Misplaced Pages

#990009

94-496: The concept of the memex influenced the development of early hypertext systems, eventually leading to the creation of the World Wide Web , and personal knowledge base software. The hypothetical implementation depicted by Bush for the purpose of concrete illustration was based upon a document bookmark list of static microfilm pages and lacked a true hypertext system, where parts of pages would have internal structure beyond

188-485: A Memex . A Memex would hypothetically store — and record — content on reels of microfilm, using electric photocells to read coded symbols recorded next to individual microfilm frames while the reels spun at high speed, and stopping on command. The coded symbols would enable the Memex to index, search, and link content to create and follow associative trails. Because the Memex was never implemented and could only link content in

282-535: A personal computer connected to an electronic visual display and a mouse pointing device . In 1962, Engelbart sent Bush a draft article for comment; Bush never replied. The article was published in 1963 under the title "A Conceptual Framework for the Augmentation of Man's Intellect". In 1965, J. C. R. Licklider dedicated his book "Libraries of the Future" to Bush. Licklider wrote that he had often heard of

376-551: A wiki but without hypertext punctuation, which was not invented until 1987. The early 1980s also saw a number of experimental "hyperediting" functions in word processors and hypermedia programs, many of whose features and terminology were later analogous to the World Wide Web . Guide , the first significant hypertext system for personal computers , was developed by Peter J. Brown at the University of Kent in 1982. In 1980, Roberto Busa , an Italian Jesuit priest and one of

470-480: A 'hypertext' (meaning editing) interface to the public for the first time, in what has come to be known as " The Mother of All Demos ". In 1971 a system called Scrapbook , produced by David Yates and his team at the UK's National Physical Laboratory , went live. It was an information storage and retrieval system that included what would now be called word processing, e-mail and hypertext. ZOG , an early hypertext system,

564-404: A 'master memex' containing all papers, references, tables "intimately interconnected by trails, so that one may follow a detailed matter from paper to paper, going back through the classics, recording criticism in the margins." In 1967, Vannevar Bush published a retrospective article entitled "Memex Revisited" in his book Science Is Not Enough . Published 22 years after his initial conception of

658-412: A 1999 publication, Engelbart recollects that reading "As We May Think" in 1945 he "became 'infected' with the idea of building a means to extend and navigate this great pool of human knowledge". Around 1961, Engelbart re-read Bush's article, and from 1962 onward Engelbart developed a series of technical designs. Engelbart updated the Memex microfilm storage desk and thereby arrived at a pioneering vision for

752-618: A change from linear, structured and hierarchical forms of representing and understanding the world into fractured, decentralized and changeable media based on the technological concept of hypertext links. In the 1990s, women and feminist artists took advantage of hypertext and produced dozens of works. Linda Dement 's Cyberflesh Girlmonster a hypertext CD-ROM that incorporates images of women's body parts and remixes them to create new monstrous yet beautiful shapes. Caitlin Fisher's award-winning online hypertext novella These Waves of Girls (2001)

846-625: A few related authors. In 1983, Ben Shneiderman at the University of Maryland Human - Computer Interaction Lab led a group that developed the HyperTies system that was commercialized by Cognetics Corporation . They studied many designs before adopting the blue color for links . Hyperties was used to create the July 1988 issue of the Communications of the ACM as a hypertext document and then

940-451: A friend about how people resist innovation, he brings up the trail again, and then copies the whole trail out to be installed into his friend's memex. There, the trail is joined into a more general trail about how people resist innovation. Section 8: Bush envisions a future where memex machines are everywhere. There will be microfilmed encyclopedias with trails already installed. Lawyers, patent attorneys, and other knowledge workers will use

1034-720: A future Vocoder could transcribe speech automatically . A future researcher could walk around, take photos with the head-mounted camera, and record sound and speech. The photos and the sounds would have timing information. At the end of the day, this timed record of the day can be processed and reviewed. To study cosmic rays , physicists built vacuum tubes that could count at 0.1 MHz. Future electronic computers could operate at least 100 times faster, at 10 MHz. Herman Hollerith 's tabulating machine showed that simple machines programmed by punched cards could be commercially valuable. Future computers could perform complex programs according to punched cards or microfilms. Section 4: Most of

