The Memex (MEMORY Extender) is a fictitious analogue computer, which by the director at that time of the American research Vannevar Bush in the article was presented to 1945 "„As incoming goods May think "“in the magazine Atlantic Monthly.

The machine is the form of a desk to have and a combination of electromechanical controls and microfilm equipments contain. On two, contact-sensitive screens lying next to each other information contents are to be projected. The user would page back and forth in these information with levers, as well as documents would store and again call could. In addition it would give the possibility one on the other of letting sides through "„linkages refer "“(associations). The put down information could be linked in such a way to long paths (trails). The Life of magazines pointed some months according to the article illustrations to the possible appearance of the Memex, furthermore an head-installed camera, as well as a typewriter, which are to have speech recognition and to read out the texts by means of speech synthesis.

Of Bush vision was to begin the Memex to machine support of the human memory and associative thinking:

"„The human spirit works"… by means of association. Hardly it procured, accesses themselves information it the next already, which is suggested by the linkage of thought, according to a complicated fabric of paths, which runs over the brain cells. "… (the Memex is) equipment, in which an individual stores all its books, recordings and communication, and which is mechanized, so that it with rising speed and flexibility to rate be pulled can. It is an increased appendix of its "“

Bush was a pioneer of the analogue computer, therefore its picture of the Memex corresponds to the state of the art at that time (Vokabularien, Relationierung, indexing and microfilming) as an electromechanical information system. The possibilities from digital computers were not to be refrained at that time yet. Although the Memex remained always a technical-industrial utopia, gave her since that time steadily ideas for "„the office of the future "“. Like that it would be not only the first hypertext machine, but also the microfilm-based forerunner personnel of the computer been.

Literature

• Vannevar Bush: As incoming goods May think out: Atlantic Monthly, July 1945, volume 176, No. 1, P. 101-108
• Illustrations in the Life of magazines, 19. Nov. 1945

Related links

• '' As incoming goods May Think '' essay of Bush (English)
• '' As incoming goods May Think '' shortened translation with comments
• Animation of the Memex as down-loadable zip file for PC and Mac (English)
• '' The development of the hypertext '' out: Behme/Mintert, XML in practice. A classification of Bush into the development contains the modern, Internet and SGML /XML was based hypertext.

Articles in category "Memex"

We found here 2 articles.

Related Websites

We found here 4 related websites.

• As We May Think
  Browse >> Books & Critics · Fiction & Poetry · Foreign Affairs · Politics & Society · Pursuits & Retreats · Subscribe to our free e-mail newsletters ...


• Home - Intelligence management and analysis software for law ...
  Provides criminal intelligence management and analysis software for law enforcement, military intelligence and commercial fraud organizations requiring ...


• Memex - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  The technology of the memex is often confused with that of hypertext. ... The memex as proposed by Bush could create links between a pair of microfilm ...


• Memex and Beyond Web Site
  Memex and Beyond is an outreach website of the NSF Graphics and ... The spiral represents the continuum of time from 1945, when the Memex article was ...