zzSig: [resend] Proposal for ZigZag Workshop at HT'01

[Ted Nelson <ted@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Hugh--

I chatted with Wendy over the holiday, and she suggested that
 the neatest thing to do with ZigZag at HT'01 would be to have a
 ZigZag Workshop.  I don't quite know what "Workshop" means,
 but it sounds good.  Suggests the smell of wood and leather,
 Santa and the elves... seems right.

A full day would be great, and I believe we could get more than
 enough contributions to fill it out.

SUMMARY BLURB FOR ZIGZAG WORKSHOP ========
Cross-viewable multidimensional lists
 (trademarked as "ZigZag" in some places)
 provide an enjoyable new paradigm for all computer structures,
 with interesting new designs and models for input, viewing,
 interaction, data structures and programming.
These include--
 a paradoxical space with surprising new geometrical properties;
 a default visualization method that works even in tiny windows;
 a default interface that works even on phone keypads and game handles;
 a generalization of lists and tables to N dimensions,
  providing new forms of database, inheritance, file management,
  simplified graphical programming, and other useful computer concepts;
 high and easy extensibility with unusually few collisions;
 and 
 an enactment engine-- a spatial interpreter-- for new kinds of
  programming.
Most importantly, multiple dimensions yield surprising simplifications.
 These structures appear to streamline many aspects of data and
 programming, for several reasons--
  everything may be visualized and manipulated uniformly at the lowest
   level;
  special cases may always be mapped to the same primitives;
  the built-in connection primitives provide pathways that render
   many customary constructs unnecessary;
  elements may be referenced in many contexts with no need to
   spawn or maintain redundant copies or structures.
Naturally, this has a number of applications for hypertext and
 hypermedia.  It also offers its own new and engrossing set of problems.
Projects based on this model are underway in Japan, Australia, Finland
 and the U.K.

POSSIBLE PRESENTATIONS =========
These are off the top of my head; the folks named should take
 these titles merely as preliminary suggestions, with my compliments.  
 (If I have left out important contributors, my apologies-- it is because
 I have no longer been able to follow developments closely.)
These are talks that could probably be given tomorrow.  August is
 a long way away, and I bet there'll be a lot more possibilities
 before the program has to be firmed up.

Suggested titles (provisional and tentative) ========
 Intro to ZigZag-- Ted Nelson, Ed Harter, Marlene Mallicoat
 The initial ZigZag implementation-- Andrew Pam
 The Gzigzag project at the hyperstructure lab, U. of Jyväskylä--
  Tuomas J. Lukka, Ekaterina Ervasti
 Designs for ZigZag languages-- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho
 Referential hypertext (the Xanadu model) with ZigZag-- Ted Nelson,
  Tuomas J. Lukka, Benjamin Fallenstein, Andrew Pam
 ZigZag on Web pages-- Les Carr
 ZigZag for textual hyperstructures and personal use-- Marlene Mallicoat
 ZigZag standardization issues-- Ted and Everybody Else

All best, Ted


_________________________________________
Theodor Holm Nelson              
Project Professor, Keio University SFC Campus, Fujisawa, Japan
Visiting Professor, University of Southampton, England
 ?  e-mail: ted@xxxxxxxxxx   ?  world-wide fax 1/415/332-0136
 ?  http://www.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~ted/    ?  http://www.xanadu.net
 ? Coordinates in USA      Tel. 415/ 331-4422
  Project Xanadu, 3020 Bridgeway #295, Sausalito CA 94965
_________________________________________