Vision&Reality
     of Hypertext and Graphical User Interfaces

Ted Nelson Media Center

curated by Matthias Müller-Prove; last update: Sat, May 30, 2026

An exhaustive list of papers and videos by Theodor Holm Nelson (THN).
Please let me know, if you find new references to Ted Nelson’s oeuvre: contact mprove

Thanks to Francesc Hervada-Sala, Hartmut Obendorf, and Jakob Voss.

1950s

11/1957 Audio THN (lyrics) / Richard Caplan (music): Anything & Everything | poster

some notes on the first rock musical ever, 50 years later (22/23-Nov-2007)

1959 Video THN (director): The Epiphany of Slocum Furlow. 33'. Slocum Furlow Scene 7 – The Classroom
|1959| THN: Life, Love, College, etc. (originally entitled We Need a Sociology Department)

1960s

1961 THN: The Whole Thing /via: my whole 1961 philosophy manuscript, as messed up by flooding
22+22+26+24+18+28+22+30 pages | PDF
1965 THN:The Hypertext, in: Proc. World Documentation Federation Conf. 1965
8/1965 THN: Complex Information Processing: A File Structure for the Complex, The Changing and the Indeterminate ACM 20th National Conference, pages 84-100, 1965
1965 THN: Suggestion for an On-Line Braille Display. proceedings of the Society for Information Display autumn 1965
1965 THN: Computer-Indexed Film Handling. SMPTE conference preprint autumn 1965
1966 THN: Hypertext Notes: ten brief essays on hypertext forms circulated in manuscript circa 1966
22-Sep-1966 Audio THN: Hard and Fast Thoughts for a Softcopy World at Rand Corporation (67 minutes audio)
23-Dec-1966 THN: Xanadu66 Manual
1967 THN: Getting It Out of Our System. In George Schlechter (ed), Information Retrieval: A Critical Review. p. 191-210, Thompson Books, 1967.
1967 THN: Ted Nelson’s patent database diagram
1967 THN: Media 72 (unpublished)
11/1969 Electronics Magazine: Nelson’s the Name, and What He Proposes Could Outdo Engelbart. Electronics Magazine, 24 Nov 69, p. 79
1969 Steven Carmody, Walter Gross, Theodor H. Nelson, David Rice, and Andries van Dam. A Hypertext Editing System for the /360 in Faiman and Nievergelt (eds.) Pertinent Concepts in Computer Graphics: Proceedings of the Second University of Illinois Conference on Computer Graphics, pp. 291-330, University of Illinois Press, 1969

1970s

1970 THN: No More Teacher’s Dirty Looks. Computer Decisions September 1970, Fully reprinted in Ted Nelson, "Computer Lib" 1974
1970 THN: BARNUM-TRONICS, a grand declaration of intent in Swartmore Collage Bulletin, Alumni Issue Dec 1970
1970 THN: Ted Nelson hypertext notes – Ted Nelson’s handwritten notes on hypertext. These notes address the possibilities for hypertext applications in the field of patent law and include various annotated documents.
1971 THN: Computopia and Cypercrud. In: Roger Levien (ed.): Computers in Introduction. Rand Corporation, 1971
1973 THN: As We Will Think. Proceedings of Online 72 Conference, Brunel University, Uxbridge, England, 1973. Reprinted In: Nyce, James / Kahn, Paul (eds): From Memex to Hypertext : Vannevar Bush and the Mind’s Machine. p. 245. Academic Press, Boston, MA, 1991 | 1972 edition
6/1973 THN: A Conceptual Framework for Man-Machine Everything Proceedings of the AFIPS National Joint Computer Conference 1973
1974 THN: Computer Lib / Dream Machines; Distributors, South Bend IN, 1974. (some excerpts)
(Computer Lib Dream Machines is being republished in 2014)
ChronoLink to internet archive
1974 THN, in Levien (editor):Computopia and Cybercrud. The Rand Corporation 1974
7/1974 THN, Tom DeFanti and Dan Sandin: Computer Graphics as a Way of Life Proceedings of the first SIGGRAPH conference 1974
1977 THN: The Home Computer Revolution
1977 THN: Selected Paper 1965-1977, 124 pages
1978 THN: View from the Top – Techno Politics in Penthouse 10/1978, pp 52-54
1978 THN: Computer Lib in Omni 11/1978, pp 59-62 | on vendor lock-in
1979 Max Allen and Ted Nelson discuss the future of computers (CBC Radio Rewind), also on youtube

