Re: Hunting for the Xanadu FAQ

[Andrew Pam <xanni@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bissia wrote:
> >Well, Xanadu is not really intended to be an Operating System as such;
> >it's more a way of storing, managing and communicating documents -
> Is there a connection with it and SGML ?

Not directly.  The Xanadu idea was always to keep markup in a separate
address space from document content.  However, there are many good things
about SGML and particularly the recent development of XML.

> It is strange that Xanadu's concept looked more advanced and ahead
> of the WWW architecture ( SGML, HTML, etc ? ), while now it looks more 
> like trying to integrate seamlessly with that ? as you described :

Well, Xanadu existed before the WWW, so of course it was ahead!
And the WWW now has enormous market share, so of course we want to
interoperate with that massive installed base; it wouldn't be reasonable
to ask everyone to throw away what they have now and switch.  We have
to have a transition strategy, a migration path.

> >The Internet work is designed to use existing Web software as far
> >as possible in order to work on as many systems as the Web does.
> In what particular aspect is it interesting and superior in features from
> the actual html web implementation [...]

See the answer to questions 2 and 3a in the latest version of the Xanadu FAQ.

> [...] and can they coexist together ?

Yes, I believe so, in the same way that Hyperwave and WWW coexist,
Microcosm and WWW coexist (Webcosm), and Notes and WWW coexist (Domino).

> Correct, The Macintosh is the sole machine which can integrate and run
> many different OSes with or without emulation.

I'm sorry, that is complete nonsense.  Any machine (and that includes PCs)
can run Mac, DOS, Windows, and Unix software all at the same time if it
has enough RAM and the right software.  PCs can run OS/2 software as well.

Share and enjoy,
		*** Xanni ***
-- 
mailto:xanni@xxxxxxxxxx                         Andrew Pam
http://www.xanadu.net/xanadu/                   Technical VP, Xanadu
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