hypertext

A writer on the SDF community hosting has published a phlog post asking why anyone would still use Gopher, the pre-web hypertext protocol from the early 1990s, in 2026. The piece is drawing attention on Hacker News, where it sits near the top of the front page, with commenters debating the appeal of Gopher's simplicity, low bandwidth needs, and escape from the modern web's clutter.

Ted Nelson coined the term hypertext in 1965, and his original vision called for links working in both directions, so readers could trace back to every page pointing at a document. Renewed attention to that idea highlights how the web adopted only one-way links, and Nelson's Project Xanadu never became the standard.

A black and white photograph from 1969 shows Douglas Engelbart and colleagues at SRI working with the On-Line System (NLS). In the image, Engelbart operates a mouse and a five-finger keypad while others watch separate terminals. The photo documents early computing history, capturing the pioneering human-computer interface work that introduced the mouse and hypertext-style navigation years before personal computers existed.