So, when I first noticed that the text was from 1993, my initial thoughts were of agony and outdated information. While there is a gap between technology we have today and what was available at the time the article was initially created, the focus of the piece is on the actual text and how it can be used digitally. It does a better-than-expected job of being relevant even today.
One of the types of texts that is discussed in the article is "functionally mapped text." The description of this type of text seemed to have a heavy parallel with Wikipedia. In Wikipedia, the text has hyperlinks within the text that can lead the reader to a different page. For example, the topic could be about tropic fruits. The selection could be describing various types of tropic fruits, but for each fruit it mentions have a hyperlink that would take the reader to a page the specifically talks about that one fruit.
Wikipedia also has links that take the reader directly to various places in the selection itself. For example, if a reader was looking up John F. Kennedy, there would be one section directly about his presidency, another about his family and another about his life before becoming a president. All of these different sections would be labeled with links that the reader could skip straight to on the page.
By looking at just these two examples, we can see that there are various functions that the text on Wikipedia are used for. The creators of the site have made it to where readers are able to determine the different fuctions of the texts with relative ease. With just the little bit of information Bernhardt could have on digital text in 1993, he seemed to have a great understanding for the direction in which digital text would go.
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