Electronic Document System
Encyclopedia
The Electronic Document System (EDS) was an early hypertext
system - also known as the Interactive Graphical Documents (IGD) hypermedia system - focused on creation of interactive documents such as equipment repair manuals or computer-aided instruction texts with embedded links and graphics. EDS was created as 1978-1981 research project at Brown University
by Steven Feiner, Sandor Nagy and Andries van Dam
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EDS used a dedicated Ramtech raster display and VAX-11/780
computer to create and navigate a network of graphic pages containing interactive graphic buttons. Graphic buttons had programed behaviors such as invoking an animation, linking to another page, or exposing an addition level of detail.
The system had three automatically created navigation aids: 1) a timeline showing thumbnail images of pages traversed; 2) a 'neighbors' display showing thumbnails of all pages linking to the current page on the left, and all pages reachable from the current page on the right; 3) a visual display of thumbnail page images arranged by page keyword, color coded by chapter.
Unlike most hypertext systems, EDS incorporated state variables associated with each page. For example, clicking a button indicating a particular hardware fault might set a state variable that would expose a new set of buttons with links to a relevant choice of diagnostic pages. The EDS model prefigured graphic hypertext systems such as Apple's HyperCard
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Hypertext
Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the...
system - also known as the Interactive Graphical Documents (IGD) hypermedia system - focused on creation of interactive documents such as equipment repair manuals or computer-aided instruction texts with embedded links and graphics. EDS was created as 1978-1981 research project at Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
by Steven Feiner, Sandor Nagy and Andries van Dam
Andries van Dam
Andries "Andy" van Dam is a Dutch-born American professor of computer science and former Vice-President for Research at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Together with Ted Nelson he contributed to the first hypertext system, HES in the late 1960s. He co-authored Computer Graphics:...
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EDS used a dedicated Ramtech raster display and VAX-11/780
VAX-11
The VAX-11 was a family of minicomputers developed and manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation using processors implementing the VAX instruction set architecture . The VAX-11/780 was the first VAX computer.- VAX-11/780 :...
computer to create and navigate a network of graphic pages containing interactive graphic buttons. Graphic buttons had programed behaviors such as invoking an animation, linking to another page, or exposing an addition level of detail.
The system had three automatically created navigation aids: 1) a timeline showing thumbnail images of pages traversed; 2) a 'neighbors' display showing thumbnails of all pages linking to the current page on the left, and all pages reachable from the current page on the right; 3) a visual display of thumbnail page images arranged by page keyword, color coded by chapter.
Unlike most hypertext systems, EDS incorporated state variables associated with each page. For example, clicking a button indicating a particular hardware fault might set a state variable that would expose a new set of buttons with links to a relevant choice of diagnostic pages. The EDS model prefigured graphic hypertext systems such as Apple's HyperCard
HyperCard
HyperCard is an application program created by Bill Atkinson for Apple Computer, Inc. that was among the first successful hypermedia systems before the World Wide Web. It combines database capabilities with a graphical, flexible, user-modifiable interface. HyperCard also features HyperTalk, written...
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