My story around hypertext starts with my recognizing myself as “a browser” by nature, when it came to open stack libraries and book stores. I’d browse, taking a somewhat wandering but not entirely random path through the collections, the classic bookworm. However as I became more exposed to computer consoles, what later we called monitors, my dreams took a familiar turn: fantasies about hypertext and the internet, ala Vannevar Bush (USG NSF) in the 1940s (As We May Think).
Princeton gave me the opportunity to feed my appetite for browsing big time, a big step up from our tiny yet respectable Media Center at the International School of Manila (IS we called it, usually ISM today). I was learning APL and other computer languages, and thinking how I’d redesign high school. We moved to Jersey City (myself and some friends) and my fantasies about hypertext ticked up a notch, as the internet was becoming a reality, for me in the form of New Jersey Institute of Technology access, to what later became known as PeaceNet and the IGC (Institute for Global Communications).
Around this time is when I first encountered Ted Nelson’s Computer Lib / Dream Machines. I grokked his Project Xanadu, but wasn’t so invested in the details that I felt a need to counter what eventually emerged from CERN and what became W3 i.e. HTTP/HTTPS and all the rest of it. That was all fine with me. The Hypertext Transfer Protocol was born, and was not proprietary in any way that would prevent its viral spread. “Going viral” could be a positive, oddly enough, given viruses are usually best known for being negatively impactful. To this day, post covid’s peak, Gen Z sees the point of “going viral” in that special upbeat way.
Given my predilections, I was quick to find an ISP and start making web pages when this became practical. Chris Fearnley and I were two of the first to publicize the Bucky stuff. He and I both did ray traced polyhedrons, plus he put out his famous FAQ, which quoted me quite a bit. We were off to the races, so to speak (I think of dogs racing, different breeds, as hand drawn or computed anime maybe). I created Synergetics on the Web on the Teleport platform, pdx4d my public facing user account. You will find my old URL under GRUNCH in the Encyclopedia of Conspiracies (RAW). Later I moved Synergetics on the Web to grunch dot net, where it resides to this day.
