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Ted Nelson

ZigZag Data Structures and the Fantasmic Order of Visual Connections

As of today we have failed to fully utilize the possibilities of digital media. One problem is that features and functions of non-digital media are persistently incorporated to digital media without merit and without imagination. For this reason, this sub-page is dedicated to the ideas of Ted Nelson, particularly his hypertext model and fantics. When we think of media we should think of the design of media themselves and the design of the environment/system in which they operate—something I think has been lost in the development of digital media.

Taken from Computer Lib/Dream Machines 1974

Hypertext Model

In his text A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing, the Intermediate (1965), Nelson introduces the hypertext model that is of complex, reconfigurable, and linked structures of information, which can be manipulated at a much smaller (or larger) than the paper page. It's a designed structure for handling information that is constantly evolving. Essentially it is a file with certain storage provisions which, combined, permit the file’s contents to be arranged any-which way, and in a number of ways at once.

The original idea for file indexing systems—the Memex proposed by Bush in 1945—were intended for writers and scientists. Nelson claims that the kinds of file structures required if we are to use the computer for personal files, and as an adjunct to creativity, are necessarily different in character from those of business and scientific data processing. The kind of file structures that we need would have to provide the capacity for intricate and idiosyncratic arrangements, total modifiability, undecided alternatives, and thorough internal documentation. The answer, according to Nelson, is "a simple and generalized building-block structure, user-oriented and wholly general-purpose." This would technically be accomplished by index manipulation and text patching, "but to the user it acts like a multifarious, polymorphic, many-dimensional, infinite blackboard."

Nelson’s vision strongly emphasizes the necessity for associative trails as proposed by Bush in his concept of the Memex in 1945. Sadly no program or software are capable of such intricate file handling (keeping track of associative trails and other structures). The only similar feature are hyperlinks, but the hyperlink is very much a restricted vision as it merely links to another page (opened in another browser-tab at best) and not to a specific part of the text to which it refers. Moreover, every link that is hyperlinked through key words in a main text are not complied in a separate list for overview, rearrangement, or any other purpose. In other words, one main text has only many single links within it, no trails.

Nelson’s concept applies to all forms of writing: manuscript, fiction, philosophy, sermon, news, technical writing, etc. And there is, as of yet, no such file system that adequately facilitates the writing process. Nelson developed his concept of a file system based on his understanding that certain interrelations appear to the writer during the process of writing. Thus, to decide on which to emphasize, which to use as unifying ideas and principles, and which to delete or alter completely, can only be done by trying. The task of writing is one of rearrangement and reprocessing. Each section then, is (1) on an intellectual level, pondered, juxtaposed, adapted, transposed and judged (2) on a mechanical level, copied and overwritten with revision markings, rearranged and copied again. Writing a text is a process of examination and taking mental notes regarding rearrangements. It is therefore fragmentary and intertwining organization.

With these considerations, Nelson outlines the following preliminary specifications of the file system:

- It should provide an up-to-date index of its own contents (code book, as proposed by V Bush)

- It would accept large and growing bodies of text and commentary, listed in such complex forms as the user might stipulate.

- No hierarchical file relations were to be built-in; the system would hold any shape imposed on it. (for ex. lattices)

- It would file texts in any form and arrangements desired.

- It would file under an unlimited number of categories. (restricted by total memory of course)

- It would provide for filing in associative trails.

- It would hold commentaries and explanations connected to the file entries.

Nelson explains further that the user should be able to change the contents of the files and their arrangement, including sequence, labelling, indexing, and comments. And there would be a necessity for "dynamic outlining" (or dynamic indexing), which means that a change in one text sequence should automatically change another text sequence. So if the outline (index) is changed, so is the main text that is linked with it. The change however, should not be committed automatically, but rather by the user if the changes are deemed appropriate for whatever purpose. And there should be provided an overview of the changes: saved versions of changes (a history).

These particular features are what Nelson call evolutionary, which means the system would be able to sustain:

- Changes in the bulk and block arrangements of its contents.

- Dynamic outlining.

- Different drafts of the arrangement, available for comparison or use along the process of writing.

Without getting into the particulars here, many of the fundamental aspects of such a system have been envisioned in projects such as ZigZag data structures and Xanadu Space:

Fantics

In his text Fantics, Nelson argued that computer experiences were media to be designed. Nelson proposed that these new media experiences be placed in an open publishing network. A network that supported the reconfiguration, comparison, and interconnection of his Hypertext Model. Fantics can be defined as the presentation of information to people by automatic equipment.

Fantics as a whole is concerned with:

1. The art and science of presentation. 

2. Techniques of presentation: writing, stage direction, movie making, magazine layout, sound overlay, etc. 

3. Media themselves, their analysis and design. 

4. The design of systems for presentation, which involve computers both conceptually and technically, because it includes branching and intricately interactive systems enacted by programmable mechanisms. Thus computer display, data structures (and, to an extent, programming languages and techniques) are all a part. 

And fantics must also include:

5. Psychological effect and impact of various presentational techniques—but not particular formal aesthetics.

6. Sociological tie-ins—especially supportive and dysfunctional structures, such as tie-ins with occupational structure; sponsorship and commercials; what works in schools and why. 

7. The psychological constructs used to organize things: the parts, conceptual threads, unifying concepts that we create to make aspects of the world understandable. We put them into everything, but standardize them in media.