext

Electronic Labyrinth

http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/elab/

George Landow and Brown University

http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/hypertext/landow/cpace/ht/htov.htm

Eastgate Systems

http://www.eastgate.com/

Hypertext Publishing and the Evolution of Knowledge

K. Eric Drexler
Reached from George Landow's site - bibliography section
http://www.asiapac.com/Hypertext/HypertextPublishingKED.html

What is hypertext?

Michael Joyce - Professor at Vassar, author of "Afternoon" and "Twilight"
Reached from the Eastgate site - /people/Joyce.html
http://www.aaln.org/~mijoyce/What_s_hypertext.html

Andy van Dam HT '87 Keynote Address

Andy van Dam, founder of Brown's CS department, hypertext and graphics pioneer
Reached from the Eastgate site - /HypertextNow/archives/Memex.html
http://www.cs.brown.edu/memex/HT_87_Keynote_Address.html

Using Hypertext

Hypercafe

http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/gallery/hypercafe/

Michael Joyce

Michael Joyce - Professor at Vassar, author of "Afternoon" and "Twilight"
Reached from the Eastgate site - /TwelveBlue/Twelve_Blue.html
http://www.eastgate.com/TwelveBlue/Twelve_Blue.html

Stuart Moulthrop

Moulthrop's Alternative Home Page
Reached from the Eastgate site
http://raven.ubalt.edu/staff/moulthrop/sam_heimat.html
Hegirascope
http://raven.ubalt.edu/staff/moulthrop/hypertexts/hgs/hegirascope.html
Victory Garden
http://www.eastgate.com/VG/VGStart.html

Mark Amerika

Avant-guarde hypertext author in residence at Brown
Reached from the Landow site
http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/hypertext/landow/111/htc/title.html

Bob Arrellano

Teaches at Brown's multimedia lab
Reached from the Landow site
http://www.sonicnet.com/sunshine69/

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