Ted Nelson in Wired

Cliff Joslyn (cjoslyn@BINGSUNS.CC.BINGHAMTON.EDU)
Tue, 18 Jul 1995 13:36:39 -0400


I want to refer all PCP people to a superb, long biographical article
in Wired 3.06 (June 95) on Ted Nelson and the Xanadu hypertext project,
called "The Curse of Xanadu". The bottom line is that Xanadu is once
again dead.

It's an absolutely gripping story, and I believe a central one
certainly to the history of computers, if not to late 20th century
history in general. Nelson is a true visionary, and many PCP ideas
eerily mirror Xanadu. We've always been aware of his project, but
there's a lot of convergent evolution going on. And even though ours is
a scholarly project, and not a commercial one, I think there are a lot
of lessons for systems people in general, and us in particular, about
how these kinds of large, globally ambitious projects "live".

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| Cliff Joslyn, NRC Research Associate, Cybernetician at Large
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