Project Xanadu

Project Xanadu (/ˈzænəduː/ ZAN-ə-doo)^[1] was the first hypertext project, founded in 1960 by Ted Nelson. Administrators of Project Xanadu have declared it superior to the World Wide Web, with the mission statement: "Today's popular software simulates paper. The World Wide Web (another imitation of paper) trivialises our original hypertext model with one-way ever-breaking links and no management of version or contents."^[2]

Wired magazine published an article entitled "The Curse of Xanadu", calling Project Xanadu "the longest-running vaporware story in the history of the computer industry".^[3] The first attempt at implementation began in 1960, but it was not until 1998 that an incomplete implementation was released. A version described as "a working deliverable", OpenXanadu, was made available in 2014.

^ Director's Cut: Ted Nelson on Hypertext, Douglas Englebart, Xanadu and More. IEEE Spectrum. February 14, 2018. Event occurs at 7:43. Archived from the original on December 11, 2021 – via YouTube.
^ Project homepage
^ Gary Wolf (June 1995). "The Curse of Xanadu". WIRED. Vol. 3, no. 6.

[1] Director's Cut: Ted Nelson on Hypertext, Douglas Englebart, Xanadu and More. IEEE Spectrum. February 14, 2018. Event occurs at 7:43. Archived from the original on December 11, 2021 – via YouTube.

[2] Project homepage

[wiredCurse-3] Gary Wolf (June 1995). "The Curse of Xanadu". WIRED. Vol. 3, no. 6.

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