Theodore Nelson Camped out at IBM
J. Markoff, of NYT, tells the story:
Theodore Holm Nelson, the sociologist and philosopher who coined the term “hypertext” and who is something of an Internet Don Quixote, has had a tremendous influence on the computing world.
However, until last night it wasn’t known that Mr. Nelson, the author of the 1974 manifesto “Computer Lib/Dream Machines” — which helped ignite the personal computer revolution — also blew the minds of a team of I.B.M. executives three years before that company entered the PC market.
The story of Mr. Nelson’s encounter with “Big Blue” was recounted on Monday night by William C. Lowe, the I.B.M. executive who oversaw the introduction of the I.B.M. PC in 1981, at a panel discussion at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. I was moderating the event, which was held to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64 home computer.
Along with Jack Tramiel, the founder of Commodore, Steve Wozniak, Apple’s co-founder, and Adam Chowaniec, the lead designer of the Commodore Amiga, Mr. Lowe retold war stories from an era that brought computing into the mainstream of American life. (Also present in the audience were Al Alcorn, a pioneering Atari engineer, and Lee Felsenstein, the designer of the Sol and the Osborne One computers.)
