Ted Nelson’s Unfinished Revolution
A Story from the Musty Archives of Swaine’s World
In 1974, before ordinary folks could get their hands on a computer (or saw any reason why they should), Ted Nelson self-published a remarkable book titled Computer Lib. (Flip it over and you get a companion book, Dream Machines.)
On page after page dense with typographic eccentricities (“I write to be read aloud”) and skewed blocks of text, he explained computers and software to the lay reader as it had never been done before (or since).
Editor’s note: I’ve updated the book cover image with one that Ted Nelson sent over. This story was originally published showing the cover of a later edition from Microsoft, which they wouldn’t let Ted lay out (tsk, tsk Microsoft).
The book looked the way it did partly because it was influenced by The Whole Earth Catalog (as well as Pete Seeger’s banjo book and Tom Cahill’s automobile reviews and a book on building geodesic domes…), but also because of what Ted meant by self-publishing. “I got the idea, thought up each word, typed up the text, pasted it onto sheets of cardboard [at whatever angle seemed fitting — ms], took it to a nice printer and said Here is Some Money Mr. Nice Printer, and I brought home a lot of cartons of books … and proceeded to sell them.” And sell them he did…