SECTION 10

#1732780357991

1128-403: A huge, indexed repository of knowledge any section of which could be called up with a few keystrokes." An associative trail as conceived by Bush would be a way to create a new linear sequence of microfilm frames across any arbitrary sequence of microfilm frames by creating a chained sequence of links in the way just described, along with personal comments and side trails . At the time, Bush saw

1222-573: A hypertext document usually replace the current piece of hypertext with the destination document. A lesser known feature is StretchText , which expands or contracts the content in place, thereby giving more control to the reader in determining the level of detail of the displayed document. Some implementations support transclusion , where text or other content is included by reference and automatically rendered in place. Hypertext can be used to support very complex and dynamic systems of linking and cross-referencing. The most famous implementation of hypertext

1316-419: A keyboard. Typing on the keyboard, the user can find any microfilm by associative search. Pushing on levers allows users to flip through a microfilmed book, moving forward or backward at variable speeds. The user can open up several microfilms at once, then draw lines and commentaries between them using dry photography or by a telautograph -like pen. Section 7: The essence of memex is associative indexing :

1410-492: A knowledge explosion. The article was a reworked and expanded version of Bush's essay "Mechanization and the Record" (1939). Here, he described a machine that would combine lower level technologies to achieve a higher level of organized knowledge (like human memory processes). Shortly after the publication of this essay, Bush coined the term " memex " in a letter written to the editor of Fortune magazine. That letter became

1504-442: A linear factor of 100x, or an area factor of 10000x. A library of 1 million books would occupy the volume of 100 books, which can fit on a bookshelf. All the world's books can fit inside a moving van . Production and transmission would cost pennies. A possible future device would be a walnut-sized camera strapped to the head of the wearer that can take a photo at the squeeze of a hand, and develop it. The photos can be taken out at

1598-408: A machine with the "speed and flexibility" of the brain is not attainable, but improvements could be made in regard to the capacity to obtain informational "permanence and clarity". Bush also relates that, unlike digital technology, Memex would be of no significant aid to business or profitable ventures, and as a consequence, its development would occur only long after the mechanization of libraries and

1692-418: A major scientist of the time, rather than the more open knowledge spaces of the 21st century. Bush provides a core vision of the importance of information to industrial/scientific society, using the image of an "information explosion" arising from the unprecedented demands on scientific production and technological application of World War II. He outlines a version of information science as a key discipline within

1786-399: A mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified. The lawyer has at his touch the associated opinions and decisions of his whole experience, and of the experience of friends and authorities. The patent attorney has on call the millions of issued patents, with familiar trails to every point of his client's interest. The physician, puzzled by

1880-446: A mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified." Bush envisioned the ability to retrieve several articles or pictures on one screen, with the possibility of writing comments that could be stored and recalled together. He believed people would create links between related articles, thus mapping the thought process and path of each user and saving it for others to experience. Misplaced Pages

1974-679: A million volumes could be compressed into one end of a desk. On the other hand, it still uses methods of indexing of information which Bush described as artificial: When data of any sort are placed in storage, they are filed alphabetically or numerically, and information is found (when it is) by tracing it down from subclass to subclass. It can be in only one place, unless duplicates are used. This description resembles popular file systems of modern computer operating systems ( FAT , NTFS , ext3 when used without hard links and symlinks, etc.), which do not easily enable associative indexing as imagined by Bush. Bush urges that scientists should turn to

SECTION 20

#1732780357991

2068-542: A new hypertext project in response to a request for a simple, immediate, information-sharing facility, to be used among physicists working at CERN and other academic institutions. He called the project "WorldWideWeb". HyperText is a way to link and access information of various kinds as a web of nodes in which the user can browse at will. Potentially, HyperText provides a single user-interface to many large classes of stored information, such as reports, notes, data-bases, computer documentation and on-line systems help. We propose

2162-596: A particular epoch. There is a new profession of trailblazers, those who find delight in the task of establishing useful trails through the enormous mass of the common record. The inheritance from the master becomes, not only his additions to the world's record but for his disciples the entire scaffolding by which they were erected. — As We May Think Bush said of his " As We May Think " memex device that "technical difficulties of all sorts have been ignored," but that, "also ignored are means as yet unknown which may come any day to accelerate technical progress as violently as did

2256-441: A patient's reactions, strikes the trail established in studying an earlier similar case, and runs rapidly through analogous case histories, with side references to the classics for the pertinent anatomy and histology. ... The historian, with a vast chronological account of a people, parallels it with a skip trail that stops only on the salient items and can follow at any time contemporary trails which lead him all over civilization at

