#hypertext — Public Fediverse posts

Ted Nelson named hypertext in 1965. His links were supposed to work both ways.

https://lockergnome.com/hypertext-nelson-1965-two-way-links/

#hypertext #web #history #tech

Here is the manual of the NoteCards hypermedia system of the Interlisp environment. The version of NoteCards that comes with Medley is based on v2.0 this manual refers to, covering both user features and the programmer interface.

https://interlisp.org/documentation/Notecards-User-Guide-v2.0.pdf

#interlisp #hypertext #lisp #retrocomputing

„Hypertext kann uns dabei helfen, einige der drängendsten ethischen Fragen im Umgang mit Künstlicher Intelligenz besser zu verstehen.“

Davon ist Prof. Dr. Claus Atzenbeck überzeugt. Er eröffnete die ACM Hypertext 2026 in London mit einer Keynote über die Entwicklung von Hypertext und seine Bedeutung für die Zukunft der Künstlichen Intelligenz. Mehr dazu: https://campuls.hof-university.de/wissenschaft-forschung/hochschule-hof-auf-internationaler-hypertext-konferenz-vertreten/

#dieforschendehochschulehof #hierwirdknallhartgeforscht #Hypertext #KünstlicheIntelligenz #KIEthik #ACMHypertext

@sidereal @douglasvb @dlakelan

But #hypertext will replace all your old card system cabinets on a simple very small rusty spinning disc!

721 #ChronoCharacters (i.e. people mentioned in CWorld) at https://mprove.de/chronolab/explore/characters.html
This is a research page to explore the structure of people ~ ChronoMedia spots in Chronoscope.

#glasperlenspiel #eculture #geoux #geoia #informationarchitecture #hypertext

Category-based systems suffer from the "tyranny of the blank page" and "premature organization", it can be unclear how items should be organized until you have quite a few already and begin to understand the shape of your data. Link-based systems let the shape emerge organically, but they fall apart with scale, nearly every computerized link-based system I have seen has full-text search (which I have argued earlier is category-based) and it sure gets used a lot :D You sure CAN use links in a hyper-organized "left-brain" way, but IMO it doesn't work great unless you have a graph query language that doesn't suck. Supplying one of those is left as an exercise to the reader. Anyway, maybe you can see the argument that link-based and category-based views are kinda opposite and complementary :D

#database #hypertext

Categories work top-down ("from a cardstack inward"), with a query system and schema rich enough to allow selecting any record. They are concrete, precise, quantitative, and "left-brained".

Links work bottom-up ("from a card outward"), with no queries, no schema, and items linked together in ways that can be analogy-based, flexible, and qualitative, in other words "right-brained".

#database #hypertext

Another exciting day at ACM Hypertext 2026 in London! 💻🔗

Today’s programme brings inspiring talks and discussions on authorship, reading & publishing, systems and data architectures, hypertext topologies, online communities, agentic media, and semantic networks.

We’re also looking forward to the keynote by Claus Atzenbeck – “Armillaria Hypertexta”

A full day of ideas, connections and new perspectives on the future of hypertext!

#ACMHypertext #Hypertext2026 #London #Research #Hypertext

Another day at **ACM Hypertext 2026**! 💻✨

Today, PhD students learned how to introduce themselves in just 40 seconds and how to create an effective academic CV. 🎓

Meanwhile, other sessions explored Knowledge Graphs and Hypertext, bringing together ideas from digital media, information science, and technology.

Another inspiring day of learning, sharing, and connecting! 🚀
#ACMHypertext #Hypertext2026 #PhDStudents #AcademicLife #KnowledgeGraphs #Hypertext

Whatever #Hypertext protocol which someday will replace the web…

Please make (distributed, peer-to-peer, asynchronous) #Indexing, #Searching, #Discovering, & #Distribution integral part of the protocol and interface

Please support #FireAndForget #StoreAndForward queries in the protocol & interface

Please avoid the web's most egregious mistakes https://mstdn.social/@DLC/114979783092722835

