zz: Mission Statement: Where going with ZigZag?

[Ted Nelson <ted@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear friends and collaborators:

My various blurtings on this list, including the long
 Wish List of July, may have given only a local view;
 and I haven't taken the time to fix my Web pages
 on the subject in a more general fashion.

So here are a few thoughts:

1)  This is an existence proof, to show that software
 (and interfaces) can be COMPLETELY different.
 Without, for instance, files, hierarchies, icons, metaphors
 or "applications" (the greatest blight, say I).

2)  I want to see how far this can be carried: into
 new programming forms and organizations which
 are spatial; into the equivalent of database; into an
 operating system / user environment which allows
 seamless (or perhaps Unseemly !-) integration of
 new user functions and activities.

3)  I would like to build an environment I can live in,
 reflecting and inhabiting this structure and space--
 in the same way that Unix, the Mac and especially
 Emacs reflect structures and spaces that particular
 people particularly like.  (Emacs being truly a world
 built for one particular user, and very well, too.)

4)  With the ZZpush interface, it should be possible
 to offer this environment to PC users, who might even
 be able to hook it up with their own menus to existing
 software.  (?)

5)  As often mentioned, I imagine a Director's-Cut
 version with maybe 16 predefined dimensions and
 guidelines.  Unforch I'm far from having time to
 work on this design and write these guidelines, so far.

While the D-Cut will not have Apps, it will kind of have
 App Zones, where you feel like you're doing a
 certain thing (but may connect directly to another).

6)  As a product, of course, I would like ZZ to become
 seriously powerful, efficient, and reliable, and make
 it available for Palm Pilot, PDAs, etc., especially after
 App Zones are created.

7)  And of course the ever-tempting notion of a
 coprocessor board for the PC that could interact
 with running programs in Windows, etc.-- and
 take away some of the Window pains (ow, not
 premeditated).

These are some possible directions.  Eager to hear
 other thoughts, esp. from youse friends.

Alldabest, Ted

____________________________________________________
Theodor Holm Nelson, Visiting Professor of Environmental Information
 Keio University, Shonan Fujisawa Campus, Fujisawa, Japan
 Home Fax from USA: 011-81-466-46-7368  (If in Japan, 0466-46-7368)
Professorial home page http://www.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~ted/ 
_____________________________________________________
Permanent: Project Xanadu, 3020 Bridgeway #295, Sausalito CA 94965
 Tel. 415/ 331-4422, fax 415/332-0136  
http://www.xanadu.net
PERMANENT E-MAIL: ted@xxxxxxxxxx
_____________________________________________________
Quotation of the day, 98.11.21:
"Life is EXTREMELY strange, except we don't notice."  TN98