Ted Nelson facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Ted Nelson
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Nelson in 2011
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| Born | June 17, 1937 |
| Alma mater | Swarthmore College University of Chicago Harvard University Keio University |
| Known for | Hypertext |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Information technology, philosophy, and sociology |
| Institutions | Project Xanadu |
Theodor Holm Nelson (born June 17, 1937) is an American expert in computers, a philosopher, and a sociologist. He is famous for inventing the words hypertext and hypermedia in 1963. He published these ideas in 1965. Ted Nelson saw himself as a creative thinker, much like a character from a story. He was called "the Orson Welles of software" by a magazine in 1997.
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Early Life and Learning
Ted Nelson's parents were both very talented. His father, Ralph Nelson, was a director who won an Emmy Award. His mother, Celeste Holm, was an actress who won an Academy Award. Their marriage was short, so Ted was mostly raised by his grandparents. He grew up first in Chicago and then in Greenwich Village.
In 1959, Nelson earned a degree in philosophy from Swarthmore College. While there, he made a funny student film called The Epiphany of Slocum Furlow. The film was about the main character finding the meaning of life. A musician named Peter Schickele wrote the music for his film.
After college, Nelson studied sociology at the University of Chicago and Harvard University. He earned a master's degree in sociology in 1962. He also worked as a photographer and filmmaker. From 1964 to 1966, he taught sociology at Vassar College.
During his studies, Ted Nelson started imagining a computer system for writing. He wanted it to store all the world's knowledge. He also wanted it to make it easy to connect different ideas. This big idea later became known as Project Xanadu. Much later, in 2002, he earned his PhD in media from Keio University.
Project Xanadu: A Big Idea
Ted Nelson started Project Xanadu in 1960. His goal was to create a computer network that was easy for anyone to use. He wrote about his work in books like Computer Lib / Dream Machines (1974) and Literary Machines (1981). He spent most of his adult life working on Xanadu and sharing his ideas about it.
Nelson worked in many different jobs to support Project Xanadu. He was a consultant, a teacher, and a researcher. He worked at places like Harcourt Brace and Company and Bell Labs. He also worked at universities such as Brown University and the University of Illinois at Chicago.
He also led his own companies, like the Nelson Organization. He even worked as chief software designer for a company called Datapoint. Later, Autodesk bought some of Xanadu's technology. Nelson continued to work on the project there.
After this, he taught as a visiting professor at several universities. These included Hokkaido University, Keio University, and the University of Southampton. He also taught at Chapman University and the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Why Xanadu Didn't Take Off
The Xanadu project faced many challenges and did not become widely used. A journalist named Gary Wolf wrote an article about it in Wired magazine in 1995. He called Xanadu "the longest-running vaporware project." Vaporware means a product that is announced but never actually released.
Ted Nelson was very unhappy with these criticisms. He argued against the article on his own website. He also sent a detailed letter to Wired magazine.
Nelson believes that some parts of his vision came true with the World Wide Web. However, he does not like the World Wide Web, XML, or other simple markup systems. He thinks the World Wide Web is too simple compared to his original idea. He once said:
HTML is precisely what we were trying to PREVENT— ever-breaking links, links going outward only, quotes you can't follow to their origins, no version management, no rights management.
Jaron Lanier, another computer expert, explained the main difference. In Nelson's vision, links between information would go both ways. This means each piece of information would know what other pieces were linked to it. This would help keep ideas in their proper context. Lanier said this small change would have a huge impact on culture and the economy.
Other Cool Projects
In 1957, while still a student, Ted Nelson helped create a musical. It was called "Anything and Everything" and was performed at Swarthmore College. He described it as a groundbreaking rock musical.
In 1965, he gave a presentation where he first used the word "hypertext." This was at a big conference for computer professionals.
In 1976, Nelson helped start a small computer store called "itty bitty machine company," or "ibm." It operated in Evanston, Illinois. In 1978, he shared his ideas about personal computers with the team at IBM. Three years later, IBM launched the famous IBM PC.
For many years, Nelson collected junk mail he received. This mail was mostly from companies selling computer, printing, or engineering products. In 2017, the Internet Archive started putting his collection online. It is called "Ted Nelson's Junk Mail Cartons."
ZigZag: A New Way to Organize Info
As of 2011, Ted Nelson was working on a new way to organize information called ZigZag. You can find information about it on the Xanadu project website. The website also has two versions of the Xanadu computer code. He also created XanaduSpace. This system helps explore connected documents side-by-side. You can download an early version of this software for free.
Influence and Awards
In January 1988, Byte magazine published an article about Ted Nelson's ideas. It was called "Managing Immense Storage." This article sparked many discussions in the computer world. It also encouraged people to try out hypertext features.
In 1998, Nelson received the Yuri Rubinsky Memorial Award at a big internet conference in Australia.
In 2001, France honored him by making him an Officier des Arts et Lettres. This is a special award for people who have made important contributions to arts and literature. In 2007, he gave a special lecture at the University of Southampton for his 70th birthday. In 2014, a computer group called ACM SIGCHI gave him a Special Recognition Award.
Also in 2014, Chapman University gave Nelson an honorary Doctor of Science degree. This happened during a conference called 'Intertwingled.' At the conference, Nelson said he still believed in his Xanadu system. He said, "The world would have been a better place if I had succeeded, but I ain't dead yet."
New Words He Created
Ted Nelson is known for inventing several new words. These words are now commonly used, especially in the world of computers. Some of them are:
- "hypertext" and "hypermedia": He created both of these terms in 1963.
- transclusion
- virtuality
- intertwingularity
See also
In Spanish: Ted Nelson para niños
Images for kids
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Nelson in 2011