2350-500: A relatively crude fashion — by creating chains of entire microfilm frames — the Memex is regarded only as a proto-hypertext device, but it is fundamental to the history of hypertext because it directly inspired the invention of hypertext by Ted Nelson and Douglas Engelbart. In 1965, Ted Nelson coined the terms 'hypertext' and 'hypermedia' as part of a model he developed for creating and using linked content (first published reference 1965). He later worked with Andries van Dam to develop

2444-552: A replacement for hypertextual narrative. Critics of hypertext claim that it inhibits the old, linear, reader experience by creating several different tracks to read on. This can also been seen as contributing to a postmodernist fragmentation of worlds. In some cases, hypertext may be detrimental to the development of appealing stories (in the case of hypertext Gamebooks ), where ease of linking fragments may lead to non-cohesive or incomprehensible narratives. However, they do see value in its ability to present several different views on

2538-641: A statement, acknowledging the influence of hypertext, the work of Engelbart and Bush's "As We May Think" on the development of the World Wide Web . In 2003, Microsoft promoted a life-logging research project under the name MyLifeBits as an attempt to fulfill Bush's memex vision. In 1959, Vannevar Bush described an improved "Memex II". In the manuscript draft of "Memex II" he wrote, "Professional societies will no longer print papers..." and states that individuals will either order sets of papers to come on tape – complete with photographs and diagrams – or download ' facsimiles ' by telephone. Each society would maintain

2632-455: A touch-sensitive translucent screen. A user could "...insert a comment of his own, either linking it into the main trail or joining it by a side trail to a particular item. ...Thus he builds a trail of his interest through the maze of materials available to him." A user could also create a copy of an interesting trail (containing references and personal annotations) and "...pass it to his friend for insertion in his own memex, there to be linked into

2726-486: A tree of classification. The memex is a machine for individual use, where they could store all their books, records, and communications. The memex looks like a desk. It contains a storage unit for microfilms, sufficient for an individual's lifetime. Microfilms can be bought like books and magazines. Letters, documents, and hand-drawn manuscripts can be placed on a transparent plate that is then photographed and converted to microfilm. One can also manually type onto them with

2820-454: A vast store of knowledge, but also be frequently consulted and enhanced. Two kinds of technologies can help: analog information on microfilms, and digital information encoded by electric signals. While they are different, both kinds would be vastly cheaper than traditional printed media. With instant photography and microfilm , it will be cheap to copy and transmit analog information. Microfilm could shrink books and other paper-publications by

2914-406: A worker performs repeatedly could be programmed into a machine. Normal or even mathematical language is too vague for programming. A "positional" logical language would be needed for entering information the machines. Not only will they be for entering information, machines will also help people find information. For example, punched card sorters and telephone exchanges are both search machines:

Memex - Misplaced Pages Continue

3008-466: Is text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references ( hyperlinks ) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks , which are typically activated by a mouse click, keypress set, or screen touch. Apart from text, the term "hypertext" is also sometimes used to describe tables, images, and other presentational content formats with integrated hyperlinks. Hypertext

3102-492: Is already producing some results in microfilm for scholarly purposes, and the potentialities are highly suggestive. "As We May Think" predicted (to some extent) many kinds of technology invented after its publication, including hypertext , personal computers , the Internet , the World Wide Web , speech recognition , and online encyclopedias such as Misplaced Pages : "Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready-made with

3196-422: Is electrical, future human-machine interfaces could be purely electrical . "As We May Think" has turned out to be a visionary and influential essay. In their introduction to a paper discussing information literacy as a discipline, Johnston and Webber write Bush's paper might be regarded as describing a microcosm of the information society, with the boundaries tightly drawn by the interests and experiences of

3290-427: Is often used where the term " hypermedia " might seem appropriate. In 1992, author Ted Nelson  – who coined both terms in 1963  – wrote: By now the word "hypertext" has become generally accepted for branching and responding text, but the corresponding word "hypermedia", meaning complexes of branching and responding graphics, movies and sound – as well as text – is much less used. Instead they use

3384-410: Is one example of how this vision has in part been realized, allowing elements of an article to reference other related topics. A user's browser history maps the trails of possible paths of interaction, although this is typically available only to the user that created it. Bush's article also laid the foundation for new media. Doug Engelbart came across the essay shortly after its publication, and keeping

