Xanadu World Publishing Repository Frequently Asked Questions
Andrew Pam
Last-modified: 1996/06/29
Version: 1.52
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 ava...@xanadu.com.au
(Andrew Pam) of Xanadu Australia and posted approximately monthly.
This document is copyright (c) 1994-1996 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.xanadu.com.au/xanadu/ or http://www.xanadu.net/xanadu/.
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 What software meets some of the Xanadu requirements?
4 What is the history of the Xanadu system?
5 How can I contact Project Xanadu?
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 5 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 What software meets some of the Xanadu requirements?
------------------------------------------------------
3a
HyperWave (formerly Hyper-G) is based on the Xanadu ideas and
supports requirements 2a-2d, bivisible and bifollowable links from
requirement 2f, requirements 2h-2j and 2o.
____________________________________________________________
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 answers 6a and 6b 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".
1996:
Nelson became a Professor of Environmental Information at the
Shonan Fujisawa Campus of Keio University.
____________________________________________________________
5 How can I contact Project Xanadu?
-----------------------------------
5a
The Xanadu Team
Email
Write to xanadu-...@xanadu.com.au to join the Xanadu mailing
list. Members of the Xanadu team monitor and contribute to the
list on a regular basis.
5b
Project Xanadu
Email
t...@xanadu.net (Ted Nelson)
Snail mail
Project Xanadu, 3020 Bridgeway #295, Sausalito CA 94965 USA.
5c
Xanadu Australia
Email
ava...@xanadu.com.au (Andrew Pam)
Snail mail
Xanadu Australia, P.O. Box 409, Canterbury VIC 3126 Australia.
5d
Xanadu America
Email
s...@xanadu.net (Sam Epstein)
____________________________________________________________
6 What Xanadu-related merchandise is currently available?
---------------------------------------------------------
6a
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
Email: t...@xanadu.net
* 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.
6b
"Literary Machines" is also available from:
Eastgate Systems
134 Main Street
Watertown MA 02172 USA
Phone: +1 (800) 562-1638 or +1 (617) 924-9044
Fax: +1 (617) 924-9051
Email: in...@eastgate.com
http://www.eastgate.com/products/Cat_Books.html#Nelson
6c
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
____________________________________________________________
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 Holistic 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 ava...@xanadu.com.au (Andrew Pam). Much
of the material in the answers to questions 1, 4 and 6 was
graciously provided by Ted Nelson.
$$
--
mailto:xa...@aus.xanadu.com Andrew Pam
http://www.aus.xanadu.com/xanadu/ Coordinator, Xanadu Australia
http://www.glasswings.com.au/GlassWings/ Technical Editor, Glass Wings
http://www.sericyb.com.au/sc/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics