The saddest thing about Olet's predicament was that he was hamstrung by the technology of his day. To realize that someone envisioned (though not necessarily invented) the internet a full 60 years before it became practical is simply amazing. One wonders what technological advances fellow members of our generation are dreaming up that only future generations will see...
From the NY Times: The Web That Time Forgot
"Historians typically trace the origins of the World Wide Web through a lineage of Anglo-American inventors like Vannevar Bush, Doug Engelbart and Ted Nelson. But more than half a century before Tim Berners-Lee released the first Web browser in 1991, Otlet (pronounced ot-LAY) described a networked world where "anyone in his armchair would be able to contemplate the whole of creation."
Although Otlet's proto-Web relied on a patchwork of analog technologies like index cards and telegraph machines, it nonetheless anticipated the hyperlinked structure of today's Web. "This was a Steampunk version of hypertext," said Kevin Kelly, former editor of Wired, who is writing a book about the future of technology.
Otlet's vision hinged on the idea of a networked machine that joined documents using symbolic links. While that notion may seem obvious today, in 1934 it marked a conceptual breakthrough. "The hyperlink is one of the most underappreciated inventions of the last century," Kelly said. "It will go down with radio in the pantheon of great inventions." "
via www.nytimes.com
