(From a letter to Martin Heller, PC guru)

[Ted Nelson <ted@xxxxxxxxxx>]

...

My first deliverable software ever, now called ZigZag
 ("Dimensia" was taken as a trademark!-- ZigZag not!)--
 is at www.xanadu.net. 

It presents a software space for all purposes that seems
 to be completely new-- although it's been waiting,
 somewhere in dimensionland, for eons.

This is an alternative to the world of icons, desktops
 and paper simulation-- the Xerox PARC paradigm
 of "GUIs" in which we are currently inundated.
 It is a world of pure multidimensional connection
 with some extremely interesting structures and uses
 I have already found, and more to come.

An article giving screen pictures and examples is at
http://www.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~ted/zigzag/xybrap.html

The current version is 0.49, whatever that means.
 It's certainly not ready for prime time.  Development
 and maintenance are by two volunteers in Australia.

You can make a boot disk
 that comes up running ZigZag under Linux-- with no
 hard disk drivers, so probably "safe"-- at 
www.xanadu.net/zigzag/zzdemo.zip

Instructions for making the disk are at
www.xanadu.net/zigzag/HZinstrux.html

Instructions for exploring the system are at
www.xanadu.net/zigzag/zzDirex.html

This allows you to play in the abstract
 multidimensional space.  In a few weeks
 I hope to move some of my demo structures
 to the next boot disk.

ZigZag is written in Perl, with a lot of boost from the
 FreeBSD hash database system (built into Perl).
 Currently it only runs under Linux because of
 the interface problem. 

While we are hoping to create some sort of an
 interface using regular Web browsers, this is
 not going to be easy.

ChrzT
________________________________________________________
Theodor Holm Nelson, Visiting Professor of Environmental Information
 Keio University, Shonan Fujisawa Campus, Fujisawa, Japan
http://www.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~ted/    PERMANENT E-MAIL: ted@xxxxxxxxxx
 Home Fax: 0466-46-7368  From USA: 011-81-466-46-7368
_________________________________________________________
Project Xanadu (Permanent)
 3020 Bridgeway #295, Sausalito CA 94965
 Tel. 415/ 331-4422, fax 415/ 332-0136
http://www.xanadu.net
_________________________________________________________
Quotation of the day, 98.07.25:
"There is always far more to be explained than you possibly imagined would
be necessary when you started explaining."  TN98