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Background and historical context

The theoretical idea of a hypertext system is surprisingly old, first mooted in the 1940s long before the technology for its realization became available. In more recent years a gradual progression can be seen from hierarchical, menu-based to non-hierarchical, hypertext-based information systems. This has taken place in the context of a decentralizing of computer technology: a move away from the idea of lots of terminals connected to one large central computer, towards the situation where everyone has their own personal computer, linked together by the ubiquitous network. The roots of hypertext can be detected in campus-wide information systems (CWIS) and computerized help systems, which reached a high level of sophistication in systems such as Gopher, the Free Software Foundation's Texinfo system and Apple Computer Corporation's Hypercard. These systems allowed users to choose their own route through the information presented to a much greater extent than had previously been possible.

Gopher was the precursor to the Web in terms of the tremendous level of interest it generated and the uses to which it was put; however, Gopher is essentially a distributed menu system. Menu systems are inherently less flexible than hypertext systems in that links can be set up from menus to information, but not from within the information to related information. Hypertext links mimic the way in which the human mind works by the association of ideas.

Spinning the Web by Andrew Ford
© 1995 International Thomson Publishing
© 2002 Andrew Ford and Ford & Mason Ltd
Note: this HTML document was generated in December 1994 directly from the LaTeX source files using LaTeX2HTML. It was formatted into our standard page layout using the Template Toolkit. The document is mainly of historical interest as obviously many of the sites mentioned have long since disappeared.