RE: https://mastodon.archive.org/@textfiles/117235963104182770

The ability to distribute a complete website as a single compressed file (that doesn’t need unpacking), and have access to a search and index function without running a server is, I would say, the one format that is conspicuously lacking on modern platforms. An epub really isn’t quite the same solution as having a graphically-rich interactive #hypertext format; y’all know how BS following links in epubs is

#retrocomputing

🚀 Wow, #Xanadu was 'waiting for agents' like I wait for my plants to start talking back. 🌱 This piece is dripping with the #nostalgia of a tech dream that's been gathering digital dust since 1965. 🙄 Spoiler: Ted Nelson still hasn't invented the #hypertext time machine. 💾
https://zed.dev/blog/agentic-xanadu #TechDream #TedNelson #HackerNews #ngated

I had some opportunity to play with Ted Nelson's #ZigZag data structure, as described on the Project Xanadu webpage. Nelson described ZigZag as a possible alternative to relational #database so of course that caught my interest.

ZigZag zzstructure is described as multi dimensional and idk I think that misses the point a bit? It is really not very complicated.

Imagine you are on a webpage. The webpage is a member of possibly multiple webrings. You can click prev-next buttons to navigate in each webring. That is all that ZigZag zzstructure is! ZigZag calls each webring a "dimension", and ZigZag viewers tend to be 2D or 3D spreadsheet-looking programs that automatically follow the webring links so you can get a grid visualization of part of the linked graph. You can select which "dimension" (webring) to put on the X dimension and which to put on the Y dimension.

Nelson killed the leading open source ZigZag viewer due to disagreements. So it is not easy to play with ZigZag these days. The two viewers I found are very old and both had bugs. This online one written in early aughts javascript miraculously still works mostly. So I started playing with it.

One of the examples was a calendar/agenda, so I started modeling my own agenda. One thing I quickly encountered is that many:many relationships, and even 1:many relationships, are difficult to represent, like something as basic as having the same person in multiple meetings. There are various workarounds (Ctrl+F "Many to one reference") but this seemed to still be an open problem when Nelson chased the users away and the idea faded out.

I guess this shouldn't be surprising: ordinary hypertext is also bad at modeling many:many relationships, and hypertext does not apply the regimented restrictions on links that zzstructure does. The difference is that zzstructure's ring topology runs out of gas before you even get 1:many relationships, which hypertext handles just fine.

Nelson's patent expired in 2019 so I was thinking of building my own implementation to play with, but the limitations are very stark and imo the multidimensional zzstructure is not comfortable for me to navigate.

#hypertext #retrocomputing #database

Sure I achieved some high-quality #peace but I have wanted to write a serious #hypertext narrative for almost as long as I have wanted to be a monk so this is going to take precedence for a while.

And anyway, this project is deeply #dhamma aligned and supports #practice in ways I don’t fully understand yet ~ hence, the desire to articulate and share some of what I learnt from three months of meditation supported by some very rich research into faith, #saddhā. /🧵

RE: https://fosstodon.org/@interlisp/117109679955818207

From this 1987 paper on how writers used the NoteCards hypertext system of the Interlisp environment:

There is an apparent contradiction inherent in the notion of using hypertext for writing papers. To be sure, there is the possibility that in the future readers will access “soft” documents online. The “published” form of a document could then be a network of interlinked chunks of text, graphics, etc.

We are living in that future and now documents published online are called "websites".

#hypertext #NoteCards #interlisp #writing #retrocomputing

One of the early uses of NoteCards was supporting the writing process such as taking notes, maintaining bibliographies, and outlining. This 1987 paper reported on how writers used the NoteCards hypertext system of Interlisp-D.

https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/317426.317435

https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/317426.317435

#NoteCards #interlisp #retrocomputing #hypertext #writing

I should at some point get around to writing the specifications for the alternative web document markup language I've had in my head forever.

HTML isn't bad, but it is definitely constrained by its position as the default markup language for the whole modern web. They need to cater to everyone, from super fancy corporate websites, massive web applications, social media, video sites, encyclopedias, personal homepages, art projects, hobbyists, to professional webdev engineers ...