3478-537: Is one of the key underlying concepts of the World Wide Web , where Web pages are often written in the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). As implemented on the Web, hypertext enables the easy-to-use publication of information over the Internet . "(...)'Hypertext' is a recent coinage. 'Hyper-' is used in the mathematical sense of extension and generality (as in 'hyperspace,' 'hypercube') rather than

3572-509: Is set in three time periods of the protagonist exploring polymorphous perversity enacted in her queer identity through memory. The story is written as a reflection diary of the interconnected memories of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. It consists of an associated multi-modal collection of nodes includes linked text, still and moving images, manipulable images, animations, and sound clips. Adrienne Eisen (pen name for Penelope Trunk ) wrote hypertexts that were subversive narrative journeys into

3666-483: Is the World Wide Web , written in the final months of 1990 and released on the Internet in 1991. In 1941, Jorge Luis Borges published " The Garden of Forking Paths ", a short story that is often considered an inspiration for the concept of hypertext. In 1945, Vannevar Bush wrote an article in The Atlantic Monthly called " As We May Think ", about a futuristic proto-hypertext device he called

3760-606: The Hypertext Editing System (text editing) in 1967 at Brown University . It was implemented using the terminal IBM 2250 with a light pen which was provided as a pointing device . By 1976, its successor FRESS was used in a poetry class in which students could browse a hyperlinked set of poems and discussion by experts, faculty and other students, in what was arguably the world's first online scholarly community which van Dam says "foreshadowed wikis, blogs and communal documents of all kinds". Ted Nelson said in

3854-441: The growing knowledge of atomistic to the useful solution of the advanced problems of chemistry, metallurgy, and biology". To exemplify the importance of this concept, consider the process involved in 'simple' shopping: "Every time a charge sale is made, there are a number of things to be done. The inventory needs to be revised, the salesman needs to be given credit for the sale, the general accounts need an entry, and most important,

Memex - Misplaced Pages Continue

3948-483: The library classification system, are tree-like. At the top are the biggest classes, and each class can have subclasses, and so on. Each item belongs uniquely to a leaf on the tree of information. This is cumbersome, and the human mind does not operate that way, but operates by association . In human thinking, one traces out a "trail" of information. This process can be augmented by the memex . Like human memory, it retrieves information by association, not by going down

4042-443: The 1920s. According to Buckland, the legacy of Bush is twofold: a significant engineering achievement in building a rapid prototype microfilm selector, and "a speculative article" which through "the social prestige of its author, has had an immediate and lasting effect in stimulating others." The pioneer of human–computer interaction Douglas Engelbart was inspired by Bush's proposal for a co-evolution between humans and machines. In

4136-468: The 1960s that he began implementation of a hypertext system he theorized, which was named Project Xanadu , but his first and incomplete public release was finished much later, in 1998. Douglas Engelbart independently began working on his NLS system in 1962 at Stanford Research Institute, although delays in obtaining funding, personnel, and equipment meant that its key features were not completed until 1968. In December of that year, Engelbart demonstrated

4230-420: The 1990s. Judy Malloy 's Uncle Roger (1986) and Michael Joyce 's afternoon, a story (1987) are generally considered the first works of hypertext fiction. An advantage of writing a narrative using hypertext technology is that the meaning of the story can be conveyed through a sense of spatiality and perspective that is arguably unique to digitally networked environments. An author's creative use of nodes,

4324-528: The Internet began the creation of the Web on the Internet. As new web browsers were released, traffic on the World Wide Web quickly exploded from only 500 known web servers in 1993 to over 10,000 in 1994. As a result, all previous hypertext systems were overshadowed by the success of the Web, even though it lacked many features of those earlier systems, such as integrated browsers/editors (a feature of

4418-470: The Memex, Bush details the various technological advancements that have made his vision a possibility. Specifically, Bush cites photocells, transistors, cathode ray tubes, magnetic and videotape, "high-speed electric circuits", and "miniaturization of solid-state devices" such as the TV and radio. The article claims that magnetic tape would be central to the creation of a modern Memex device. The erasable quality of

