Yes, children, hypertext existed even before the World Wide Web.
Newbie test: when you hear "Web" do you think "hypertext"? These days, "hypertext" almost means "non-Web hypertext".
George Landow 1992 definition: text composed of blocks of words (or images) linked electronically by multiple paths, chains, or trails in an open-ended, perpetually unfinished textuality described by the terms link, node, network, web, and path.
Traces back to Vannevar Bush (Me Mex, in 1945), heavily associated with Ted Nelson (Xana Du, Literary Machines) (actually, he coined the phrase in the 1960s: http://www.w3.org/History.html
Sean Mc Grath attributes to Yuri Rubinsky the phrase The trouble with hypertext is that it always takes you somewhere relevant.
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/history.html
http://www.eastgate.com/Hypertext.html
An example I keep getting pointed toward: the Victorian Web.
Mark Bernstein occasionally defines the entries in a HyperText Film Festival: Adaptation, Wonder Boys, Mullholland Drive, Thirteen Conversations About One Thing, Memento, Sliding Doors, Timecode, Rashomon, Minority Report, Run Lola Run, Waking Life, Nashville...
Some wider concepts:
Cyber Text - all reader-influenced Text Machine-s (uh-uh, i'm just a text machine...)