Subject: Xanadu World Publishing Repository Frequently Asked Questions
Date: 14 Mar 1995 15:23:02 GMT
Summary: This posting contains a list of Frequently Asked Questions (and their answers) about the Xanadu(tm) World Publishing Repository(tm) project.
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Xanadu FAQ
==========

  This document contains information about the Xanadu Project which
  may be of interest to the general public and readers of the xanews
  mailing list.  It is currently maintained by avatar@aus.xanadu.com
  (Andrew Pam) of Xanadu Australia and posted approximately monthly.

  This document is copyright (c) 1994 Xanadu Australia and may be
  freely distributed in any media providing it is not modified in
  any way and no fee is charged either for this document or for any
  composite work in which it is included.

  This FAQ and other Xanadu information are also available at
  http://www.aus.xanadu.com/ or via gopher gopher.aus.xanadu.com.

  Questions in this document are numbered, and answers are labelled
  with letters of the alphabet.  Thus 1 is the first question, and
  1a is the first answer to the first question.  Suggestions for
  additions, corrections and expansion of the material in this
  document are welcomed.


Contents
--------

1) What is Xanadu?
2) What requirements do Xanadu systems aim to meet?
3) How can I contact Project Xanadu?
4) What is the history of the Xanadu system?
5) What has been written about Xanadu and Hypertext?
6) What Xanadu-related merchandise is currently available?
7) What is the history of the name "Xanadu"?

  ____________________________________________________________


1 What is Xanadu?
-----------------


1a

  Xanadu is a trade and service mark of Project Xanadu for computer
  software and services for electronic publishing and media
  manipulation.  See question 3 below for Project Xanadu contact
  details.


1b

  Xanadu is the original hypertext and interactive multimedia
  system, under continuous development since 1960.  See question 4
  below for the history of the Xanadu system.


1c

  Xanadu is an overall paradigm - an ideal and general model for all
  computer use, based on sideways connections among documents and
  files.  This paradigm is especially concerned with electronic
  publishing, but also extends to all forms of storing, presenting
  and working with information.  It is a unifying system of order
  for all information, non-hierarchical and side-linking, including
  electronic publishing, personal work, organisation of files,
  corporate work and groupware.

  All data (for instance, paragraphs of a text document) may be
  connected sideways and out of sequence to other data (for
  instance, paragraphs of another text document).  This requires new
  forms of storage, and invites new forms of presentation to show
  these connections.

  On a small scale, the paradigm means a model of word processing
  where comments, outlines and other notes may be stored
  conceptually adjacent to a document, linked to it sideways.  On a
  large scale, the paradigm means a model of publishing where anyone
  may quote from and publish links to any already-published
  document, and any reader may follow these links to and from the
  document.


1d

  Xanadu is an ideal of open electronic publishing based on the
  paradigm mentioned in answer 1c above.  It is intended to be
  especially free and fair, where all authors and readers are
  considered equal.  It is a complete business system for electronic
  publishing based on this ideal with a win-win set of arrangements,
  contracts and software for the sale of copyrighted material in
  large and small amounts.  It is a planned world-wide publishing
  network based on this business system.  It is optimised for a
  point-and-click universe, where users jump from document to
  document, following links and buying small pieces as they go.


1e

  The Xanadu Australia formal problem definition is:

  We need a way for people to store information not as individual
  "files" but as a connected literature.  It must be possible to
  create, access and manipulate this literature of richly formatted
  and connected information cheaply, reliably and securely from
  anywhere in the world.  Documents must remain accessible
  indefinitely, safe from any kind of loss, damage, modification,
  censorship or removal except by the owner.  It must be impossible
  to falsify ownership or track individual readers of any document.

  This system of literature (the "Xanadu Docuverse") must allow
  people to create virtual copies ("transclusions") of any existing
  collection of information in the system **regardless of
  ownership**.  In order to make this possible, the system must
  guarantee that the owner of any information will be paid their
  chosen royalties on any portions of their documents, no matter how
  small, whenever and wherever they are used.

  ____________________________________________________________


2 What requirements do Xanadu systems aim to meet?
--------------------------------------------------


2a

  Every Xanadu server is uniquely and securely identified.


2b

  Every Xanadu server can be operated independently or in a network.


2c

  Every user is uniquely and securely identified.


2d

  Every user can search, retrieve, create and store documents.


2e

  Every document can consist of any number of parts each of which
  may be of any data type.


