As a literary form, hypertext existed long before the emergence of computers and the Internet. The earliest forms were concordances intended to facilitate Bible study. Digital computers greatly enhance hypertext by providing a very simple means to link from one text segment to another without the need to flip by hand through hundreds of pages. Hypertext also fits well with the interactivity that is so valued in most computer applications.

Hypertext is not merely prose chopped into small pieces. Indeed, hypertext poses some serious challenges to our traditional notions about the relationship between authors and readers.

An artist's renderition of the original Memex proposed by Vannevar Bush in 1945 (From New York Times, 2000)