A few days after I had written the passage
If everything works well, this page will be my extended memory
I stumbled upon a (very old) article by Vannevar Bush, entitled As
We May Think. It contains the passage:
Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized
private file and library. It needs a name, and to coin one at random,
``memex'' will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all
his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it
may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged
intimate supplement to his memory.
At most 10 years from now, I will probably carry around with a PowerBook
that contains my home page on a WORM, together with a few gigs of texts,
and is connected to the world via cordless TCP/IP at decent speeds, say
>64kbps. If that ain't no Memex, I dunno what is. (All this is even
possible today, but still too expensive and flakey for my taste. Heck,
current technology can't even provide for a stable battery -- just
yesterday evening, my PB failed to boot after it was cut off from the power
supply for a week.)
This page was last changed on Apr 20 1995, 17:19 by mfx@pobox.com. Comments and corrections welcome.