1980s

1980 THN: Replacing the Printed [Written??] Word: A Complete Literary System, Lavington, Simon H., : Information Processing: Proceedings of the 1980 IFIP World Computer Congress , 8, 1013-1023. North-Holland, Amsterdam
1980 THN: Interactive Systems and the Design of Virtuality. Creative Computing, 6(11 & 12), 1980 [by Tog’s Magic and Software Design]
1981 THN: Literary Machines. Swarthmore, PA. 1981
7/1982 THN: Literary Machines 9.31
1986 THN: The Tyranny of the File. Datamation magazine 15 December 1986
1987 THN: Literary Machines, volume Version 87.1. Published by author, 1987. /at internet archive
10/1987 THN: Computer Lib/Dream Machines Microsoft Press, Washington, 16011 NE 36th Way, Box 97017 Redmon, Washington, 1987.
11/1987 THN: All For One and One For All Hypertext `87 Proceedings, November 1987
1/1988 THN: Managing immense storage. Byte, 13(1):225--233, 1988.

1990s

1990 THN: The Right Way to Think About Software Design. In: Laurel, Brenda (ed): The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design. p. 235-243. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1990 amazon.com
1990 Video Douglas Adams: Hyperland (at Internet Archive) | Hyperland (at Vimeo). 50' BBC 1990
11/1990 Video TEDtalk by TED at the TED2 conference, 9-Nov-1990 | better audio | toot
1990 THN: General Schematics: Introduction to the terminology
1990 Video THN: Interview with Ted Nelson, WGBH/BBC open vault | This interview was used in the WGBH documentary, The Machine That Changed The World
12/1991 THN: As we will think. IN From Memex to hypertext. December 1991, Pages 245–260
1991 THN: Speech delivered at MultiMedia Expo '91, New York
1992 XOC, Inc.: Xanadu Hypermedia Server, Developer Documentation, Mindful Press, (1992).
1992 IZHD THN: Opening Hypertext: A Memoir. In: Tuman, M.C. (ed): Literacy Online. The Promise (and Peril) of Reading and Writing with Computers. Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh (1992) – pp. 43-57
1992 Video THN (director): Silicon Valley Story. Preview 1.3. Starring Ted Nelson, Douglas Engelbart, Rick Mascitti, Stewart Brand, and Timothy Leary as the venture capitalist. The Timothy Leary Archives #189. (also at youtube)
1992 Ted Nelson interviewed by John Perry Barlow, Mondo 2000
1/1993 THN: Freedom and power. Proceedings from the symposium on Scholarly communication : new technologies and new directions: new technologies and new directionsPages 1–10
1993 THN: Literary Machines. 93.1. Mindful Press, Sausalito, CA, 1993. LM(Oct 2000) / at Eastgate Systems
10/1994 THN: Xanadu: Document Interconnection Enabling Re-Use with Automatic Author Credit and Royalty Accounting. Information Services & Use , 14 (1994).
1994 Video THN: Cinema for the Mind, U.C. Santa Cruz part 2
1994 THN: Cinema for the Mind
1995 THN: Transcopyright: unpublished.
8/1995 THN: The heart of connection: hypermedia unified by transclusion. In: Communications of the ACM. Vol. 38(8) p. 31-33, 1995

“transpointing windows”