I really want something purpose-built for a more semantic, personal hypertext web aimed at enthusiasts.

Perhaps it wouldn't be as versatile as HTML, but it doesn't need to fit all use cases of every possible target audience or be viable for businesses.

I am thinking things like …

• Styling should be handled exclusively by the browser based on semantic elements and application-level user preferences (perhaps minimal style recommendations/hints at best).
• Differentiating types of hyperlinks; internal navigation links, important main links, optional context/rabbithole links etc.
• More granular and specific semantic elements, like the uncoupling of times and dates, splitting address/contact elements into specific fields like e-mail and name, quotations with attributions, definitions etc.
• Integration of other semantic data projects such as MusicBrainz, Wikidata or Wikipedia (holy link rot, but we'll see).
• More obligatory metadata like authorship, tags, publishing/modification date etc.
• Integration of non-search engine discoverability features like webrings, directly on a site level
• Easier cross-document reusable elements, i. e. integrating the same header or footer on each site
• Extensive entity-oriented data support with URIs, e. g. in-line fetching of things like names, pronouns or contact data from a central 'person' entity URL to automatically propagate things like name changes through the web.

… and so on.

I could even experiment with the markup tech itself; it doesn't need to be XML after all. It could even be something like a stand-off annotation document allowing the division of content writing from mark-up. Or something with a similarly simple syntax as Markdown, but with semantic instead of styling information.

And then comes the arduous task of implementing a parser. :popcorn: I'm so excited.

#web #webDev #markup #markupLanguages #html #hypertext #www #worldWideWeb #programming #tech

📢 The detailed programme for ACM Hypertext 2026 is now available! 🚀

Discover the full schedule of talks, workshops, keynotes, and exciting conference sessions.

📍 London, England, United Kingdom
📅 September 14–18, 2026

🔗 Explore the programme: https://ht.acm.org/ht2026/programme/

We look forward to seeing you in London! 🌎

#HT2026 #Hypertext #ACM #UMAP2026 #Conference #London

#Britannica definition of #hypertext.

"Scholars define hypertext as an array of meaning-making practices and suggest that its dynamic and interactive character is related to how it can be accessed and how it can be continuously assembled."

Although NoteCards was not initially designed with collaboration in mind, this 1986 paper described some extensions and features for supporting collaboration. NoteCards is the hypertext-based idea structuring system of Medley Interlisp.

https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/637069.637089

https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/637069.637089

#interlisp #hypertext #retrocomputing

Did you know? 💡

The ACM Hypertext Conference (#HT2026) is a leading venue for research on hypertext, social media, the Semantic Web, hypermedia, and interactive narratives.

📍 Join us at HT 2026 in London, UK, 14–18 September 2026!!

#Hypertext #HT2026 #AI #Research #ACM

🏆 Hypertext Ted Nelson Newcomer Award, 2025

Navid Ayoobi et al. received the award for "ESPERANTO: Evaluating Synthesized Phrases to Enhance Robustness in AI Detection for Text".

🔗 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3720553.3746665

#Hypertext #ACM

🏆 Hypertext Douglas Engelbart Best Paper Award, 2025

Alessio Antonini, Lucia Lupi, Mariusz Pisarski & Sam Brooker received the award for "Literary Hypertext, AI, and Google's New Web: An Aesthetics Discussion".

The paper explores AI, Google's evolving web, and literary hypertext.

🔗 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3720553.3746678

#Hypertext #ACM

🏆 Hypertext Douglas Engelbart Best Paper Award, 2024 |
Joey Donald Jones, David Millard. Experiencing The Authorial Burden — model of authoring work in Interactive Digital Narratives.

🔗https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3648188.3675134

#Hypertext #ACM

🔭🤠 "Telescope Ranchers" on Kottke.org: where cosmic cowboys herd celestial content and wrangle affiliate commissions in the wild, wild west of #hypertext. #Yeehaw, partner! 🤠✨
https://kottke.org/26/06/telescope-ranchers #TelescopeRanchers #cosmicCowboys #affiliateCommissions #HackerNews #ngated

🏆 Hypertext Douglas Engelbart Best Paper Award, 2023

Mark Anderson and David Millard. "Seven Hypertexts"

🔗 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3603163.3609048

The paper explores seven different ways of understanding hypertext beyond a single definition.

