Freewriting 2

on Nelson's "A File Structure for the Complex"
28 September 2006

In this article, written in 1965, Theodor H. Nelson proposes and describes an advanced structure for organizing and handling information. During the time in which this article was published, the idea of a personal computer was somewhat of a joke. The computer would probably take up most of your living room and would cost close to $40,000. Nevertheless, computers were becoming more efficient and user-friendly, as they continue to do today. Nelson was a visionary. He saw the true potential in personal computing, and his ideas about file structuring and hypertext are present in the technology we use today. He describes a system so versatile and so user oriented that it could be used for just about anything. The three components of this system are zippered lists, the ELF (Evolutionary List File), and the PRIDE (Personal Retrieval, Indexing, and Documentation Evolutionary) System.

Nelson’s file structure consists of sets of what he calls “zippered lists,” which are information structures. These lists are made up of entries, which can have links to entries on different lists, all designed by the user. The user is able to organize his information the way he or she sees fit, giving the user complete control over the information in the system. A list could be a category, trail, index, dialogue, catalog, poem, etc., and lists can be structured however the user wishes. One of many possible modern examples of this is the word processor. If the user has two word processor windows open, he or she can change the information between the two windows, which can be imagined as Nelson’s zippered lists.

The ELF is the file structure. The ELF is responsible for all the lists, as the lists are responsible for all the entries. It has a set of operations by which the user can create, adjust, or remove entries and lists. The ELF is easier understood if imagined as a piece of paper, or a word processor, with several different locations which could be rearranged with regard to one another. Using a word processor like Microsoft Word, one can use the space in each page however he or she wants. The user is able to change anything at will, add information from the internet or another outside source, move desired information to the “clipboard”, transfer information from one file to another, copy a file, or delete a file. The ELF is described by Nelson as an augmentation of one’s own memory, able to observe, organize, compare and contrast, and change stored information much more effectively than one could do in his or her head.

The language for the ELF is called the PRIDE system, and its purpose is to facilitate the operations within the ELF. In describing this language, Nelson makes some interesting points as to how the ELF would be controlled which are very similar to the way applications used today are operated.

“…for safety and convenience nearly every operation has an inverse. The user must be permitted, given a list of what he has done recently, to undo it.”

A couple of modern realizations of this idea are the “undo” and “back” buttons, which are found in several applications we use everyday (Word, Paint, Windows Explorer, etc.), and the “Recycle Bin” which compresses unwanted files, but does not delete them. He also describes a way to chronologically trace every operation performed on the system, similar to the “History Bar” found on modern web browsers.

Nelson’s vision of complex file structures giving way to new forms of media was right on. Advanced file structures, built upon the foundations of old, have been applied to new technology to create advanced operating systems and programs, to link together countless computers to form the internet, and has spawned new techniques for music and video editing. Reading this article in 1965 was like peering into the future.