Week 4- Failed Project Introduction

Week 4- Failed Project Introduction
Post #1

Failed Prediction: Project Xanadu

Introduction
“It was the most radical computer dream of the hacker era. Ted Nelson's Xanadu project was supposed to be the universal, democratic hypertext library that would help human life evolve into an entirely new form. Instead, it sucked Nelson and his intrepid band of true believers into what became the longest-running vaporware project in the history of computing - a 30-year saga of rabid prototyping and heart-slashing despair.” –Wired Magazine.

The title of the project is a reference to the poem "Kubla Khan, or A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment." by Samuel Taylor Coleridge—Xanadu is the name of the Chinese province where Khan establishes his pleasure garden in the poem.

Project Xanadu was the first publicly announced hypertext project. Founded in 1960 by Ted Nelson, the project, according to its website contrasts its vision with that of paper—“…Today’s popular software simulates paper. The World Wide Web (another imitation of paper) trivializes our original hypertext model with one-way ever-breaking links and no management of version or contents…”

Wired Magazine called it the “longest-running vaporware story in the history of the computer industry” -- The first attempt at implementation began in 1960, but it wasn't until 1998 that incomplete software was released.

For further reading see:
http://www.sunless-sea.net/wiki2
http://www.abora.org/links.html
http://hyperworlds.org/
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.06/xanadu.html