Hyperland facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Hyperland |
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|---|---|
| Genre | Technology |
| Written by | Douglas Adams |
| Presented by | Douglas Adams Tom Baker |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of series | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 1 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Max Whitby |
| Running time | 50 minutes |
| Production company(s) | BBC |
| Release | |
| Original network | BBC Two |
| Original release | 1990 |
Hyperland is a 50-minute TV show from 1990. It's a documentary about how we might use computers to connect information. The show was written by Douglas Adams, who also wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was produced and directed by Max Whitby.
In Hyperland, Douglas Adams plays a computer user. He explores a dream world where information is linked together in amazing ways. Tom Baker (who played Doctor Who!) also stars as a "software agent." This agent helps Adams navigate through the dream.
Contents
What is Hyperland About?
Hyperland explores ideas like hypertext and multimedia. Hypertext is like clickable links that take you to other information. Think of how you click on words on a website to go to a new page. Multimedia means combining different types of media, like text, pictures, sounds, and videos, all in one place.
A Dream of Connected Information
In Douglas Adams's dream, he browses through many different types of media. He meets real people and learns about their cool projects. These projects were all about linking information and making it interactive.
Early Ideas: Linking Everything
- Vannevar Bush and the Memex: Long before computers, Vannevar Bush imagined a machine called the "Memex." It would let people store all their books, records, and communications. You could link different pieces of information together, just like the internet does today.
- Ted Nelson and Project Xanadu: Ted Nelson is famous for coining the term "hypertext." He explains his big idea called "Project Xanadu." This project aimed to create a worldwide computer network for sharing and linking all human knowledge.
Bringing Things to Life: Interactive Media
- Hans Peter Brøndmo and Animated Icons: Imagine if the little pictures you click on a computer screen could move and show you things! Hans Peter Brøndmo talked about this idea of animated icons. They would make using computers much more fun and intuitive.
- Robert Winter and Interactive Music: Robert Winter showed an amazing interactive version of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Instead of just listening, you could explore the music. You could learn about the instruments or even change parts of the song.
- Kurt Vonnegut and Story Shapes: The writer Kurt Vonnegut had a unique idea from his book Palm Sunday. He thought that stories have shapes, like graphs. This means you could map out how a story flows, which is a cool way to think about narratives.
- Robert Abel and Interactive Art: Robert Abel presented a multimedia version of Picasso's famous painting, Guernica. This allowed viewers to explore the painting in a new, interactive way.
- Apple Multimedia Lab and Life Story: People from the Apple Multimedia Lab showed an interactive version of Life Story. This was a BBC TV movie about the discovery of DNA. Imagine being able to click on parts of the movie to learn more about the science!
- Amanda Goodenough and Inigo Gets Out: Amanda Goodenough showed Inigo Gets Out. This was an interactive story for children made using a program called Hypercard. It was like a digital "choose your own adventure" book, where kids could decide what happened next.
Stepping into New Worlds: Virtual Characters and VR
- Brad deGraf and Michael Wahrman with Mike Normal: These creators talked about their "digital puppet" named Mike Normal. This was an early example of creating virtual characters that could be controlled in real-time.
- NASA Ames Research Center and Virtual Reality: A scientist from NASA Ames Research Center showed off an early Virtual Reality (VR) helmet called Cyberiad. This was a glimpse into a future where you could step into computer-generated worlds.
- Marc Canter's Cameo: Marc Canter made a fun, brief appearance as an animated icon. Douglas Adams didn't "click" on him, so the audience never got to see his interview!
Predicting the Future: The Internet Before the Internet
The dream, and the documentary, ends with a look at how people might access information in the year 2005. It's amazing because Hyperland described many features of the modern internet. This show came out in 1990, which was about a year before the public release of the first Web browser. It was truly ahead of its time!
Images for kids
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Tom Baker plays a "software agent," whose appearance can be manipulated by Douglas Adams. Here, Adams has (temporarily) configured Tom to look like a stereotypical Neanderthal.
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Adams navigates through the interviews and explanations in the documentary using animated icons. Playback controls shown in the bottom right corner during each interview convey an additional sense of interactivity.
