A blunt statement, I know. The 90s were the worst times for computer development. Software AND hardware. If you lived through it, you’d know this. Remember dongles? Patches? Partitions? Help pop-ups? SCSI connectors and parallel ports? Sorry to revive these memories. Could you imagine what TiddlyWiki would have done to the world of computing back then?
All I know is that if there was a TiddlyWiki of the 90s, it would definitely be based on SGML or XML, while using almost none of the format’s features, but still overengineering a transformation pipeline.
There would also be a 
badge. It just had to have it.
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Remember 20 years ago, picking up a book on XML. Writer was hell bent on text editors; hated code editors.
How do I get /give a cool badge??
My TiddlyWiki, or form there of, was paper based in the early 90s just waiting to be allowed to exist in software.
I would have liked to have seen it.
My response to that is that I had PDAs for a while back when Sharp made them. Then it was Palm. Then the batteries stopped working and the whole PDA world vanished. I had to use paper for a while.
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How would you have “tagged” your paper notes and are you familiar with Zettlekasten?
Only later did I learn about that however I already had dozens of Algorithiumic methids I could use. I would have to dig into my deep memories to remember many, I recall there was a little rewriting of lists, a ring binder, linked to proprietary or custom organisers with preprinted pages.
yes, I went through quite a few myself, I am sure I have them somewhere.
It was with todo lists on feature phones then ultimatly the smart phone that my organisers bifuricated into a compination of mobile and desktop. The key software before finding TiddlyWiki was TreePad.
Way back in the pre-digital era, there were several widely-used commercial paper-based personal organizer and time management products.
Even after digital organizers were available, many larger companies frequently offered their employees one of these products (along with training sessions on how to properly use them) and in some cases, their use was required for scheduling and status reporting purposes.
Among the most popular of these paper organizers were the “Day-Timer” and the “Franklin Planner”:
and
-e
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I think I used Day-timer at one point when my Employer sent me on a course.
I do remember thinking how they should try and transition to software as they still had lots of good ideas to help organise, but clearly they did not as successfully because they have backed out of software.
- TiddlyWiki is where I went.
Footnote
In 1989 there was the book fever THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL EFFECTIVE. PEOPLE … after which a vast cascade of “self help” tomes flew upon us.
It took some time for the internet to form and catch up.
Now those types of things start on-line.
I distinctly remember in 1987, between spliffs, wondering if one day the Whole Earth Catalogue would be available to everyone everywhere on Pocket TV (my idea of smart phones) one day.
Back in the 90s, when I first moved to the SF Bay Area, I was a member of an online (dial-up) community called “The Well”…
The WELL was started by Stewart Brand and Larry Brilliant in 1985. The name follows the naming of some of Brand’s earlier projects, including the Whole Earth Catalog. Initially, The WELL was owned 50% by The Point Foundation, publishers of the Whole Earth Catalog and Whole Earth Review…
-e