The Memex

I was happy to find out this week we were doing research on the Memex, due to the fact that we read about it in another class in our FIG and I was intrigued by the idea. I think it's amazing that years before the personal computer was available, Vannevar Bush was able to think of this place where everything belonging to a single personal could come together within one device. Since we had only read As We May Think, reading Memex Revisited presented new ideas to me. I like how Bush was able to develop his idea more to more accommodate the ideas with the time period (1967). The technological availabilities from 1945 to 1967 changed dramatically, one of those being that the first computer had been developed. When I went to google about the Memex, the results I came across including a Wikipedia article, information linking to Vannevar Bush, articles written about the Memex, and most interestingly, a group who tried to simulate an actual Memex. There were also many pictures depicting what the Memex looked like, and an advanced video of how the Memex would operate. I think the Memex was a great idea in its time, and as many people recognize it, it was the first model for what we know as hypertext today. Hypertext is an essential part to using computers today, so it is admirable that Bush was actually able to think of hypertext in a usable manner, that he called the Memex.