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Are you referring to some NeXT box, RPC, or the cut-down SGML with links? Or any combination of thereof? It is amazing how easy it seems to appropriate technical engineering feats with simple narratives that are repeated often enough (ie. propaganda, in the Goebbelsian 20th century sense).

Everything was ready by that time, just remember the conference where it was presented. Or compare the internal memo with contemporary systems, such as the Symbolics Document Examiner. Or the NeXT demo for that matter.

The WWW you might allude to exists in large part due to US deregulation of that time, and therefore politics. The "value" part of it is as old as Alexandria, or Paul Otlet (TBL's boss who signed it off at the documentation dept. was also Belgian).