4512-614: The World Wide Web series of conferences, organized by IW3C2 , also include many papers of interest. There is a list on the Web with links to all conferences in the series. Hypertext writing has developed its own style of fiction, coinciding with the growth and proliferation of hypertext development software and the emergence of electronic networks. Hypertext fiction is one of earliest genres of electronic literature , or literary works that are designed to be read in digital media. Two software programs specifically designed for literary hypertext, Storyspace and Intermedia , became available in

4606-516: The advent of the thermionic tube ." Michael Buckland concluded that Bush's 1945 vision for an information retrieval machine is unhistorically viewed in relation to the subsequent development of electronic computer technology. Buckland studied the historical background of information retrieval in and before 1939 because the Memex was based on Bush's work during 1938–1940 in building a photoelectric microfilm selector, an electronic retrieval technology invented by Emanuel Goldberg for Zeiss Ikon in

4700-444: The billionths of a second that modern computers are capable of. "For Memex," he writes, "the problem is not swift access, but selective access". Bush states that although the code-reading and potential linking capabilities of the rapid selector would be key to the creation of Memex, there is still an issue of enabling "moderately rapid access to really large memory storage". There is an issue concerning selection, Bush conveys, and despite

4794-506: The body of "As We May Think", which added only an introduction and conclusion. As described, Bush's memex was based on what was thought, at the time, to be advanced technology of the future: ultra high resolution microfilm reels, coupled to multiple screen viewers and cameras, by electromechanical controls. The memex, in essence, reflects a library of collective knowledge stored in a piece of machinery described in his essay as "a piece of furniture". The Atlantic publication of Bush's article

SECTION 50

#1732780357991

4888-405: The branched literature writing software Storyspace , were also demonstrated. Meanwhile, Nelson (who had been working on and advocating his Xanadu system for over two decades) convinced Autodesk to invest in his revolutionary ideas. The project continued at Autodesk for four years, but no product was released. In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, then a scientist at CERN , proposed and later prototyped

4982-409: The common textual format. In " As We May Think ", Vannevar Bush describes a memex as an electromechanical device enabling individuals to develop and read a large self-contained research library, create and follow associative trails of links and personal annotations, and recall these trails at any time to share them with other researchers. This device would closely mimic the associative processes of

5076-478: The current ways of indexing information as limiting and instead proposed a way to store information that was analogous to the mental association of the human brain: storing information with the capability of easy access at a later time using certain cues (in this case, a series of numbers as a code to retrieve data). According to Bush, the memex would have features other than linking. The user could record new information on microfilm, by taking photos from paper or from

5170-490: The customer needs to be charged." Due to the convenience of the store's central device which rapidly manage thousands of these transactions, the employees may focus on the essential aspects of the department such as sales and advertising. Indeed, as of today, "science has provided the swiftest communication between individuals; it has provided a record of ideas and has enabled man to manipulate and to make extracts from that record so that knowledge evolves and endures throughout

5264-483: The dark web. DARPA later released the Memex artificial intelligence search technologies as open-source software. In 2016, DARPA Memex program received the 2016 Presidential Award for Extraordinary Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons for developing the anti-trafficking technology tool. Dozens of law enforcement organizations worldwide use the Memex software to conduct investigations. Hypertext Hypertext

5358-441: The desk for future reference." Bush's 1945 " As We May Think " idea for the memex extended far beyond a mechanism that might augment the research of one individual working in isolation. In Bush's idea, the ability to connect, annotate, and share both published works and personal trails would profoundly change the process by which the "world's record" is created and used: Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready-made with

5452-605: The desk would have slanting translucent screens on which material could be projected for convenient reading. The top of the memex would have a transparent platen. When a longhand note, photograph, memoranda, or other things were placed on the platen, the depression of a lever would cause the item to be photographed onto the next blank space in a section of the memex film. According to Bush, memex could become "a sort of mechanized private file and library". The memex device as described by Bush "would use microfilm storage, dry photography, and analog computing to give postwar scholars access to

5546-425: The desk, but the user could add or remove microfilm reels at will. A memex would hypothetically read and write content on these microfilm reels, using electric photocells to read coded symbols recorded next to individual microfilm frames while the reels spun at high speed, stopping on command. The coded symbols would enable the memex to index, search, and link content to create and follow associative trails. The top of

5640-497: The distinction between the idea of a constructive Memex and the "permanent trails" described in As We May Think, and attributes Bush's machine learning concepts to Claude Shannon 's mechanical mouse and work with "feedback and machine learning ". Inspired by Bush's hypothetical device in his 1945 article, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency launched a program named Memex in 2014 to fight human trafficking crimes on

