Hypertext Editing System: Difference between revisions

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[[Image:HypertextEditingSystemConsoleBrownUniv1969.jpg|thumb|right|Hypertext Editing System (HES) [[IBM 2250]] Display console, with lightpen  – Brown University 1969]]

The '''Hypertext Editing System''', or '''HES''', was an early [[hypertext]] research project conducted at [[Brown University]] in 1967 by [[Andries van Dam]], [[Ted Nelson]], and several Brown students. It was the first hypertext system available on commercial equipment that novices could use.<ref>[http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/4/1/000081/000081.html Belinda Barnet. Crafting the User-Centered Document Interface: The Hypertext Editing System (HES) and the File Retrieval and Editing System (FRESS)]</ref>

HES organized data into two main types: links and branching text. The branching text could automatically be arranged into menus and a point within a given area could also have an assigned name, called a label, and be accessed later by that name from the screen. Although HES pioneered many modern hypertext concepts, its emphasis was on text formatting and printing.

HES ran on an [[IBM System/360 Model 50]] [[mainframe computer]], which was inefficient for the processing power required by the system. The program was used by [[NASA]]'s Houston Manned Spacecraft Center for documentation on the [[Apollo program|Apollo]] space program.<ref>van Dam, Andries. (1988, July). [http://www.cs.brown.edu/memex/HT_87_Keynote_Address.html Hypertext '87 keynote address]. ''[[Communications of the ACM]]'', 31, 887–895.</ref> The project's research was funded by [[IBM]] but the program was stopped around 1969, and replaced by the [[FRESS]] (File Retrieval and Editing System) project.