'Hyper-' is a prefix. In one dictionary meaning
it signifies 'above', 'over', or 'in excess'. It is also used as
an adjective to mean 'overactive', or 'overexcited'. It was first
used in a technological context over 50 years ago. Since then it
has become a fashionable prefix that is used to denote non-linear and non-sequential
'space'.
'Hyper' also has space-age connotations--'hyperspace'
the term was first used in science fiction by John W. Campbell, Jr., to
mean another dimension through which you pass to get from one point in
'normal' space to another far distant. Since then, it has been appropriated
by hundreds of science fiction writers. These writers often describe it
as a space of higher dimension through which our three-dimensional space
can be folded or crumpled, so that two apparently distant points may almost
come into contact. It is a space that 'evades' space. It is 'other space'.
It is a path between two points. It is a 'universe next door'. It
is forever connected, yet apart.
'Hypertext' is a text rendered by a technology that
places it in different locations. It is visible in chunks, seperately.
It is words and worlds apart, yet it is connected by indeterminable 'space',
it is the universe next door.