2f

  Every document can contain links of any type including virtual
  copies ("transclusions") to any other document in the system
  accessible to its owner.  Permission to link to a document is
  explicitly granted by the act of publication.  Links are visible
  and can be followed from all endpoints.


2g

  Every document can contain a royalty mechanism at any desired
  degree of granularity to ensure payment on any portion accessed,
  including virtual copies ("transclusions") of all or part of the
  document.


2h

  Every document is uniquely and securely identified.


2i

  Every document can have secure access controls.


2j

  Every document can be rapidly searched, stored and retrieved
  without user knowledge of where it is physically stored.


2k

  Every document is automatically moved to physical storage
  appropriate to its frequency of access from any given location.


2l

  Every document is automatically stored redundantly to maintain
  availability even in case of a disaster.


2m

  Every Xanadu service provider can charge their users at any rate
  they choose for the storage, retrieval and publishing of
  documents.


2n

  Every transaction is secure and auditable only by the parties to
  that transaction.


2o

  The Xanadu client-server communication protocol is an openly
  published standard.  Third-party software development and
  integration is encouraged.

  ____________________________________________________________


3 How can I contact Project Xanadu?
-----------------------------------


3a

  By joining the xanadu mailing list.  Members of the Xanadu team
  monitor and contribute to the list on a regular basis.


3b

  By email to avatar@aus.xanadu.com or by snail mail to:

  Xanadu Australia,
  P.O.  Box 409, Canterbury VIC 3126 Australia.


3c

  By snail mail to:

  Project Xanadu, 3020 Bridgeway #295, Sausalito CA 94965 USA.
  ____________________________________________________________



4 What is the history of the Xanadu system?
-------------------------------------------

  Ted Nelson thought up the whole thing in 1960, and has been
  speaking and publishing about the idea since 1965.  In that year
  he also coined the terms "hypertext" and "hypermedia" for
  non-sequential writings and branching presentations of all types.
  (The term "interactive multimedia" seems to have become popular
  recently.)

  Since that time there have been a long series of changing designs
  embodying these ideas:

1960:
  Nelson's designs showed two screen windows connected by visible
  lines, pointing from parts of an object in one window to
  corresponding parts of an object in another window.  No existing
  windowing software provides this facility even today.

1965:
  Nelson's design concentrated on the single-user system and was
  based on "zipper lists", sequential lists of elements which could
  be linked sideways to other zipper lists for large non-sequential
  text structures.

1970:
  Nelson invented certain data structures and algorithms called the
  "enfilade" which became the basis for much later work (still
  proprietary to Xanadu Operating Company, Inc.)

1972:
  Implementations ran in both Algol and Fortran.

1974:
  William Barus extended the enfilade concept to handle
  interconnection.

1979:
  Nelson assembled a new team (Roger Gregory, Mark Miller, Stuart
  Greene, Roland King and Eric Hill) to redesign the system.

1981:
  K.  Eric Drexler created a new data structure and algorithms for
  complex versioning and connection management.

  The Project Xanadu team completed the design of a universal
  networking server for Xanadu, described in various editions of Ted
  Nelson's book "Literary Machines" (see answer 6c below).

1983:
  Xanadu Operating Company, Inc.  (XOC, Inc.) was formed to complete
  development of the 1981 design.

1988:
  XOC, Inc.  was acquired by Autodesk, Inc.  and amply funded, with
  offices in Palo Alto and later Mountainview California.  Work
  continued with Mark Miller as chief designer.

  The 1981 design (now called Xanadu 88.1) was topped off but Miller
  began a redesign.  Xanadu 88.1 was not subjected to quality
  control or released as a product.

  Dean Tribble and Ravi Pandya became co-designers and work on the
  redesign continued.

1992:
  Autodesk entered into the throes of an organisational shakeup and
  dropped the project, after expenditures on the order of five
  million US dollars.  Rights to continued development of the XOC
  server were licensed to Memex, Inc.  of Palo Alto, California and
  the trademark "Xanadu" was re-assigned to Nelson.

1993:
  Nelson re-thought the whole thing and respecified Xanadu
  publishing as a system of business arrangements.  Minimal
  specifications for a publishing system were created under the name
  "Xanadu Light", and Andrew Pam of Serious Cybernetics in
  Melbourne, Australia was licensed to continue development as
  Xanadu Australia.

1994:
  Nelson was invited to Japan and founded the Sapporo HyperLab.
  Memex changed their name to Filoli.  SenseMedia became the second
  Xanadu licensee under the name of "Xanadu America".

