mercurious

“AS WE MAY THINK” BY DR. VANNEVAR BUSH

Originally published in the Atlantic Monthly→, “As We May Think→” (July, 1945), a member of the Manhattan Project proposes the [tag]Memex[/tag]↔, a sort of microfilm-based knowledge desk. Many consider the Memex to be the pre-digital precursor to the idea of the Web and Internet as we know it today. It may reflect the dawn of the information age.

I am constantly referring to the Memex in my [tag]lectures[/tag]↔ and research as a significant historical precedent to modern informatics, information design, hypertext and interactive media.

A diagram depicting “Computing’s Family Tree”◊ sources the Memex at the root of all modern operating systems. See also Dr. Ivan Sutherland’s [tag]Sketchpad[/tag]↔ for the world’s first interactive computer graphics system.

Links

• Original article, Atlantic Monthly→
• “As We May Think”, Wikipedia→
• ‘Memex,’ Wikipedia→
• ‘Informatics,’ Wikipedia→

See Also

Lecture: The Origins of Interactive Media ↑