Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T02:29:29.986Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

External Memories: Hypertext, Traces and Agents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Guy Boy
Guy Boy*
Affiliation:
EURISCO
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

‘External memories’ raise a question about context: ‘external to what?’ External memory is a technical term applied to everything that can be memorized in an individual's environment. As a general rule I have decided to retain the technical terms that characterize the area of the topic under discussion. It was Ted Nelson who coined the word hypertext in 1967 to signify non-sequential writing as well as a computer technology that allowed the user to move about freely by means of software links. I shall use the term software to mean computer programs. Electronic publishing started with the Xanadu system developed by Nelson. At the lowest level a hypertext is a system for managing databases that allows the user to connect together information screens using links. It is a collection of texts interconnected by means of interactive switches. This dynamic presentation of non-linear texts could not be printed on a conventional page. Hypertext allows the origin of a piece of information to be traced. In this article traceability is synonymous with explanation: ‘Why was this equipment designed in one way rather than another?’ It is about discovering the route of the design process that led to the eventual idea for the equipment. The necessary explanations are often required long after decisions were made, and this is why traceability is a matter of memory. The term agent is often used to mean those members of a community that act on its behalf. There are agents for a company or public department. There are biological agents. In a non-technological world traceability is ideally carried out by human agents who explain to other human agents. The term agent has been extended into the computer world to mean software to which the user delegates, sometimes unwittingly, tasks of varying complexity. These are then called software agents. In this article I refer to agent in its wider meaning, to be understood as an actor or an entity able to act in a limited context and having a quite specific role and appropriate resources.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 49 , Issue 196 , December 2002 , pp. 112 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2002

References

Barrett, E. (1992), Sociomedia, Multimedia, Hypermedia and the Social Construction of Knowledge (Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press).Google Scholar
Boy, G.A. (1991), Computer Integrated Documentation (California, Ames Research Centre), NASA Technical Memorandum.Google Scholar
Boy, G.A. (1991), Intelligent Assistant Systems (London, Academic Press).Google Scholar
Boy, G.A. (1998), Cognitive Function Analysis (Stanford, Conn., Ablex).Google Scholar
Bush, V. (1945), As we may think, in Atlantic Monthly, July, pp. 101–108.Google Scholar
Engelbart, D.C. (1963), A conceptual framework for the augmentation of man's intellect, in Vistas in Information Handling, vol. 1 (London, Spartan Books).Google Scholar
Engelbart, D.C. & English, W.K. (1968), A research center for augmenting human intellect, in American Federation of Information Processing Societies Conference Proceedings of the Fall Joint Computer Conference (Washington DC, Thompson Books), pp. 395–410Google Scholar
Fisher, D.H. (1987), Knowledge acquisition via incremental conceptual clustering, in Machine Learning, 2, pp. 139–172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Floridi, L. (1995), The Internet and the Future of Organized Knowledge (Paris, Conférence UNESCO) 14–17 March.Google Scholar
Gaines, B.R. (1993), Modeling and extended expertise, in Assenac, N., Boy, G., Gaines, B., Linster, M., Ganascia, J.-G. & Kodratoff, Y. (eds.), Knowledge Acquisition for Knowledge-based Systems (Berlin, Springer-Verlag), pp. 1–22.Google Scholar
Lowey, D.J. & Feaster, T.A. (1987), Regarding Space Leadership through Control of Life Cycle Costs (Cocoa Beach, Florida, 25th International Space Conference).Google Scholar
Minsky, M. (1985), Society of Minds (New York, Touchstone Books, Simon & Schuster Inc.).Google Scholar
Nelson, T.H. (1967), Getting it out of our system, in G. Schechter (ed.), Information Retrieval: A Critical Review (Washington DC, Thompson Books).Google Scholar
Nielsen, J. (1994), Report from a 1994 Web Usability Study (Useit.com), papers and essays. http://www.useit.com/papers/1994_web_usability_report.html.Google Scholar
Norman, D.A. (1990), The Design of Everyday Things (Doubleday).Google Scholar
Norman, D.A. (1992), Turn Signals are the Facial Expressions of Automobiles (Reading, Mass., Addison Wesley).Google Scholar
Piaget, J. (1971), Examen critique de la thèse de Jacques Monod. Hasard et dialectique en épistémologie biologique, in Sciences, no. 71, pp. 29–36.Google Scholar
Piaget, J. (1974), Adaptation vitale et psychologie de l'intelligence (Paris, Hermann).Google Scholar
Quillian, M.R. (1968), Semantic memory, in Minsky, M. (ed.), Semantic Information Processing (Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press), pp. 216–260.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, S. (1990), Doug Engelbart, in Electric Word, 18, pp. 20–25.Google Scholar
Serres, M. (1992), Eclaircissements. Entretiens avec Bruno Latour (Paris, Editions François Bourin).Google Scholar
Winograd, T. & Flores, F. (1987), Understanding Computers and Cognition (Reading, Mass., Addison Wesley).Google Scholar
Yates, F.A. (1966), The Art of Memory, French translation by Daniel Arasse (1975) (Paris, Gallimard).Google Scholar