-- Miguel Marcos (email)

In 1977 the Live Text system that I developed at the University of Illinois, used a special character set (on the Plato IV terminal) to indicate the text of a hypertext link. When graphic material was being presented (at that time from microfiche) we allowed the hypertext author to define feature identifiers or hints for elements of a graphic that had some link. Point being, it seemed better to let the content author control the nature of visual element in graphic presentations and to automatically visualize the textual display (as most browsers now do).

Many years later, I find it interesting to think of how many good ideas were launched back then. We didn't even have a copy of Computer Lib and Dream Machines (Ted's book didn't come to my notice until a year after I had the system up with three different knowledge bases installed and useable from any of the 600 terminals on the central campus Plato system).

By the way, I am still out exploring the edges ("dream carrier"). I teach the senior capstone at the U.S. Military Academy, Dept. of EE&CS. Now I find myself working with the XML concerns for DOD and maybe using that as a vehicle to improve the user interface of main battle systems.

Frank

-- Dr. Frank Mabry (email)

The hyperlink pointing hand and most of the other great icons that we take for granted when interacting with our computers were designed by Susan Kare. Ms. Kare finally won a design award for her work; she was one of the Chrysler Design Awards winners in 2001.

-- Rachel Winchester (email)

You can see Susan Kare's wonderful work at http://www.kare.com/

-- Edward Tufte

What about the musical signo and coda symbols - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_musical_symbols#Repetition_and_codas

These seem to be the best example of a standard for 'goto', however are only known by musicians.

-- Michael Sloan (email)