Ted Nelson: “Two cheers for now”

As a guest of the Web Science Institute hypertext and hypermedia pioneer, Dr Ted Nelson talks about his life’s work: “What I hoped for in 1960 and what the world has become”.

.. Ted: Tim Berner’s Lee’s main contribution is the URL (3-4 min)

.. Ted: I got a brochure from Digital Computer Equipment Corporation.  It had a screen.  I could do screens (12 min)

.. The programmers hid a wire from Steve Jobs.  Without it, the Mac couldn’t be expanded.  (sometimes they are right) (16 min)

The jump link is a link into you know not what

written during the great fallow period (19 min)

What is the topology of thought? It goes in all directions (30 min)

Made the mistake of emphasizing the jump link at Brown University (31 min)

HTML brings things together from all over the place, somewhat like Xanadu (38 min)

Mistakes: what should I have done?

  • constant note taking took too much time
  • storage killed my savings