  ____________________________________________________________


5 What has been written about Xanadu and Hypertext?
---------------------------------------------------

"As We May Think"
  Vannevar Bush, The Atlantic Monthly July 1945

"A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing and the
Indeterminate"
  Ted Nelson, proceedings of the ACM 20th national conference 1965

"The Hypertext"
  Ted Nelson, proceedings of the World Documentation Federation 1965

"Suggestion for an On-Line Braille Display"
  Ted Nelson, proceedings of the Society for Information Display
  autumn 1965

"Computer-Indexed Film Handling"
  Ted Nelson, SMPTE conference preprint autumn 1965

"New Media and Creativity Systems"
  Ted Nelson, graphical brochure intended to expound computer
  graphics and related concepts circa 1966

"Hypertext Notes"
  Ted Nelson, ten brief essays on hypertext forms circulated in
  manuscript circa 1966

"Getting It Out of Our System"
  Ted Nelson, in Schecter, "Information Retrieval:  A Critical
  View", Thompson Books 1967

"A Hypertext Editing System for the 360"
  Ted Nelson, Steven Carmody et al.  in Faiman and Nievergelt
  (editors), "Pertinent Concepts in Computer Graphics", University
  of Illinois Press 1969

"No More Teacher's Dirty Looks"
  Ted Nelson, Computer Decisions September 1970

  Partially reprinted in Les Brown and Sema Marks, "Electric Media",
  Harcourt 1974

  Fully reprinted in Ted Nelson, "Computer Lib" 1974

"Barnum-Tronics"
  Ted Nelson, Swarthmore College Alumni Bulletin December 1970

"Las Vegas Confrontation Sit-Out:  A CAI Radical's View from
Solitary"
  Ted Nelson, SIGCUE Newsletter 1971

"As We Will Think"
  Ted Nelson, proceedings of the Online '72 conference, Brunel
  University, Uxbridge England

"A Conceptual Framework for Man-Machine Everything"
  Ted Nelson, proceedings of the (U.S.) National Joint Computer
  Conference 1973

"Computer Lib/Dream Machines"
  Ted Nelson, Mindful Press 1974

"Computopia and Cybercrud"
  Ted Nelson, in Levien (editor), "Computers in Instruction", The
  Rand Corporation 1974

"Computer Graphics as a Way of Life"
  Ted Nelson, Tom DeFanti and Dan Sandin, proceedings of the first
  SIGGRAPH conference 1974

"Data Realms and Magic Windows"
  Ted Nelson, proceedings of ACPA-5 Association of Computer
  Programmers and Analysts 1975

"A Dream for Irving Snerd"
  Ted Nelson, Creative Computing magazine circa July 1977

"Electronic Publishing and Electronic Literature"
  Ted Nelson, in Edward DeLand (editor), "Information Technology in
  Health Science Education", Plenum Press 1978

"Replacing the Printed Word:  A Complete Literary System"
  Ted Nelson, proceedings of the World Computer Conference 1980
  pages 1013--1023, S.H.  Lavington (editor), "Information
  Processing 80", North-Holland Publishing Company 1980

"Interactive Systems and the Design of Virtuality"
  Ted Nelson, Creative Computing magazine November & December 1980

"Literary Machines"
  Ted Nelson, self-published 1981

"The Magicians, the Snark and the Camel"
  Ted Nelson, pages 128--156, Creative Computing magazine volume 7
  #11 November 1981

"A New Home for the Mind"
  Ted Nelson, pages 169--180, Datamation magazine March 1982

"The Prophet from Xanadu"
  Clifford Barney, PC World magazine volume 1 #3 circa June 1983

"Computopia Now!"
  Ted Nelson, pages 349--351 in Steve Ditlea (editor), "Digital
  Deli", Workman Publishing San Francisco 1984

"Tools for Thought:  The People and Ideas behind the **Next**
Computer Revolution"
  Howard Rheingold, Simon and Schuster 1985 (page 24 and pages
  295--305)

"Engines of Creation:  Challenges and Choices of the Last
Technological Revolution"
  K.  Eric Drexler, Anchor/Doubleday 1986 (pages 220--230)

Article in The Economist (London) 23 August 1986

"A Vision of the Future"
  Ted Nelson, Publishers Weekly 23 November 1986

"The Tyranny of the File"
  Ted Nelson, Datamation magazine 15 December 1986

"Computer Lib/Dream Machines"
  Ted Nelson, second edition Microsoft Press 1987

"Literary Machines 87.1"
  Ted Nelson, self-published 1987

"Literary Machines"
  Ted Nelson, electronic edition OWL International, Inc.  Bellevue
  Washington 1987

