The Hypertext Editing System, or HES, was an early
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 typi ...
research project conducted at
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
in 1967 by
Andries van Dam
Andries "Andy" van Dam (born December 8, 1938) is a Dutch-American professor of computer science and former vice-president for research at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Together with Ted Nelson he contributed to the first hyper ...
,
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. Nelson coined the terms ''transcl ...
, and several Brown students.
[Brown University Department of Computer Science. (23 May 2019)]
A Half-Century of Hypertext at Brown
It was the first hypertext system available on commercial equipment that novices could use.
HES organized data into two main types: links and branching text. The branching text could automatically be arranged into menus, and a point within a given area could also have an assigned name, called a label, and be accessed later by that name from the screen. Although HES pioneered many modern hypertext concepts, its emphasis was on text formatting and printing.
HES required an
IBM 2250
The IBM 2250 Graphics Display Unit was a vector graphics display system by IBM for the System/360; the Model IV attached to the IBM 1130.
Overview
The IBM 2250 Graphics Display Unit was announced with System/360 in 1964. A complete 2250 III sys ...
display console and a large memory partition on Brown's
IBM System/360 Model 50
The IBM System/360 Model 50 is a member of the IBM System/360 family of computers. The Model 50 was announced in April 1964 with the other initial models of the family, and first shipped in August 1965 to the Bank of America.
Models
There are fo ...
campus
mainframe computer
A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...
which limited its use: "Although it was shared with others, it was a multi-million-dollar piece of technology housed in a large machine room that van Dam’s team was able to use as essentially a personal computer between midnight and 4 AM."
The program was used by
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
's Houston Manned Spacecraft Center for documentation on the
Apollo
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
space program. The project's research was funded by
IBM but the program was stopped around 1969, and replaced by the
FRESS
The File Retrieval and Editing SyStem, or FRESS, was a hypertext system developed at Brown University starting in 1968 by Andries van Dam and his students, including Bob Wallace. It was the first hypertext system to run on readily available comm ...
(File Retrieval and Editing System) project.
Ted Nelson claims credit for inventing the back button with regards to hypertext, as the Hypertext Editing System was the first system that contained one.
References
{{hypermedia
Hypertext
Brown University
History of human–computer interaction