"Before the personal computer, and before the Web, there was Theodor Holm Nelson, who almost half a century ago understood how computers would transform the printed page."

 
HOME PAGE OF TED NELSON

Theodor Holm Nelson PhD
Erd?sz number: 5  Kevin Bacon number: 2   Ted Nelson number 0
To Ted Nelson Pokemon Card (possibly spurious)

Founding designer, Project Xanadu
            the first computer hypertext project, 1960
Designer-Generalist, The Internet Archive
Visiting Professor, University of Southampton
"Poet, philosopher and rogue."   A recent poem is hither.

Many think that the World Wide Web was my idea.*  I have mixed feelings about such a claim (see below).

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PERSONAL

The needless death of Aaron Swartz has been hard on everyone.  I like to remember him at the age or 14, when he wanted a picture of Doug Engelbart and me.  We put him in the middle.  He was already a full-fledged delegate.to whatever the conference was.

Photo by Eugene Kim

My mother, a well-known actress, died in the summer of 2012.  I was allowed five minutes for my tribute at the memorial.

In May 2012, Marlene Mallicoat and I were married after a long and loving collaboration.  The ceremony was performed by Douglas Engelbart and his wife Karen at Frank Lloyd Wright's Marin Civic Center.

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CURRENT AND RECENT WORK

REDISCOVERED AND POLISHED: My computer paradigms as One-Liners.  Don't take the class (below) if you don't like it.

My course this term at U.C. Santa Cruz, as grandly announced by Bill Dutton.

Autobiography, POSSIPLEX (excerpts hither), is available in both print and download form at Lulu.com.  VIDEO OF READINGS FROM POSSIPLEX, hither.

History book: my alternative history of the computer world, Geeks Bearing Gifts, is available in both print and download form at Lulu.com.  EXCERPTS FROM GEEKS BEARING GIFTS, hither.

 
MY LIFE'S WORK SO FAR

My other writings, work and whatnot, hither.  (Curriculum vitae.)

A FEW OF MY VIDEOS (there are too many)

About Pernicious Computer Traditions, hither.
XanaduSpace® demo, hither.
ZigZag® demo, hither.
        (These are Oxford chats posted by Arthur Bullard (photonhunter)).

My new YouTube series, Computers for Cynics.

My main videos on YouTube, hither.

Video of readings from POSSIPLEX, hither.

COMMENTS BY OTHERS

Good summary of my early hypertext work by Tim Berners-Lee, hither (with some corrections by footnote).

Things said about me recently, hither.

What they say about POSSIPLEX, hither.

What they say about Geeks Bearing Gifts, hither.

 

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*See citations of my work in original proposal for the Web, 1989.  My designs for radically different on-line documents go to the nature of writing and interconnection.  The Web simulates paper, locking us to the obsolete, adding blind 1-way jumps to paper simulations.  I fight still for a world of radically different electronic documents, with flying pieces, visible side-by-side connections, connection of content to origins, and unbreaking links.  See Xanadu.com.

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