Commentary 9 Pages, Books, the Web, and Virtual Reafity: A Response to Negroponte's "Books Without Pages" R. Stanley Dicks, JCD Reprint Editor, Bellcore, 6 Corporate Place 1M191A, Piscataway, NJ 08853 rdicks @notes.cc.bellcore.co m. Introduction Inclusion of Nicholas Negroponte's paper on "Books Without Pages" (1979) in this Journal requires explanation, as the paper does not concern itself directly with computer documentation. However, the implications of its assertions and questions ultimately involve all of us who teach, practice, and learn about documenting computer programs. As we leave paper and move to other media to deliver our instructions to users, we are faced with the same questions that Negroponte was asking over 15 years ago. Just as the MIT researchers were doing, we look for new metaphors and new ways to define the relationship between our "readers" and the information we are providing to them. We search for that perfect controlling metaphor that will clarify how our communications in new media work, and howwe can apply some sense and some structure to them, a new 'grammar', ffyou will, for our books without pages. Overview Negroponte's paper was part of a presentation made to the 1979 meeting of the IEEE's International Conference
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