Memex

Memex [memory expansion] is a hypothetical electromechanical device for interacting with microform documents and described in Vannevar Bush's 1945 article "As We May Think".

Bush envisioned the memex as a device in which individuals would compress and store all of their books, records, and communications, "mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility".

[1] 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.

[4] The memex device as described by Bush "would use microfilm storage, dry photography, and analog computing to give postwar scholars access to a huge, indexed repository of knowledge any section of which could be called up with a few keystrokes.

"[3] 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.

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.

[10] In 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".

[12] Engelbart updated the Memex microfilm storage desk and thereby arrived at a pioneering vision for a personal computer connected to an electronic visual display and a mouse pointing device.

[18] In 2000, Tim Berners-Lee published 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.

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.

Bush writes that 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".

[22] 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 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.

[22] He proposes a machine that could respond to "simple remarks" as well as build trails[22] based on its user's "habits of association," as Belinda Barnet described them in "The Technical Evolution of Vannevar Bush's Memex."

[23] 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 the dark web.

[25] 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.