5734-578: The end of a day for further processing. (Illustrated in the header image.) Bush goes into some technical details about instant photography and electric fax machines. In his days, wet photography was the most common, yet it takes a long time and is hard to shrink into a small camera. However, whiteprint technology might be miniaturized, leading to miniature dry photography. Printed material could be transmitted cheaply by digital signals, as demonstrated by electric fax machines . The sending side uses photocells to convert images to electric signals, and on

SECTION 60

#1732780357991

5828-573: The existing computing machines are tabulating machines , arithmetic machines . Some are more advanced, like tide-predicting machines , and machines for solving differential and integration equations . Future scientists will delegate even more advanced routine mathematics to machines, just as one would delegate the operation of a car to its engine. By delegating away more routines, scientists can perform creative, intuitive work. Section 5: Scientists and other knowledge workers manipulate data and perform logical inferences. Any routine logical process that

5922-557: The fact that improvements have been made in the speed of digital selection, according to Bush, "selection, in the broad sense, is still a stone adze in the hands of the cabinetmaker". Bush goes on to discuss the record-making process and how Memex could incorporate systems of voice-control and user-propagated learning. He proposes a machine that could respond to "simple remarks" as well as build trails based on its user's "habits of association," as Belinda Barnet described them in "The Technical Evolution of Vannevar Bush's Memex." Barnet also makes

6016-872: The first commercial electronic book Hypertext Hands-On! . In August 1987, Apple Computer released HyperCard for the Macintosh line at the MacWorld convention . Its impact, combined with interest in Peter J. Brown's GUIDE (marketed by OWL and released earlier that year) and Brown University's Intermedia , led to broad interest in and enthusiasm for hypertext, hypermedia, databases, and new media in general. The first ACM Hypertext (hyperediting and databases) academic conference took place in November 1987, in Chapel Hill NC, where many other applications, including

6110-575: The first objective of our scientists. Through this process, society would be able to focus and evolve past the existing knowledge rather than looping through infinite calculations. We should be able to pass the tedious work of numbers to machines and work on the intricate theory which puts them best to use. If humanity were able to obtain the "privilege of forgetting the manifold things he does not need to have immediately at hand, with some assurance that he can find them again if proven important" only then "will mathematics be practically effective in bringing

6204-642: The great record and to grow in the wisdom of race experience. He may perish in conflict before he learns to wield that record for his true good. Yet, in the application of science to the needs and desires of man, it would seem to be a singularly unfortunate stage at which to terminate the process, or to lose hope as to the outcome. Editor's note: Technologies like trip hammers exist that can do physical labor better and faster. Soon, technologies will exist that can help people do intellectual labor better and faster. Introduction: Many scientists, especially physicists, obtained new duties during World War II . Now, after

6298-405: The human mind, but it would be gifted with permanent recollection. As Bush writes, "Thus science may implement the ways in which man produces, stores, and consults the record of the race". The technology used would have been a combination of electromechanical controls and microfilm cameras and readers, all integrated into a large desk. Most of the microfilm library would have been contained within

6392-516: The implementation of a simple scheme to incorporate several different servers of machine-stored information already available at CERN, including an analysis of the requirements for information access needs by experiments... A program which provides access to the hypertext world we call a browser. ― T. Berners-Lee, R. Cailliau, 12 November 1990, CERN In 1992, Lynx was born as an early Internet web browser. Its ability to provide hypertext links within documents that could reach into documents anywhere on

6486-413: The introduction of what he describes as the specialized "group machine", which would be useful for the sharing of ideas in fields such as medicine. Furthermore, although Bush discusses the compressional ability and rapidity so key to modern machines, he relates that speed will not be an integral part of Memex, stating that a tenth of a second would be an acceptable interval for its data retrieval, rather than

6580-502: The life of a race rather than of an individual". Improved technology has become an extension of our capabilities, much as how external hard drives function for computers so it may reserve more memory for more practical tasks. Another significant role of practicality in technology is the method of association and selection. "There may be millions of fine thoughts, and the account of the experience on which they are based, all encased within stone walls of acceptable architectural form; but if

