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#paulotlet#mundaneum#hypertext

Paul Otlet, visioning a web in 1934

Attila Gárdos

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  • Recommended by 1 person: 1 on Hacker News.

Beginner. No background in the topic needed.

102K views18 years ago1 recommendation

History and cultureHistory of computing

A brief look at Paul Otlet, the Belgian bibliographer who envisioned a global network of 'electric telescopes' retrieving remote database information in 1934.

Paul Otlet, a Belgian bibliographer, pacifist and entrepreneur imagined a day when users would access the database from great distances by means of an "electric telescope" connected through a telephone line, retrieving a facsimile image to be projected remotely on a flat screen.

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1 person recommends this

What people say. Recommended as a fascinating historical look at one of the earliest conceptual precursors to the World Wide Web.

tokaion Hacker News • Recommends

On “Some Day, You’ll Have a Telephone with a Screen and Be Able To Dial a Book”

I always have to mention Paul Otlet, when the topic of early predictions of technology comes up. Too bad he was all but forgotten. link to this video link
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Createon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web”

and while at it some links to the real origins of the web: For ADD-ers: link to this video The story: link Long PR story short: RPC was already prevalent, that is how you control(led) your stuff remotely. Like Tim did on his day job. Today, if you'd ask for a NeXT-like toy, you'd be denied were you an average Eastern member of CERN (n.b. western equivalent). As a true westerner, TBL asked for it and got one. Put the gopher link address ptr in the reserved field of the text font properties (where things like bold and italics properties are stored) and voilà. Mix in a simplified SGML for markup (as it was customary back then for typefaces and layout on printers). One could also hire cheap disposable st…
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Createon Hacker News • Mentions

On “First ever color X-ray on a human”

Are you referring to the stripped down SGML, RPC or hyperlinks? Or the combination? Because all three have been around much before. In many flavours and mixes. The WWW variant’s adoption had more to do with politics than scientific/technical merit. link to this video link or link
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labradoron Hacker News • Mentions

On “Marshall McLuhan 1966 – Predicting the Internet [video]”

He's not predicting the internet. He's predicting increasing customizations of products. Alvin Toffler continues McLuhan's themes in his book Future Shock 1, which was also not about the internet. Someone who did predict the internet was Paul Otlet in 1934 2 1 link 2 link to this video
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