Wow, I’m surprised there’s nothing about the Lisp Machines/Smalltalk... Remember ‘Worse is Better’?
And there is Xanadu, the ultimate hypermedia system. It’s a pity that no one (who could fund them) really understood the concept back then and it became vaporware...
Autodesk did understand the concept and fund them for a while. There are two reasons this conversation is not taking place via Xanadu:
1. The brilliant visionary wasn't also a skilled project manager, which is understandable enough, but unfortunately he didn't recognize the issue in time to take steps to either learn the relevant skills or delegate to someone who possessed them.
2. No viable intermediate steps. Version 1.0 insisted on being the whole shebang. They didn't manage to identify an MVP that would've been easier to build while still useful. Berners-Lee, by contrast, did identify such an MVP.
And there is Xanadu, the ultimate hypermedia system. It’s a pity that no one (who could fund them) really understood the concept back then and it became vaporware...