"All for One and One for All"
  Ted Nelson, proceedings of the Hypertext '87 conference November
  1987

"Managing Immense Storage"
  Ted Nelson, pages 225--238, BYTE magazine volume 13 #1 January
  1988

"To Strike the Lightning"
  Ted Nelson, HyperAge February-March 1988

"The Call of the Ocean:  Hypertext Universal and Open"
  Ted Nelson, HyperAge May-June 1988

"Literary Machines 88.1"
  Ted Nelson, self-published 1988

Hypertext '87 keynote address
  Andries van Dam, pages 887--895, CACM volume 31 #7 July 1988

"Macintosh Hypermedia Volume I, Reference Guide"
  Michael Fraase, Scott, Foresman and Company 1990

"Hypertext Publishing"
  Marc Stiegler, Unix Review magazine February 1990

  Reprinted in "Xanadu Documentation for Spire(TM) v1.01", pages
  3--5, Xanadu Operating Company June 1991

"Literary Machines 90.1"
  Ted Nelson, self-published 1990

"Virtual World Without End"
  Ted Nelson, keynote to the CyberArts International conference 7
  September 1990
  (Available from Mindful Press)

"On the Xanadu Project"
  Ted Nelson, pages 298--299 BYTE magazine volume 15 #9 September
  1990 (picture and bio on page 304)

"HyperTed"
  Steve Ditlea, pages 201--210, PC/Computing magazine October 1990

"Literary Machines 91.1"
  Ted Nelson, self-published 1991

"Building Xanadu"
  Michael Swaine, pages 111--115, Dr.  Dobb's Journal issue #175
  April 1991

"Intellectual property rights for digital library and hypertext
publishing systems:  An analysis of Xanadu"
  Pamela Samuelson & Robert Glushko, pages 39--50, proceedings of
  the ACM Conference on Hypertext 1991

"Two Men, Two Visions of One Computer World, Indivisible"
  Andrew Pollack, page 13, The New York Times 8 December 1991

"Xanadu Hypermedia Server Developer Documentation"
  The Xanadu Operating Company, Inc.  15 July 1992
  (Available from Mindful Press)

"Xanadu Space 1993"
  Ted Nelson, Mindful Press 25 October 1992

"TidBITS#30/Xanadu"
  Ian Feldman, TidBITS ezine issue #30 1992

"Literary Machines 93.1"
  Ted Nelson, Mindful Press 1993

"Intellectual property rights for digital library and hypertext
publishing systems"
  Pamela Samuelson & Robert Glushko, pages 237--261, Harvard Journal
  of Law & Technology Spring 1993

"Electric Word:  Xanadu Redux"
  pages 25--26, WiReD magazine issue 1.2 May/June 1993

"TidBITS#204"
  Adam C.  Engst, TidBITS ezine issue #204 29 November 1993

"WWW Activity at Hypertext '93"
  Kevin Hughes, WWW page 29 November 1993

"The Virtual Community (finding connection in a computerized world)"
  Howard Rheingold, Secker & Warburg 1994 (page 103)

"State of the Art Review on Hypermedia Issues and Applications"
  V.  Balasubramian, WWW pages March 1994

"A pleasure dome for the digital dreamer"
  Lisa Mitchell, pages 23--25 The Age (Melbourne) issue 43,324 12
  April 1994

"Publishing in the Point-and-Click Universe"
  Ted Nelson, proceedings of the First Australian National
  Convergence Symposium 13--15 April 1994

"Hyperformance in the Hyperfuture"
  Ted Nelson, proceedings of the John Moores University Multimedia
  Conference, Liverpool May 1994

"Xanadu You"
  Jeremy Torr, page 35 Just Magazines Computer Market issue #16 June
  1994

"Here in Xanadu"
  Stephen Withers, page 6 Australian & New Zealand MacUser June 1994

"XANADU:  the Conversation of the Digital Text"
  Avon Huxor, pages 1923--1927, Mediamatic volume 8 issue #1 Summer
  1994

"The Xanadu Express Royalty Server and Payment System"
  Ted Nelson, brochure distributed at ONE BBSCON, Denver August 1994

"K-Tree Container Data Structures"
  Rodney Bates, pages 26--34 Dr.  Dobb's Journal, September 1994

"In Search of Xanadu"
  Cara Spring-Gardner, pages 14--15 THE MESSAGE issue #8 October
  1994

  ____________________________________________________________


6 What Xanadu-related merchandise is currently available?
---------------------------------------------------------


6a

  The book "Computer Lib/Dream Machines" by Ted Nelson, 1987
  Microsoft Press edition ISBN 0-914845-49-7 is available from all
  good booksellers for US$18.95 retail.


6b

  An audio cassette of "Xanadu - Publishing with Royalty", Ted's
  talk at ONE BBSCON in Atlanta August 1994, is available as tape
  #694-9 for US$7 plus US$5 shipping and handling (international
  orders add 20%) from:

  The ONE BBSCON Resource Link
  3139 Campus Dr., Suite 300
  Norcross, Georgia 30071-1402
  Phone:  +1 (800) 241-7785
  Fax:  +1 (404) 447-0543


6c

  The following items are available from:

  Mindful Press
  3020 Bridgeway #295
  Sausalito, California 94965 USA
  Phone:  +1 (415) 331-4422
  Fax:  +1 (415) 332-0136

* Books:
*   "Computer Lib" by Ted Nelson, 1976 collector's edition for $100.
*   "Literary Machines" by Ted Nelson, 1993 edition for $25.
*   "Xanadu Hypermedia Server documentation", 1993 draft for $250.

* Papers:
*   "Virtual World Without End", 16 pages for $10.
*   "Xanadu Space 1993", 8 pages for $10.

* Videos:
*   "A Technical Overview of the Xanadu System", NTSC $75, PAL $100.

* Misc:
*   Xanadu Flaming X pin for $50.

  Add $5 postage and handling per $50 ordered, plus $15 for orders
  outside the USA.  All prices quoted are in US dollars.

  ____________________________________________________________


7 What is the history of the name "Xanadu"?
-------------------------------------------


7a

  Marco Polo mentioned the original palace "Shan-Du", somewhere near
  Beijing, in his autobiography.


7b

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge published the poem "Kubla Khan",
  considered the sexiest in the English language, in the early 19th
  century.  Supposedly Coleridge wrote a thousand lines in his mind
  while in an opiate trance, but was interrupted while trying to
  write it down by the infamous "person from Porlock" who bothered
  him on trivial business and made him forget the rest of the poem.
  This has been disputed by scholars who didn't believe there
  actually could have been any more to the poem.  Coleridge was
  inspired by the autobiography of Marco Polo mentioned in answer 7a
  above, which he was reading.


7c

  Orson Welles, in his famous film "Citizen Kane", named the palace
  of Charles Foster Kane "Xanadu" after the Coleridge poem.  It was
  based on the real life palace of San Simeon owned by William
  Randolph Hearst.


7d

  Ted Nelson named his World Publishing Repository (trademark of
  Project Xanadu) project after the Coleridge poem, to suggest "the
  magic place of literary memory where nothing is forgotten".


7e

  The secret hideout of Mandrake the Magician in the comic strip of
  the same name was called "Xanadu" (presumably after the Coleridge
  poem).


7f

  The rock group Rush released a song called Xanadu, obviously
  inspired by "Kubla Khan", on their 1970s album "Farewell to
  Kings".


7g

  The 1980 movie "Xanadu" starring Olivia Newton-John as a muse was
  also named after the Coleridge poem, as an allusion to literary
  inspiration.  She also sang the title song.


7h

  The pop group "Frankie Goes To Hollywood" released a 1984 album
  named "Welcome To The Pleasure Dome", on which the title song
  contains the line "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a pleasure dome
  erect".


7i

  Greg Bear used "Kubla Khan" in his 1984 science fiction novel "The
  Infinity Concerto" and its sequel "The Serpent Mage" (collectively
  published as "Songs of Earth and Power"), in which the poem is
  considered a song of power whose completion would have vast
  political and social implications.  The book also features a
  massive palace called Xanadu.


7j

  David Butler based the plot of his 1986 science-fiction novel "The
  Men Who Mastered Time" around the story of "Kubla Khan".


7k

  Douglas Adams used the story of the creation of the Coleridge poem
  mentioned in answer 7b above as a central part of the plot of his
  science-fiction novel "Dirk Gently's Wholistic Detective Agency".


7l

  Douglas Adams wrote a 1990 BBC Television documentary called
  "Hyperland" starring himself, former "Doctor Who" Tom Baker, Ted
  Nelson and many computer industry luminaries.  The documentary
  discussed the Xanadu system and quoted "Kubla Khan".

  ____________________________________________________________


Credits
-------

  This FAQ was written by avatar@aus.xanadu.com (Andrew Pam).  Much
  of the material in the answers to questions 1, 4, 5 and 6 was
  graciously provided by Ted Nelson.

$$
