# Was there any hypertext on the Internet before the Web? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 30, 2014, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-hypertext-on-the-internet-before-the-web/708501 "2014-12-30T02:52:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![protoboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@protoboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/protoboard)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2014, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-hypertext-on-the-internet-before-the-web/708501/1 "2014-12-30T02:52:09Z")
I know hypertext has been around since the 60s. Was Berners-Lee the first person who ever thought of fusing the Net and hypertext together, or was his software just the first of its kind that became popular? ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2014, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-hypertext-on-the-internet-before-the-web/708501/2 "2014-12-30T03:10:02Z")
[Gopher](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_%28protocol%29) was sort of similar. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2014, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-hypertext-on-the-internet-before-the-web/708501/3 "2014-12-30T03:14:03Z")
yeah Gopher if done well was as functional as hypertext. Gopher did have structure so it was more uniform and that could be better. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2014, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-hypertext-on-the-internet-before-the-web/708501/4 "2014-12-30T15:45:16Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > Gopher did have structure so it was more uniform and that could be better. As I recall it, Gopher was kind of “reversed” compared to the WWW. Gopher sites were primarily a list of links that could be annotated with (possibly lengthy) textual descriptions, while WWW sites were primarily a free-from document that might have some embedded links. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2014, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-hypertext-on-the-internet-before-the-web/708501/5 "2014-12-30T18:43:32Z")
Before the Internet, the [PLATO](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_%28computer_system%29) system, and more specifically its authoring language TUTOR, had strong support for hypertext. I wrote some stuff myself using it. I used it 1974 - 1977, but hypertext predated this. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2014, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-hypertext-on-the-internet-before-the-web/708501/6 "2014-12-30T18:52:50Z")
text markup languages have been around for decades. They make boards like the SDMB work. [/U.] is a tag that tell the computer to underline text. We had text markup languages on every mainframe that I used. Long, long before the Internet. HTML is more advanced but based on the same ideas. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2014, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-hypertext-on-the-internet-before-the-web/708501/7 "2014-12-30T19:18:11Z")
Cool story, bro. > [@http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext](#): > > **Hypertext** is text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references (hyperlinks) to other text which the reader can immediately access, or where text can be revealed progressively at multiple levels of detail (also called StretchText). > [@http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markup\_language](#): > > A **(document) markup language** is a modern system for annotating a document in a way that is syntactically distinguishable from the text. The idea and terminology evolved from the “marking up” of paper manuscripts, i.e., the revision instructions by editors, traditionally written with a blue pencil on authors’ manuscripts. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2014, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-hypertext-on-the-internet-before-the-web/708501/8 "2014-12-30T19:31:22Z")
I was referring to GML and SGML. GML has been around since 1969 and I used in the early 80’s… LinuxDoc is another great markup text tool. [Cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Generalized_Markup_Language) > [@](#): > > HTML was theoretically an example of an SGML-based language until HTML 5, which admits that browsers can’t parse it as SGML (for compatibility reasons) and codifies exactly what they must do instead. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2014, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-hypertext-on-the-internet-before-the-web/708501/9 "2014-12-30T20:08:08Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > text markup languages have been around for decades. They make boards like the SDMB work. [/U.] is a tag that tell the computer to underline text. I think the OP is asking which text markup system was the first to allow hyperlinks over the network (i.e. allowed you to mark up a word as a link to another document on a server). ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2014, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-hypertext-on-the-internet-before-the-web/708501/10 "2014-12-30T20:12:58Z")
Ok, I thought he was referring to formatting text with a markup language. The web would be a very ugly place without formatted pages. links in documents came later. I can recall going to FTP sites for documents. Nothing was linked. It was just an index of files to dl. The individual related files were organized in zip files. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-hypertext-on-the-internet-before-the-web/708501/11 "2014-12-31T01:02:31Z")
My experience in the late 80s was someone gave you an ftp address and you went there are got what you wanted. Then a web crawler called archie came around that indexed ftp sites and was searchable. (Incidentally, it was a master’s project by a McGill grad student.) Archie was followed by veronica and others. Then came the web. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-hypertext-on-the-internet-before-the-web/708501/12 "2014-12-31T01:44:19Z")