1995b Video THN: Where the Trail Leads at The Brown/MIT Vannevar Bush Symposium 1995 – Video Archive, YouTube
1995 Video Ted Nelson at the Vannevar Bush Symposium 1995 | IA video
1996 THN: Generalized Links, Micropayment and Transcopyright, Interview by Doug Crockford, IBM Research (local paper copy)
3/1997 THN: Transcopyright: A Simple Legal Arrangement for Sharing, Re-use, and Republication of Copyrighted Material on the Net. WWCA '97: Proceedings of the International Conference on Worldwide. Computing and Its ApplicationsPages 7–14
1997 THN: The Future of Information. ASCII Corporation, Tokyo, 1997. INFUTscans(Oct 2000)
11/1997 THN: Embedded Markup Considered Harmful. | ACM-DL | In XML: Principles, Tools, and Techniques (World Wide Web Journal 2(4, Fall) 1997.
2/1997 THN: Crush and Crash: Logic of a Terrible Tomorrow. In: Communications of the ACM. Vol. 40 No. 2 p. 90-91, 1997
1998 THN and Pam, Andrew: ZigZag(tm) Hyperstructure Kit:The ZigZag Commands. Project Xanadu, version 0.49 edition, 1998
12/1999 THN: Xanalogical Structure, Needed Now More than Ever: Parallel Documents, Deep Links to Content, Deep Versioning and Deep Re-Use. In: ACM Computing Surveys. Vol. 31 No. 4es, 1999.
12/1999 THN: The unfinished revolution and Xanadu. In: ACM Computing Surveys. Vol. 31 No. 4es, 1999
presented at Engelbart's Unfinished Revolution (Symposium), Dec ’98
Nelson 99c THN: Time To Liberate The Web. In: Inter@ctive Week, October 25, 1999
academy.smc.edu/vanallen/tednelson_liberate.htm
1999 THN: JFax > PDF. e-mail with Matthias Müller-Prove, Oct. 1999
Nelson 99d THN: Way Out Of The Box
ted.hyperland.com/TQdox/zifty.d9-TQframer.html

2000 – 0s

2000 THN: Re: Do I know you?. email with Matthias Müller-Prove, Apr. 2000
2000 THN: Citizen Nelson
2001 THN: Philosophy of Hypertext, PhD thesis amazon
9/2001 THN: ZigZag (Tech briefing) HYPERTEXT '01: Proceedings of the 12th ACM conference on Hypertext and HypermediaPages 261–262https://doi.org/10.1145/504216.504281
2001 Video Ted Nelson at ACM Hypertext 2001 in Aarhus

Some quotes:

0'] This is not my planet. And this is not my conference. However…
[2'10"] I think of the world wide web and XML and cascading style sheets is the ultimate triumph of the typewriter over the author. +++ three fundamental problems today: 1) hierarchical file structures 2) simulation of paper 3) the application prison +++ [12'40"] Software is a branch of movie making. +++ [17'50"] The question is about starting over. +++ ZigZag / Authoplectic structures where trees and tables are just edge cases. +++

2001 Audio Visionary Lays Into the Web / We have settled for less. Ted Nelson interview on BBC Go Digital, 2001
2001 THN: Some Alternative Computer Universe IN Creative Digital Media, p33-38
8/2003 THN: Structure, Tradition and Possibility; keynote at ACM Hypertext 2003, Nottingham,abstract, photo gallery with slides
2004 Video THN: Ted’s best lecure ever, Oxford 16-Jun-2004
2004 Video THN: Rose-Hulman Institute, Sep 30 2004
6/2005 THN: Transhyperability and argumedia. The New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia (NRHM), Volume 11, Issue 1Pages 27–
2005 THN: TransLit™, the new open-source Xanadu. new (1)2005, author info
2005 Video THN: The Politics Of Internet Software 'Geeks Bearing Gifts'. oxford internet institute: webcast (1:26') | archived

Quote:

27'] ”War is too important to be left to the generals“. – The software is too important to human life to allow the decissions to be made by those with only technical background.

2005 Video THN at OpenTech 2005
? Video THN: A Very General Lecture; at Oxford
9/2007 THN, Robert Adamson Smith, Marlene Mallicoat: Back to the future: hypertext the way it used to be. HT '07: Proceedings of the eighteenth conference on Hypertext and hypermediaPages 227–
2007 Video THN: Transclusion: Fixing Electronic Literature. Google TechTalk Jan 29, 2007 (53')
2007 Video THN: Intertwingularity. When Ideas Collide. Video at University of Southhampton, May 2007 – a month before his 70th birthday (90') / at youtube
2007 Video THN: Ted Nelson on Software (7')
2007 Interview THN: Ted Nelson TV interview in Brazil

Some artist asked me the other night in Rio, "What are the opportunities for artist?" And I said, "It is the job of an artist to find opportunities!"

