HyperTIES is The Interactive Encyclopedia System. It began in 1983 at the University of Maryland HCIL as TIES, on IBM PCs. Dan Ostroff wrote the first embedded menus that year. The name changed in 1986 when TIES hit a trademark.
This website is that system, pointed at markdown. The NeWS workstation browser of 1988–89 is what you are using: a short definition on a single click, the article on a double click, pictures whose pieces pop. Ben Shneiderman directed the lab. Catherine Plaisant, Rodrigo Botafogo, Don Hopkins, and William Weiland wrote the 1991 paper that is still the account of this browser: A Look Back.
Click a link once to read what it is. Click twice to go there. Click the paper to see every link.
The 1988 demo that made the argument is Hubble. Point at an instrument. It pops. Click the sky. They all pop.
- Food Transfer Protocol — Kent Pitman's 1982 FTP parody for MIT-MC, restored from the ITS binary. CONNECT to a Cambridge restaurant, set your BITE size, read the MENU, on a green phosphor terminal.
- PIXIE live — a PDP-7 running in this page. Heinz Lemke's 1972 PIXIE program, SYMELEC, executing on an emulated PDP-7 and Type 340 vector display. Your mouse is the light pen. The earliest known radial menus, operated by hand.
- Little Computer People — Activision's 1985 house on a disk, on an Apple ][ in this page. microM8 runs the original disks. A screen angel watches the screen: it turns the disk over, asks your name and the date, runs fast while he moves in, then gives you the buttons to take care of him.
- The cabinet — the emulators in one catalog: PDP-7 programs on the Type 340 display, and Apple ][ disks.
- Sun Founders Big Heads — Educom 1988. Point at a Sun founder and his head pops out. Click the background and all three pop. I inflated them by blowing into the optical mouse, for a guy who turned out to be Bill Joy.
- A Look Back — Shneiderman, Plaisant, Botafogo, Hopkins, Weiland, 1991. The paper, with the pictures, on this site.
- Wikipedia — the stub the encyclopedia has. This page is the article they have not written.
- Hacker News archive — the threads and mail, split into articles instead of one wall.
- The blue link — why light blue, and what Ben claims.
- Definition previews — single click considers, double click goes.
The converted 1988 databases are lower on this page because they are exhibits, not the story.
- Pie Menu Cookbook — Don Hopkins, 1988. Circular menus.
- NeWS HyperTIES Docs — authoring, target classes, the live workstation demos.
- Playground — new demos and tests, including the live PDP-7. Not the explanation.
- PIXIE — radial menus on a PDP-7 at Cambridge, 1969. The people, the films, the plan, and a door to the running program.