Which cover should I open first?
Do my children realize the one, salient difference between them and me? One word: history. I belong to an era they can never know. Let’s use a pair of acronyms: BW and AW.
You see, I came into society at a point where the printed word actually held a place at the head table. Without books, or scripted media, the world shrunk to whatever you held in your hand. BW.
They came along at a moment of reinvention. While the word remained important, it could be shared with anyone else. Beyond radio and TV. In a short period, the WWW was hatched. Perhaps the best egg ever. AW.
I’m still watching Halt And Catch Fire. And to see the unveiling of hypertext, stylized for TV, brings back so many memories. My children were not old enough to read, or write. Suddenly, they were given a seat on a wonderful bus that had no boundaries. Back in ’78, one of my grad school courses asked that we purchase a wonderful text by Ted Nelson. Oversize, printed by pasteup, two covers: Computer Lib/Dream Machines
Worthy of its own bookshelf, in short. Ted walked up through the principles of linked documents, and with that, my world shifted in orbit. I don’t think I kept my copy, but there’s got to be a store, out there, ready to renew my reading. Perhaps I’ll find a virtual version, fit for sharing with the kids, although I’m sure it will seem primitive to them. After all, the WWW has always been there, for a significant number of my neighbours.
