The Memex

To think that Vannevar Bush came up with the idea of the Memex in 1945 is really fascinating and unbelievable to me. He thought of what we would see as a very early version of the computer. In his article, As We May Think, he describes what the Memex is and its functions that he had envisioned for it. It is also very interesting about the ideas that he came up with, which today we see and use, and these include hypertext.

When I did a Google search for the term "Memex", I came across a website that describes the early history of the Memex and it's main ideas. The information about the Memex was on the website "The Electronic Labyrinth", and it talked about how the Memex was an early form of hypertext. On the website there is a quote from Bush that states, "When the user is building a trail, he names it, inserts the name in his code book, and taps it out on his keyboard." Bush wanted to find a way to navigate all of this data and to form an early version of what we know today as the World Wide Web. This idea was used by people like Tim Berners-Lee and many others to help influence them with what they created.

It came as no surprise to me that people like Douglas Engelbart and Ted Nelson have acknowledged Bush because of the influence that he had on them. His ideas have influenced most of what we know today about the internet and the world wide web, and I believe that sometimes we forget about where it all started. Bush's revolutionary thoughts that were ahead of his time have helped shape our technology and what we know of the World Wide Web and hypertext today.