Everything is deeply intertwingled.
---Ted Nelson
I keep reading things that remind me of Ted Nelson's ComputerLib/Dream Machines (either the original landmark manifesto la collage of 1974 or the radically revised and recently rereleased Microsoft Press edition). There are several possible explanations.
First, Ted talks about a lot of things in CL/DM; his is an eclectic light.
Second, he mostly writes about things I mostly read about anyway: the potential of computers, the art of writing, the liberation of the mind.
Third, we remember unfinished business better than finished, and CL/DM is a business of unfinishedness; of loose ends; boxes that, once opened, can't be closed again; conceptual gambits; twitching, severed nerves; choose your metaphor. CL/DM pitches more itches than it hawks ointments for.
Fourth, everything is deeply intertwingled. That's probably it.
One thing that I've been reading that implicitly invokes CL/DM is The Society of Mind by Marvin Minsky. The Society of Mind presents a model of the mind as a society of communicating processes. The structure of the book reflects Minsky's model and reminds me of CL/DM. If you haven't read it, I recommend it.
I've also been reading about highly functionally distributed systems (HFDS): shades of Ted Nelson's System Xanadu. An HFDS is a heterogeneous loosely coupled worldwide network of computers and other "intelligent" objects, providing more sophisticated services than any of its components can, says University of Tokyo professor Ken Sakamura, who named HFDS. The multinational, multicompany project Sakamura spawned to implement it has a better name: TRON.
The TRON project envisions a global network and several types of networked devices, including intelligent objects and communication machines. The TRON team is designing a system for the day when a typical room contains a hundred computers, a building thousands, a city millions. The problems that would arise include questions like just how much should my neighbor's air conditioner know about my new lamp?
In an HFDS, neither centralized control nor anarchy would work. The cooperation of groups of components in an HFDS Nakamura intertwingledly calls the "society of computers."
The elements of the TRON project include ITRON, a spec for a realtime operating system for the control of intelligent objects; BTRON, an operating system spec for the human interface components of an HFDS; CTRON, a portable operating system spec for servers that will link BTRON and ITRON elements with gateways and large databases; and MTRON. which somehow ties it all together. The idea is that ITRON talks to machines, BTRON talks to people. CTRON talks to ITRON and BTRON machines. MTRON talks to Matsushita, and Matsushita talks only to God. I think.
Last November, TRON developers from more than 100 firms, including Matsushita, Fujitsu, AT&T, and IBM, met to report progress. Intended to go on-line in the 1990s, TRON is ahead of schedule.
I've been reading a lot about Apple's HyperCard lately, too, since I'm writing a book on it. The "hyper" is homage to Ted's hypertext, although he has some reservations re HyperCard as an implementation of same.
Others have also raised doubts about the market for HyperCard stackware. A panel at January's MacWorld show, discussing stackware prospects, was not encouraging. "Not until there are 100,000 CDROM units installed will there be a decent stackware market," one panelist concluded. Stewart Alsop thinks that unless developers, distributors, and Apple all treat stackware like full-fledged serious software, "The stackware business will disappoint just as many people as the 1-2-3 and dBASE templates business did." And Dvorak declares, "I wish those budding stackware developers a ton of luck. They'll need it."
I suspect that the world will little note nor long remember such sage skepticism, even if it turns out to be true. Since Apple brought forth on this continent the computer for the rest of us. Macintosh software development has been beyond the poor powers of unprofessional performers, but now any Sunday afternoon matinee walk-on bit player can prototype a product in a day or two, down to doing a cover letter in card form and printing the disk label.
Heaps of hyperstuff will be hacked together. Publishers will be pummeled in submissions if not into submission, and rejection will be no deterrent to the hyped-up hordes of hyperdom.
Reminds me of what Ted Nelson said about all that white-out on the screen. ...
Michael Swaine
Michael Swaine editor-at-large