This week, I read Bush’s article, “As We May Think”, describing his creation of the Memex. The Memex is a device that would compress and store an individuals books, record, and communications, to increase speed and flexibility. After reading both the original article, and the follow up article, “Memex Revisited”, I did a google search on the Memex. I found an interesting animated video on the invention of the Memex and how it works.The person using the Memex in the video is capable of looking up articles, adding their own comments and information, and sharing the articles with others. This can be compared to the internet in the modern day, which allows society to search whatever they desire, add in their own thoughts and ideas, and share it with friends with the click of a button. The video also shows the inside workings of the machine and what can be accessed in the different drawers. It is really interesting to see how the Memex functioned as a modern-day computer much before its time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c539cK58ees
2 comments:
The video you found provides an interesting explanation of how exactly the Memex would have looked like and functioned. I found it astonishing how large the Memex was . It reminds me of a Xerox machine. Although Bush did not have the size of the Memex correct, he was accurate on the collaborative aspect of the Memex. The video talks about someone sending an article that they found important to a friend. Similarly, in modern times, we can send a text or and email to our friends using smartphones which are almost mini Memex machines as described by Bush.
Just like you had stated, but initially reading the articles and watching your video, the memex seemed to be similar to the Internet. Being able to access multiple different sources for an answer, adding notes to those sources, and sharing that information. It's weird to think that someone thought of this years before the first computer was even built. The memex was similar to a desk and now today, we have phones that are a fraction that size doing much larger and faster tasks.
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