ABSTRACT
Hypertext can be defined as a way of organizing textual informa-tion that allows users to move from one section, or node, to another along various routes, or links. (It is generally assumed, however, that this scheme is implemented on a computer system.) e idea of somehow automating the retrieval of information from a common store appears repeatedly in the writings of the early twentieth century, as in the Permanent World Encyclopedia suggested by H G Wells in World Brain (1938). e clearest ancestor of modern hypertext, however, is the “memex” proposed by Vannevar Bush in “As We May ink” (July 1945 Atlantic Monthly), which would have allowed users to create “trails” of connected sets of micro lm pages, eectively constructing their own personal links around a set of immutable texts. Computerized systems that supported links between documents, loosely inspired by the memex, were demonstrated by Douglas Engelbart and eodor Nelson in the United States in 1968; Nelson is responsible for coining the actual word “hypertext” in 1965, originally as “hyper-text.” e concept then spread through the computer science community, becoming widely known with the release of the HyperCard application for the Apple Macintosh personal computer in 1987 and the creation of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989-1991. e main subject of this chapter, however, is not hypertext in general, but its uses in ction, and especially in science ction.