#Hypertext #ACM

🚀 Registration for ACM Hypertext 2026 is now officially open! 🚀

📍 London, England, United Kingdom
📅 September 14–18, 2026

This year's conference theme:
🌎 “The World as Hypertext”

Join researchers and practitioners working on hypertext, digital media, recommender systems, social network analysis, and related fields.

🔗 Learn more and register: https://ht.acm.org/

#HT2026 #Hypertext #ACM #UMAP2026 #RecSys2026 #ICWSM2026 #KDD2026

And here’s a real-world example of the lifecycle of an action performed on a local copy of the Gaza Verified web site¹ showing the event from the toggle button on the client being automatically mapped to the relevant event handler on the SignUpsSwitch Kitten component instance on the server and that handler setting a boolean on a JavaScript object in memory, which is automatically persisted to disk via Kitten’s default JSDB² database.

Note that Kitten is smart enough to automatically redact fields in the log output that look like they might be secrets.

All this is in the stateful-components-api-breaking-change branch³ at the moment and will be in the next release.

¹ https://gaza-verified.org
² https://codeberg.org/small-tech/jsdb
³ https://codeberg.org/kitten/app/src/branch/stateful-components-api-breaking-change

#SmallWeb #Kitten #web #dev #statefulComponents #streamingHTML #hypertext #GazaVerified

You also have some helpful new error messages to look forward to :)

#SmallWeb #Kitten #NodeJS #JavaScript #web #dev #statefulComponents #streamingHTML #hypertext #errorMessages

PS. The updated component render you’re seeing streamed to the browser in the previous screenshot is the code rendered by Kitten (showing the underlying HTMX internals, etc.)

The code you write in Kitten is considerably less complicated.

The attached screenshot is all the code in the simple counter example (all in one file, index.page.ts). To run it, you’d just run `kitten` in the directory that file is in and then hit https://localhost.

#SmallWeb #Kitten #web #dev #statefulComponents #streamingHTML #hypertext #webSockets

Very excited about the new stateful components model in Kitten¹ that I’m looking forward to releasing this week (finally) and the amount of visibility you can now get into the flow of your Kitten apps in the Kitten Interactive Shell (REPL)².

Since the new model is a breaking change (Kitten is prerelease) I’m in the middle of updating our own apps/sites and I still need to document everything. So it will take me a few days to do all that but then I’m very much looking forward to focussing on finishing up Catalyst and Yarn³ for launch this year.

It’s been a six year trek to reach what will essentially be the starting point of the Small Web :)

💕

PS. If you want to support our work, please see https://small-tech.org/fund-us/

¹ https://kitten.small-web.org
² https://kitten.small-web.org/tutorials/kitten-s-interactive-shell-repl/
³ https://ar.al/2024/06/24/small-web-computer-science-colloquium-at-university-of-groningen/

#SmallWeb #Kitten #web #dev #statefulComponents #streamingHTML #hypertext #webSockets

Nabokov's pale fire: the lost 'father of all hypertext demos'? (2011)

https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1995966.1996008

#HackerNews #Nabokov #Hypertext #Literature #DigitalArt #LiteraryAnalysis

Applications are open for the @ACM #Hypertext 2026 Summer School.

Join an international program on hypertext, web science, and digital narratives with leading researchers.

Includes free attendance at the Hypertext Conference 2026 @ht in London.

Ideal for PhD students and early-career researchers in Digital Humanities, HCI, and related fields.

Learn more and apply: https://ht.acm.org/ht2026/summer-school/

#Hypertext #DigitalHumanities #WebScience #PhD #HT2026 #CfP @sigweb

RE: https://mastodon.social/@doriantaylor/116590222229198091

“A meditation on the close of a veritable odyssey, and how Intertwingler—the application server I'm creating—is actually a frontal assault on link rot.”

#hypertext #transclusion #caching #webserver