The Longest-Running Vaporware Project in the History of Computing (themagnet.substack.com)

The article revisits Ted Nelson’s decades-long Project Xanadu, a universal hypertext system he began in 1960 and which has been described as “vaporware” for years. It highlights features Xanadu aimed to include—two-way links, transclusion with live embedded excerpts, micropayments, and link/version management—that remain largely missing from the current Web. It also reflects on Gary Wolf’s 1995 Wired profile as both classic tech journalism and a portrait of Nelson’s persistent frustration and ambition.