''Literary Machines'' (short title) is a book first published in 1981 by

Ted Nelson Theodor Holm Nelson (born June 17, 1937) is an American pioneer of information technology, philosopher, and sociologist. He coined the terms ''hypertext'' and ''hypermedia'' in 1963 and published them in 1965. According to his 1997 ''Forbes'' p ...

and republished nine times by 1993. It offers an extensive overview of Nelson's term "

hypertext Hypertext is E-text, text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typic ...

" as well as Nelson's Project Xanadu. It also includes other theories by Nelson, including " tumblers" for addressing bits in files past and present, "

transclusion In computer science, transclusion is the inclusion of part or all of an electronic document into one or more other documents by reference via hypertext. Transclusion is usually performed when the referencing document is displayed, and is norma ...

" as a method for including original work in one's own work, and " micropayments" to pay for the use. The format of the book is

nonlinear In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system (or a non-linear system) is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathe ...

, as the chapters are arranged in such a way that the text can be read out of order. The preface to the 1993 edition states "''The first edition of ''Literary Machines,'' done on a typewriter, appeared in April of 1981. We printed it on a Saxon copier that filled the house with a vinegar smell. But it had a beautiful cover, its white title silk-screened on mirrored plastic. Since that time the book has gone through various editions with different-colored covers, printed by various people with various degrees of permission. The main revision took place in 1987, when I added most of the technical material...''" The preface to the second edition, also in 1981, states "''This special edition of Literary Machines has been printed by XOC, Inc. under special arrangement with Ted Nelson. Certain changes have been made in the text by XOC, Inc. to reflect the current status of the Xanadu System. These changes are clearly indicated.''" The first edition of the book, referred to by Nelson as "The Humanist Edition", featured a silver

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cover. Subsequent editions, referred to by Nelson as "The Technical Edition" featured a white soft cover.

References

*''Literary Machines: The report on, and of, Project Xanadu concerning word processing, electronic publishing, hypertext, thinkertoys, tomorrow's intellectual revolution, and certain other topics including knowledge, education and freedom'' (1981), Mindful Press, Sausalito, California. **Publication dates as listed in the 93.1 (1993) edition: 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993.

External links

Reprint edition by Eastgate
- *Stephen W. Smoliar, "Review of 'Literary machines' by Ted Nelson, 1983", '' ACM

SIGSOFT The Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Software Engineering provides a forum for computing professionals from industry, government and academia to examine principles, practices, and new research results in software ...

Software Engineering Notes'', October 1983, p. 34-36, webpage
Abstract of review
(with link), read 2009-01-26. Books by Ted Nelson American non-fiction books Computer books Texts related to the history of the Internet Hypertext 1980 non-fiction books {{compu-book-stub