The Web Before the Web: Putting the Hype into Hypertext

Ian Ritchie

14:30 - Events starts

17:00 - Event ends

The talk will describe where the technology (hypertext) which enables the World Wide Web came from, which surprisingly, dates back as far as 1945. My company launched the first hypertext application in 1986 (which won the BCS Award) and I’ve written a book on this subject.

Along the way I will cover the first 20 years of the personal computer — from the launch of the Apple II in the mid-70s to the mid-90s, by which time GUI is the normal PC interface (Mouse, Windows etc), the Internet and the World Wide Web are all established. Today’s computer is a more powerful version of this environment.

Ian Ritchie founded OWL in Edinburgh and Seattle in the mid 1980s and it pioneered hypertext technology on personal computers with its Guide product.

After selling the company to Panasonic in 1990 he has since been involved in approximately 50 start-up technology business. He was President of the BCS in 1998-99.

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Photo by Joshua Sortino

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Computer Conservation Society

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