Jul 25, 2021
Hypertext has really become a core offering of daily
life, and defined the face of the Internet for decades. But the
links and formatting we know so well only make up part of the
story. Today we are looking at FRESS(the File Retrieval and Editing
SyStem), a hypertext system developed at Brown University at the
tail end of the 60s. What makes FRESS so crucial in the history of
hypertext is that it was extensively studied. Multiple experiments
were carried out to test if FRESS, and hypertext in general, had a
place in classrooms.
Some
useful sources from this episode:
https://sci-hub.do/10.1162%2F109966299751940814
1999 paper on FRESS and hypertext
in general by Andres van Dam
https://archive.org/details/VanDamFinalReport1976
Final experimental
report
https://archive.org/details/AndyVanDamHypertextFilm
Short film on the FRESS
experiment
