Literary Machines
by Ted Nelson · first published 1988
55% recommend45% neutral
Why HN recommends it
An unconventional, inspiring historical and conceptual read on hypertext and how people thought about documents and computing; a useful overview of the user-side vision behind Xanadu for students of early computing.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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OK, as a non-coder, I'd recommend seeing the video of The Mother of All Demos: http://youtu.be/yJDv-zdhzMY I'd also suggest reading Ted Nelson's book, "Literary Machines." Another book would be Steven Levy's "Hackers." And Paul Freiberger & Michael Swaine's book, "Fire in the Valley."
on “Ask HN: Alan Kay says programing is pop culture. Where can I find the classics?” ↗…are unjustifiably rare, and hard to get hold of -- four examples: * Islands in the Net (Bruce Sterling) * The man who walked to the Moon (Howard McCord) * Last Chance to See (Douglas Adams) * Literary Machines (Ted Nelson) The three first I've bought second hand, still looking for a reasonably priced version of the last one. Such books I enjoy having on my wall, if for no other reason, after recommending them…
on “Humble eBook Bundle 2” ↗…building such a product yourself and want to approach it more from the multiplayer document annotation platform angle than the specialized book forum angle the Memex, Ted Nelson's writing (especially Literary Machines) and Wikipedia's reference templates are also worthwhile sources of inspiration.
on “Do you know of any Goodreads alternatives?” ↗Interesting piece - I hope it gets finished. Ted Nelson's books Computer Lib / Dream Machines, and Literary Machines are interesting and unconventional, but hard to find now. As for Xanadu, the classic Wired aricle The Curse of Xanadu [1] is still well worth a read. I'm not sure his vision was something that would…
on “The Pattern Language of Project Xanadu” ↗…long list indeed. My own additions: As we may think by Vannevar Bush, and then something on Project Xanadu. There doesn’t seem to be any foundational paper on the latter, but there is Ted Nelson’s book Literary Machines.
on “Most Influential Papers in Computer Science History” ↗…HNers: Xanadu is a project by Ted Nelson. Ted Nelson is a fundamental figure of early computing (despite not being a computer scientist himself). His work (recommended: Dream Machines/Computer Lib, 1974; Literary Machines, 1981; Geeks Bearing Gifts, 2008) is about how computers touch us as humans, and how they affect our future, especially when it comes to communicating and using them to spread+build knowledge and ideas.…
on “Xanadu: we have a working deliverable” ↗…rendering Xanadu a historical artifact, many of whose ideas have been realized by other projects in other forms. Wikipedia entry here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xanadu Also worth reading is Literary Machines, since that's an interesting historical read of how people were thinking about uses for computers.
on “Xanadu” ↗…when there were plenty of other perfectly valid things to rag the poor guy about. >Don't get me wrong -- I've got my own old worn-out copy of the double sided Dream Machines / Computer Lib, as well as Literary Machines, which I enjoyed and found very inspiring. I first met the Xanadu guys some time ago in the 80's, when they were showing off Xanadu at the MIT AI lab. >I was a "random turist" high school kid visiting…
on “Ted Nelson on What Modern Programmers Can Learn from the Past [video]” ↗…when there were plenty of other perfectly valid things to rag the poor guy about. >Don't get me wrong -- I've got my own old worn-out copy of the double sided Dream Machines / Computer Lib, as well as Literary Machines, which I enjoyed and found very inspiring. I first met the Xanadu guys some time ago in the 80's, when they were showing off Xanadu at the MIT AI lab. >I was a "random turist" high school kid visiting…
on “Project Xanadu” ↗For an overview of the "user side" read his book "Literary Machines". If you want to understand the technology behind it, consider that there have been two incomplete implementations: Udanax Green and Udanax Gold: https://web.archive.org/web/20090226223053/http://www.udanax...…
on “Xanadu” ↗The Xanadu design of Ted and Roger (and others) is actually quite good. To understand, it does require a lot of reading (and rereading) sources like 'Literary Machines' and the online docs out there. I had to build and run Udanax Green to figure out areas the docs didn't cover. Now the question is "Is the design feasible to scale?" I'm working toward building a xanalogical…
on “Xanadu” ↗A worthy collection. Theodor "Ted" Nelson's ideas have played a significant role in shaping the course of computing and thought. His self-published books (Computer Lib and Literary Machines) are still goldmines of information and understanding. His papers, some of which appear in this collection, show a deep understanding of computation that, even today, seems revolutionary. The World Wide…
on “Ted Nelson' Published Papers on Computers and Interaction, 1965 to 1977” ↗…which did not get upvoted] A worthy collection. Theodor "Ted" Nelson's ideas have played a significant role in shaping the course of computing and thought. His self-published books (Computer Lib and Literary Machines) are still goldmines of information and understanding. His papers, some of which appear in this collection, show a deep understanding of computation that, even today, seems revolutionary. The World Wide…
on “Ted Nelson’s published papers on computers and interaction, 1965 to 1977” ↗…when there were plenty of other perfectly valid things to rag the poor guy about. >Don't get me wrong -- I've got my own old worn-out copy of the double sided Dream Machines / Computer Lib, as well as Literary Machines, which I enjoyed and found very inspiring. I first met the Xanadu guys some time ago in the 80's, when they were showing off Xanadu at the MIT AI lab. >I was a "random turist" high school kid visiting…
on “Review: Project Xanadu – The Internet That Might Have Been” ↗…course reading from 1968 on... I was a student of Andy van Dam's in that era and early user of the Hypertext Editing System developed at Brown with Ted Nelson. Certainly for Intermedia and Nelson's "Literary Machines" era; Nelson published a full copy of AWMT in his 1980 book. Doug Engelbart frequently tells the story of reading "As We May Think" as an enlisted radar technician in a thatched hut Red Cross Library…
on “As We May Think (1945)” ↗