The term as defined by PCMag.com: "A linkage between related information. Hypertext is the foundation of the World Wide Web, enabling users to click on a link to obtain more information on a subsequent page on the same site or from a Web site anywhere in the world. Hypertext is the umbrella term for all links, whether appearing as text (word, phrase or sentence) or as an icon or other graphical element, the latter technically called a 'hypergraphic.' The terms 'hypertext,' 'hyperlink' and 'link' are also used synonymously."
Nelson would further define the term and explain the concept in his 1965 paper "Complex information processing: A file structure for the complex, the changing and the indeterminate." He wrote: "Let me introduce the word 'hypertext' to mean a body of written or pictorial material interconnected in such a complex way that it could not be conveniently be presented or represented on paper. It may contain summaries, or maps of its contents and their interrelations; it may contain annotations, additions and footnotes from scholars who have examined it. Let me suggest that such an object and system, properly designed and administered, could have great potential for education, increasing the student's range of choices, his sense of freedom, his motivation, and his intellectual grasp."
Illustration by Nelson for his 1974 book "Computer Lib / Dream Machines."
* Nelson's website: @ (Project Xanadu: @)
* Nelson entry from "The Internet: A Historical Encyclopedia" (2005): @
* Text of Nelson's 1965 paper: @
* "Did Ted Nelson first use the word 'hypertext' at Vassar College?" (Vassar site): @
* Entry from "History of the Web" (Bob Hopgood, Oxford Brookes University, 2001): @
* "Hypertext: Towards a Definition" (from Media-Studies.ca): @
* Vision and Reality of Hypertext and Graphical User Interfaces: @
* "The New Media Reader" (2003): @
* NetLingo (Internet dictionary): @
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