Veronica was a search engine for Gopher sites. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-hypertext-on-the-internet-before-the-web/708501/13 "2014-12-31T02:14:39Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > I know hypertext has been around since the 60s. Was Berners-Lee the first person who ever thought of fusing the Net and hypertext together, or was his software just the first of its kind that became popular? [The text of the original proposal](http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html). Seems to me he came up with an idea for a one-stop type distributed scheme based on hypertext that would enable the crosslink of the various existing information management tools and resources, and was able to push it forward and implement it. > [@Tim Berners-Lee at CERN](#): > > Conclusion: > We should work toward a **universal linked information system** , in which **generality and portability** are more important than fancy graphics techniques and complex extra facilities. > > The aim would be to allow **a place to be found for any information or reference which one felt was important, and a way of finding it afterwards**. The result should be sufficiently attractive to use that it the information contained would grow past a critical threshold, **so that the usefulness the scheme would in turn encourage its increased use**. > > The passing of this threshold accelerated by **allowing large existing databases to be linked together and with new ones**. > > A Practical Project: > Here I suggest the practical steps to go to in order to find a real solution at CERN. After a preliminary discussion of the requirements listed above, a survey of what is available from industry is obviously required. At this stage, we will be looking for a systems which are future-proof: > > \*\* -portable, or supported on many platforms, > -Extendible to new data formats\*\*. > > We may find that with a little adaptation, **parts of the system we need can be combined from various sources: for example, a browser from one source with a database from another**. > > I imagine that two people for 6 to 12 months would be sufficient for this phase of the project. > > A second phase would almost certainly involve some programming in order to set up a real system at CERN on many machines. An important part of this, discussed below, is the integration of a hypertext system with existing data, so as to provide a universal system, and to achieve critical usefulness at an early stage. > > (… and yes, this would provide an excellent project with which to try our new object oriented programming techniques!) One of those things that \*after \*it’s done you go :smack: right, why did I not make that next step, and figure that sooner or later someone would have come up with it, but it was _this guy_ and his team who did so _in this time and place_. Of course, then proceeding to put his solution in the public domain with no demand for patent royalties probably helped its widespread adoption a lot. ---
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-hypertext-on-the-internet-before-the-web/708501/14 "2014-12-31T03:57:57Z")
Ted Nelson (son of Celeste Holm!) proposed his Project Xanadu in 1960, consisting of text documents with versioning and hyperlinks and per-click payments. According to Wikipedia, it’s the “longest-running vaporware story in history”. I saw him speak about 1984 and he was still proposing it as the ultimate computer system. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-hypertext-on-the-internet-before-the-web/708501/15 "2014-12-31T05:00:55Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > My experience in the late 80s was someone gave you an ftp address and you went there are got what you wanted. Then a web crawler called archie came around that indexed ftp sites and was searchable. (Incidentally, it was a master’s project by a McGill grad student.) Archie was followed by veronica and others. Then came the web. I vaguely remember doing something like this in the early 90s, and trying to convince my employer that it was useful–unsuccessfully. It took the web to change his mind. ---
**Author:** ![protoboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@protoboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/protoboard)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-hypertext-on-the-internet-before-the-web/708501/16 "2014-12-31T18:35:08Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > My experience in the late 80s was someone gave you an ftp address and you went there are got what you wanted. Then a web crawler called archie came around that indexed ftp sites and was searchable. (Incidentally, it was a master’s project by a McGill grad student.) Archie was followed by veronica and others. Then came the web. Was it completely impossible to search the Internet before Archie, or could you still do it in the 80s if you knew how to write the correct code to scour the FTP universe? ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2014, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-hypertext-on-the-internet-before-the-web/708501/17 "2014-12-31T18:39:43Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Before the Internet, the [PLATO](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_%28computer_system%29) system, and more specifically its authoring language TUTOR, had strong support for hypertext. I wrote some stuff myself using it. I used it 1974 - 1977, but hypertext predated this. I was a PLATO programmer from 80 to 84 or so. I really don’t remember hypertext support in TUTOR. PLATO was great, for its time, with lots of features finding its way into the internetz, but hypertext it really didn’t have. BTW - if you want to play on PLATO again - try [http://www.cyber1.org/](http://www.cyber1.org/) - they have a client you can download, and you can play Empire again!