6674-419: The massive task of creating more efficient accessibility to our fluctuating store of knowledge . For years inventions have extended people's physical powers rather than the powers of their mind. He argues that the instruments are at hand which, if properly developed, will give society access to and command over the inherited knowledge of the ages. The perfection of these pacific instruments, he suggests, should be

6768-505: The medical sense of 'excessive' ('hyperactivity'). There is no implication about size — a hypertext could contain only 500 words or so. 'Hyper-' refers to structure and not size." The English prefix "hyper-" comes from the Greek prefix "ὑπερ-" and means "over" or "beyond"; it has a common origin with the prefix "super-" which comes from Latin. It signifies the overcoming of the previous linear constraints of written text. The term "hypertext"

6862-458: The memex and "trails of reference", even before he had read "As We May Think". Also in 1965, Ted Nelson coined the word hypertext in a paper that quoted Bush's memex idea at length. In 1968, Nelson collaborated with Andries van Dam to implement the Hypertext Editing System (HES). In his 1987 book entitled " Literary Machines ", Nelson defined hypertext as "non-sequential writing with reader-controlled links". In 2000, Tim Berners-Lee published

6956-410: The memex in mind, he began work that would eventually result in the invention of the mouse , the word processor , the hyperlink and concepts of new media for which these groundbreaking inventions were merely enabling technologies. Today, storage has greatly surpassed the level imagined by Vannevar Bush, The Encyclopædia Britannica could be reduced to the volume of a matchbox. A library of

7050-413: The memex to store their associative trails accumulated over their professional life. There will be a new kind of job: "trail blazers", who find new and useful trails. Bush expect future technology to be superior than those described in the essay, but he keeps to only known technologies, instead of the possible unknown, to keep the idea of memex practical. More speculatively, since the human nervous system

7144-486: The mind of a woman whose erotic encounters were charged with a post-feminist satirical edge that cuts deep into the American psyche. There are various forms of hypertext fiction, each of which is structured differently. Below are four: As We May Think " As We May Think " is a 1945 essay by Vannevar Bush which has been described as visionary and influential, anticipating many aspects of information society . It

7238-421: The more general trail." In September 1945, Life magazine published an illustration by Alfred D. Crimi showing the "Memex desk". According to Life magazine, the Memex desk "would instantly bring files and material on an subject to the operator's fingertips". The mechanical core of the desk would also include "a mechanism which automatically photographs longhand notes, pictures and letters, then file them in

7332-636: The original WorldWideWeb browser, which was not carried over into most of the other early Web browsers). Besides the already mentioned Project Xanadu , Hypertext Editing System , NLS , HyperCard , and World Wide Web, there are other noteworthy early implementations of hypertext, with different feature sets: Among the top academic conferences for new research in hypertext is the annual ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media . The Electronic Literature Organization hosts annual conferences discussing hypertext fiction , poetry and other forms of electronic literature . Although not exclusively about hypertext,

7426-587: The pioneers in the usage of computers for linguistic and literary analysis, published the Index Thomisticus , as a tool for performing text searches within the massive corpus of Aquinas 's works. Sponsored by the founder of IBM, Thomas J. Watson , the project lasted about 30 years (1949–1980), and eventually produced the 56 printed volumes of the Index Thomisticus the first important hypertext work about Saint Thomas Aquinas books and of

7520-410: The practice of scientific and technical knowledge domains. His view encompasses the problems of information overload and the need to devise efficient mechanisms to control and channel information for use. Indeed, Bush was very concerned with information overload inhibiting the research efforts of scientists. His scientist, operating under conditions of "information explosion" and requiring respite from

7614-537: The printed code and electrically signal the memex to pull up the next item. Bush describes a use scenario , where the user is studying why the short Turkish bow was apparently superior to the English longbow in the Crusades . He searches through encyclopedias and textbooks, building a trail of connections. He also branches off another trail through textbooks and handbooks on elasticity. Later, in conversation with

7708-422: The receiving side, electric printers convert the electric signal into electric sparks hitting iodine-impregnated paper, turning it black. Section 3: Not only will it be cheap to transmit and copy digital material, it will also be cheap to convert printed material into digital form. Language is interconvertible with digital signals, as shown by three technologies: While currently Vocoders need human operators,

7802-459: The same subject in a simple way. This echoes the arguments of 'medium theorists' like Marshall McLuhan who look at the social and psychological impacts of the media. New media can become so dominant in public culture that they effectively create a "paradigm shift" as people have shifted their perceptions, understanding of the world, and ways of interacting with the world and each other in relation to new technologies and media. So hypertext signifies

