Project Xanadu?

Nick Baran

The World Wide Web and hypertext are receiving attention these days, but the concept of distributed hypertext has existed for some time. It was in 1988 that BYTE reported on Ted Nelson's Project Xanadu, which was to be the basis of a global ``docuverse'' storing millions of documents accessible to millions of users--essentially the idea of the Web on the Internet but on a much grander scale.

Nelson's ideas were so intriguing that Autodesk founder John Walker decided to invest in Xanadu and started an Autodesk Information Business Unit, which included Xanadu and an Electronic Information Shopping Mall called AMIX (American Information Exchange) (see Microbytes, August 1992 BYTE, page 28). A preliminary version of Xanadu (version 88.1) was developed under Autodesk's auspices in 1988, but the project was eventually scrapped and Au todesk ``divested itself'' of Xanadu in 1992. Walker eventually moved on to other things.

Xanadu still has a phone number in northern California ((415) 331-4422), but Nelson is now in Sapporo, Japan, working with Professor Yuzuru Tanaka of Hokkaido University to develop a new version of the Xanadu Publishing System. According to Nelson, Tanaka has developed a ``widget-based graphical interactive language,'' called IntelligentPad, which Nelson calls a ``generalization of NextStep.'' IntelligentPad will be the ``backbone'' of a new version of Xanadu to be launched on the Internet's Web. Nelson's Internet address is ted@xanadu.net, but Nelson says he's a ``reluctant correspondent'' and rarely answers his mail.