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Even Before Memex, a Plan For a Networked World
phlurg writes "The New York Times presents an amazing article on 'the Mundaneum,' a sort of proto-WWW conceived of by Paul Otlet in 1934. 'In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers (or "electric telescopes," as he called them) that would allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked documents, images, audio and video files. He described how people would use the devices to send messages to one another, share files and even congregate in online social networks. He called the whole thing a "réseau," which might be translated as "network" — or arguably, "web."'
A fascinating read." (You may be reminded of Vannevar Bush's "Memex," which shares some of the same ideas.)
It shows the difficult part of ideas isn't dreaming them up, it's actually realizing them.
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"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
Indeed, "reseau" (but with an accent, which didn't show up when I pasted it) is the word used in French for "network", in both computer and other senses.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
The Memex was (or would have been) a personal workstation, not a networked device. True, it had hyperlinking, but only among documents on the same device. This Mundaneum seems to be entirely network-centric.
Réseau is the french word for network!
Otlet would probably be very satisfied that we'd come far enough to his life's vision that we can just hear about him, then click to read his vision (of hearing about him then clicking to read his vision).
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make install -not war
Well I remember watching a documentary over the mondaneum (I'm belgian). Pre WWII he enjoyed a relatively popularity in Belgium and amongst the intelligentsia around the world. Besides the mondaneum I remember that he tried to create somekind of a 'universal city' where human knowledge would have been concentrated and archived.
He did try to settle it somewhere near Antwerp (If I remember well) but nobody truly wanted it. I think he tried to settle it somewhere in Switzerland but it didn't work either (or maybe just part of his project, I really don't know anymore).
During the occupation, Nazi (and/or collaborators) were truly concerned about his pacifism, the mondaneum was located in the cinqantenaire (a famous building in brussels). I think (but it should be checked) that they did whatever they can to force him to leave. His real tragedy was when thugs came in and took all his archives, with no regards for their complex classification, loosing parts of it...Everything became unclassified and thus almost lost entirely too.
Then the remaining mundaneum archived have been moved to Mons. He did his best to revive his project and it never worked like before WWII.
Sad story.
I must have imagined usenet then I guess.
Even in the strict web-based sense of online communities with registration, member profiles, forums and so on, I was working building them in the late nineties so they have definitely been around for longer than 3-5 years.
You could argue that online social networking communities (i.e. systems that create networks of users based on their relationships) are a more recent development, but there are some older examples of them around - they just didn't get into the mainstream.
French is a fictional language, much like Klingon or Tolkien's Elvish languages. No one speaks it natively, so what words might mean is of little practical value.
...some surplus machines from Babbage & Co.?
Kidding aside, anyone who can look at an enormous, overwhelming task of such mind-boggling complexity and think "I can do that." is deserved of high praise, regardless of whether he succeeded or failed.