Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device that carries references, called hyperlinks, letting a reader immediately access other text. Ted Nelson coined the terms hypertext and hypermedia in 1965 as part of a model he developed for creating and using linked content. Hypertext underlies the World Wide Web, created by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989, where web pages are commonly written in the Hypertext Markup Language, and the web's explosive growth during the 1990s made it the dominant hypertext application, eclipsing the earlier hypertext systems that had developed the concept over the preceding decades.
Facts
SignificanceA key underlying concept of the World Wide Web 1 FAQs
Was Vannevar Bush's Memex a hypertext system?
It was a proto-hypertext idea that inspired Nelson and Engelbart.
Not quite. In 1945 Vannevar Bush described the Memex in an article in The Atlantic Monthly called As We May Think. It was a hypothetical device that would store content on reels of microfilm and let a user index, search and link it to create and follow associative trails. The Memex was never built and could only link whole microfilm frames in chains, so it is regarded as a proto-hypertext device. It still matters to the history of hypertext because it directly inspired the invention of hypertext by Ted Nelson and Douglas Engelbart.
Connections
Sources
1. Hypertext, Wikipedia
Article body, history
In 1965, Ted Nelson coined the terms 'hypertext' and 'hypermedia' as part of a model he developed for creating and using linked content (first published reference 1965).
Article body, World Wide Web
Hypertext is one of the key underlying concepts of the World Wide Web, where Web pages are often written in the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).
In Group: Web and Online Communication Software, Lead
Hypertext is text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access.
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