2007 Video Roda Viva | Ted Nelson | 11/06/2007
2008 Video THN: Ted Nelson at St. Paul's School, London, 5 Feb 2008
2008 Video THN: A very general lecture, 17-Mar-2008
2008 Video THN: Ted Nelson demonstrates Xanadu Space
12/2008 THN: Geeks Bearing Gifts (209 pages) at lulu.com / bei amazon.de / ACM-DL
6/2009 Video THN: Ted Nelson at 50th reunion at Swarthmore, June 2009
2009 Video THN: Ted at University of Bologna, 2009.06.26

2010s

2010 THN: POSSIPLEX: Movies, Intellect, Creative Control, My Computer Life and the Fight for Civilization (380 pages) at lulu.com download, lulu.com printed
10/2010 Video Possiplex Book Launch at the Internet Archive, Oct 8, 2010 | IA Video

2/2011 Video THN: Personal Digital Archiving: The emeror has no clothes | The world is build on a model of data | /Feb 24-25
9/2011 Video THN: Ted Nelson at The Future of Text, 22-Sep 2011 – (Ted's presentation is between 1:40' – 2:00')
10/2011 Video THN: Ted Nelson on the future of text, October 2011
5/2012 Video THN: Computers for Cynics 0 – The Myth of Technology, 22-May-2012 (14' 45")
4/2013 Interview THN interviewed by Dave Marvit /Apr 19
10/2013 Video THN: Ted Nelson at The Future of Text 2013 /Oct 30
2013 Video THN: Ted at Homebrew Computer Club | uTube | different perspective, better audio at bilibili in China
2013 Video THN: Ted Nelson's Eulogy for Douglas Engelbart
2014 Video THN et al.: Intertwingled: The Work and Influence of Ted Nelson (1 day conferene at Chapman University, 24-Apr-2014)
8/2014 Interview Triangulation 164: Ted Nelson
2015 Video THN: Ted Nelson at The Future of Text 2015
2015 THN: What Box? in Dechow, Struppa (ed): Intertwingled – The Work and Influence of Ted Neslon. Springer
Douglas R. Dechow, Daniele C. Struppa: Intertwingled: The Work and Influence of Ted Nelson
2016 Video THN: Two Cheers for Now (45') Web Science Institute, U of Southampton
2016 Video THN: Norway, Software and Me, Oslo 2015
2017 Audio THN: Ted's Presentation at his 80th Birthday Party ()
3/2018 THN at Internet Archive
2018 Interview DWeb Summit Creative Track Conversation Ted + Charles Broskoski

Conversation: Ted Nelson and Charles Broskoski for Decentralized Web Summit 2018's Creative Track

2019 Video THN: Tools & Craft Ted Nelson, Interview by Devin Zuegel
4/2019 Video THN: There is Too Much to Say and it Goes in all Directions (62')
15-Feb-2019 Video THN: Hypercast! An experiment, 2019.02.15
9-Oct-2019 THN: Xanadu History 1960-2019, 2019.10.09
2019 Interview Pioneers: Ted Neslon

2020s

22-May-2020 Video Marc Weber, Ted Nelson et al.: Ted explains Xanadu to Marc Weber's seminar
29-May-2020 Interview Conversation between Ted Nelson and Lee Felsenstein :: 20' counter culture | 24' social internet | 28' SDS 940 (Engelbart’s SRI computer) |
Jun 2020 TheTedNelson 2.0 – all tweets by Ted Nelson; captured and looped by mprove
10-Oct-2021 Interview A presentation at Vintage Computer Festival East | IA video
11-May-2022 Video THN: I Forgot, I Invented Hypertext, Stanford Seminars
Nov 2024 Video THN: Ted's Japan Lecture, Nov 2024

Sometime

? THN: Simplicity Versus Power in User Systems (unpublished, referenced in DM 52)
? THN: Errors in "The Curse of Xanadu," by Gary Wolf . ararat(June 2001)
THN: Biostrategy and Polymind
<97 THN: The Checkmate Proposal
? THN: WORLD ENOUGH: The Manuscript Edition. Contents
? THN: Xanadu Papers, 18 pages
1950s-1980s Ted Nelson's Junk Mail Cartons collection at Internet Archive, more than 6,000 promotional marketing brochures on computers and office automation

Ted’s Pages

Other Resources

Incoming Links

à propos