Eastgate Systems

Eastgate Systems, Inc.
Company typecorporation
IndustryMacintosh software industry Windows software industry Electronic publishing
FoundedDecember 1982 (1982-12)
HeadquartersWatertown, Massachusetts
ProductsMac OS, Mac OS X and Windows software
Websitewww.eastgate.com

Eastgate Systems is a hypertext publisher and software company headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts.[1]

Eastgate is a pioneer in hypertext publishing and electronic literature[2][3][4][5] and one of the best known publishers of hypertext fiction.[6] It publishes fiction, non-fiction, and poetry hypertexts by established authors with careers in print, as well as new authors. Its software tools include Storyspace, a hypertext system created by Jay David Bolter, Michael Joyce and John B. Smith,[7] in which much early hypertext fiction was written.[8]

Eastgate's chief scientist, Mark Bernstein, is a hypertext researcher,[9] and has improved and extended Storyspace. He also developed new hypertext software, Tinderbox,[10] a tool for managing notes and information. Storyspace was used in a project in Michigan to put judicial "bench books" into electronic form.[11]

  1. ^ FAQ. Eastgate.com. Retrieved on 2013-07-28.
  2. ^ Hypertext connects disparate data: extract a world of data, layer by layer by Henry Fersko-Weiss, March 1st, 1989, Lotus Publishing Corp. Quotes Mark Bernstein: "In the next five to ten years," says Eastgate Systems' Bernstein, "hypertext will determine the way programs interact with people."
  3. ^ Gutermann, Jimmy, 'Hypertext Before the Web,' Chicago Tribune, April 8, 1999 ("Thanks to some successful early attempts at hypertext fiction that Eastgate published (most notably by Michael Joyce and Stuart Moulthrop) and a front-page Robert Coover essay in the "New York Times Book Review," Eastgate and Storyspace were closely associated with the emerging field of literary hypertext.")
  4. ^ Coover, Robert, 'And Hypertext Is Only the Beginning. Watch Out!' New York Times Book Review, August 29, 1993 ("...the primary source for serious hypertext fictions today is Eastgate Systems, the New Directions of electronic publishing and the supplier of the popular Storyspace software in which most of the hypertext authors I know about have written.")
  5. ^ Rettberg, Scott (2019). Electronic literature. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. pp. 68–69. ISBN 978-1509516810. OCLC 1038024013.
  6. ^ Murphy, Kim, 'Electronic Literature: Thinking Outside the Box,' Los Angeles Times, July 24, 2000; Zack, Ian, 'A Novel Approach to Literature,' The Roanoke Times, July 16, 1999.
  7. ^ Landow, George P. (1992). Hypertext: the convergence of contemporary critical theory and technology. The Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 40
  8. ^ Strange fiction by Jimmy Guterman, 05.23.97, Forbes.
  9. ^ Denison, D.C. (December 9, 2001). "OnSite (column)". Boston Globe. But how far can you push hypertext? That's the question that inspires Eastgate's chief scientist, Mark Bernstein.... During most of the '80s and '90s, Bernstein devoted his energies to pushing the boundaries of hypertext fiction.
  10. ^ Tinderbox 1.2: multipurpose app sparks, stores, and shares ideas., MacWorld, September 1, 2003.
  11. ^ Pamela Samuelson (Spring 1992). "Some new kinds of authorship made possible by computers and some intellectual property questions they raise". University of Pittsburgh Law Review. 53 (685). Note 45. Interestingly, Storyspace is now being used as a hypertext system for a project in the state of Michigan to put judicial 'bench books' into electronic form.