The "memex" was a theoretical analog computer described by the scientist and engineer Vannevar Bush in the 1945 The Atlantic Monthly article "As We May Think". The word was a portmanteau of "memory extender". Bush described the device as electronically linked to a library and able to display books and films from the library and automatically follow cross-references from one work to another. This idea directly influenced computer pioneer Douglas Engelbart, and also led to Ted Nelson's groundbreaking work in concepts of hypermedia and hypertext. An analog/analogue computer is a form of computer that uses electronic or mechanical phenomena to model the problem being solved by using one kind of physical quantity to represent another. ... This article is about the profession. ... Look up Engineer on Wiktionary, the free dictionary An engineer is someone who practices the profession of engineering – a person who uses scientific knowledge to solve practical problems using technology. ... Vannevar Bush (March 11, 1890–June 30, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor, and politician, known for his political role in the development of the atomic bomb, and idea of the memex —seen as a pioneering concept for the world wide web. ... 1945 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Atlantic Monthly (also known as The Atlantic) is an American literary/cultural magazine that was founded in November 1857. ... Vannevar Bushs essay As We May Think, first published in The Atlantic Monthly in July 1945, argued that as humans turned from war, scientific efforts should shift from increasing physical abilities to making all previous collected human knowledge more accessible. ... A portmanteau (plural: portmanteaux or portmanteaus) is a word that is formed by combining both sounds and meanings from two or more words. ... Modern-style library In its traditional sense, a library is a collection of books and periodicals. ... [1]#redirect Book ... Film may refer to: photographic film a motion picture in academics, the study of motion pictures as an art form a thin skin or membrane, or any covering or coating, whether transparent or opaque a thin layer of liquid, either on a solid or liquid surface or free-standing Film... Douglas Engelbart Dr. Douglas C. Engelbart (born January 30, 1925 in Oregon) is an American inventor of Norwegian descent. ... Ted Nelson Theodor Holm Nelson (born circa 1939) invented the term hypertext in 1965, and is a pioneer of information technology. ... Hypermedia is a term used as a logical extension of the term hypertext, in which audio, video, plain text, and non-linear hyperlinks intertwine to create a generally non-linear medium of information. ... In computing, hypertext is a user interface paradigm for displaying documents which, according to an early definition (Nelson 1970), branch or perform on request. ...

The memex not only offered linked information to a user, but was also a tool for establishing the links. 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 the desk, but the user could add or remove microfilm reels at will. Microfilm is an analog storage medium for books, periodicals, legal documents and engineering drawings. ...

The technology of the memex is often confused with that of hypertext. Although Bush's idea inspired the creation of hypertext, it is not considered to be hypertext. The memex as proposed by Bush could only create links between a pair of microfilm frames, but it could not create links in the modern sense where a hyperlink can be based on a single word, phrase or picture within a document. A hyperlink, or simply a link, is a reference in a hypertext document to another document or other resource. ...

Furthermore, Bush's crude notion of associative trails has generally not been implemented in the vast majority of hypertext systems. 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. The closest analogy with the modern Web browser would be to create a list of bookmarks pointing to articles relevant to a topic, and then to have some mechanism for automatically scrolling through the articles. Needless to say, modern hypertext systems with word and phrase-level linking offer far more sophisticated methods for connecting relevant information.

However, the memex also had other features; the user could generate new information on microfilm, such as by taking photos from paper or from a touch-sensitive translucent screen. As observers like Tim Oren have pointed out, the memex could be considered to be a microfilm-based precursor to the personal computer. The September 10, 1945 Life magazine article showed the first illustrations of what the memex desk could look like, as well as illustrations of a head-mounted camera, which a scientist could wear while doing experiments, and a typewriter capable of voice recognition and of reading text by speech synthesis. Taken together, these memex machines were probably the earliest practical description of what we would call today the Office of the future. A cover of Life Magazine from 1911 Life has been the name of two notable magazines published in the United States. ... A camera is a device used to take pictures (usually photographs), either singly or in sequence, with or without sound, such as with video cameras. ... This Smith Premier typewriter, purchased around the end of the 19th century, was found abandoned in the Bodie ghost town. ... Speech recognition technologies allow computers equipped with a source of sound input, such as a microphone, to interpret human speech, e. ... Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. ... The Office of the future is a concept dating from the 40s. ...

The system had no automatic search, nor a universal metadata scheme such as a standard library classification or an hypertext element set like the Dublin core. Instead, when the user made an entry, such as a new or annotated manuscript, typescript or image, he was expected to index and describe it in his personal code book. By consulting his code book, the user could retrace annotated and generated entries. Metadata is data about data. ... A library classification is a system of coding and organizing library materials (books, serials, audiovisual materials, computer files, maps, manuscripts, realia) according to their subject. ... The Dublin Core is a metadata standard for describing digital objects (including webpages) to enhance visibility, accessibility and interoperability, often encoded in XML. It was so named because the first meeting of metadata and web specialists which saw its birth was held in the town of Dublin, Ohio in the...

The memex inspired Microsoft Research's Gordon Bell's project, MyLifeBits, a database-powered digital store of photographs, documents, communications and even web-browsing statistics of Bell, searchable, annotated and indexed. This ongoing project attempts to capture a lifetime of experiences as automatically as possible for future use and reference with ease. Additionally the Texas A&M University's Richard Furuta and Frank Shipman's Walden's Paths project has implemented a path-based system to link chains of webpages much in the same way as the Memex. Microsoft Research is a division of Microsoft that is devoted to researching various computer science topics and issues. ... This article is about Gordon Bell, the computer engineer. ... A database is an organized collection of data. ... Texas A&M University Texas A&M University, often Texas A&M, A&M or TAMU for short, is the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System. ... A path is a route between two points. ...

External links

• Gordon Bell's MyLifeBits, inspired by the memex