7896-592: The scholar can get at only one a week by diligent search, his synthesis are not likely to keep up with the current scene." Bush believes that the tools available in his time lacked this feature, but noted the emergence and development of such ideas such as the Memex, a cross referencing system. Bush concludes his essay by stating that: The applications of science have built man a well-supplied house, and are teaching him to live healthily therein. They have enabled him to throw masses of people against one another with cruel weapons. They may yet allow him truly to encompass

7990-514: The self-contained units of meaning in a hypertextual narrative, can play with the reader's orientation and add meaning to the text. One of the most successful computer games, Myst , was first written in HyperCard. The game was constructed as a series of Ages, each Age consisting of a separate HyperCard stack. The full stack of the game consists of over 2500 cards. In some ways, Myst redefined interactive fiction, using puzzles and exploration as

8084-783: The sorter can quickly produce a stack of cards listing, for example, all employees who live in Trenton, New Jersey and know the Spanish language , and a telephone exchange can quickly connect to the line specified by a number sequence. Bush proceeds to describe in detail a management system for a department store , where a salesperson enters customer and product information, which a central machine uses to update inventory, credit sales, adjust accounts, and charge customers, using analog devices such as punched cards, dry photography, microfilms, Valdemar Poulsen 's magnetic wire recorder , and so on. Section 6: Traditional information systems, such as

8178-551: The strange term "interactive multimedia": this is four syllables longer, and does not express the idea of extending hypertext. Hypertext documents can either be static (prepared and stored in advance) or dynamic (continually changing in response to user input, such as dynamic web pages ). Static hypertext can be used to cross-reference collections of data in documents, software applications , or books on CDs . A well-constructed system can also incorporate other user-interface conventions, such as menus and command lines. Links used in

8272-402: The tape is of special significance, as this would allow for modification of information stored in the proposed Memex. In the article, Bush stresses the continued importance of supplementing "how creative men think" and relates that the systems for indexing data are still insufficient and rely too much on linear pathways rather than the association-based system of the human brain. Bush writes that

8366-452: The tide of scientific documents could be construed as a nascent image of the "Information Literate Person" in an information saturated society. There is a growing mountain of research. But there is increased evidence that we are being bogged down today as specialization extends. The investigator is staggered by the findings and conclusions of thousands of other workers. Schools, colleges, health care, government, etc., are all implicated in

8460-400: The user can make any item associate with any other, so that pulling up the first item automatically pulls up the second. Associations can be chained, building a "trail". A trail can be named and later retrieved by typing on the keyboard. Any item can be a part of many trails. Associative indexing can be implemented by coded dots printed on the bottoms of microfilms, and an optical reader can read

8554-496: The war, they need new peaceful duties. Section 1: Scientific knowledge has grown considerably, but the way we manage knowledge has remained the same for centuries. We are no longer able to keep up and find relevant information in the flood of information. Leibniz 's computer and Charles Babbage 's computer were both failures because technologies of their times could not produce them cheaply and precisely, but now we have enough technology. Section 2: Science should not only be

8648-618: Was developed at Carnegie Mellon University during the 1970s, used for documents on Nimitz class aircraft carriers, and later evolving as KMS (Knowledge Management System). The first hypermedia application is generally considered to be the Aspen Movie Map , implemented in 1978. The Movie Map allowed users to arbitrarily choose which way they wished to drive in a virtual cityscape, in two seasons (from actual photographs) as well as 3-D polygons . In 1980, Tim Berners-Lee created ENQUIRE , an early hypertext database system somewhat like

8742-677: Was first published in The Atlantic in July 1945 and republished in an abridged version in September 1945—before and after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki . Bush expresses his concern for the direction of scientific efforts toward destruction, rather than understanding, and explicates a desire for a sort of collective memory machine with his concept of the memex that would make knowledge more accessible, believing that it would help fix these problems. Through this machine, Bush hoped to transform an information explosion into

8836-452: Was followed by an abridged version in the September 10, 1945 issue of Life magazine, accompanied by fanciful illustrations of the proposed memex desk and other devices Bush projected. Bush also discussed other technologies such as dry photography and microphotography where he elaborates on the potentialities of their future use. For example, Bush states in his essay that: The combination of optical projection and photographic reduction

#990009