• Written in 1945, just after WW II.
• We are being bogged down in a mountain of research.
• Our methods of transmitting and reviewing results are generations old and inadequate.
• Two centuries ago, Leibnitz invented a calculating machine but it could not come into use for ecnomic reasons.  Nor could Babbage manufacture his arithmetical machine.
• today we have mechanical and electrical connections, photography, wax disks.  We must use this technology to communicate knowledge.
• He projects greater use of film, through mini-camers mounted on our heads.
• Predicts "dry photography" now known as photocopying.  Also fax and TV known to him.  Projects reducing the Encyclopedia down to the volume of a matchbox
• predicts voice dictation to a machine
• we also need to be able to do quantitative computation on data, e.g., as with punched cards invented by Hollerith
• more and more of the population will do these advanced kinds of analysis.  Anyone who uses logical thought needs this kind of machine.
• data bases can be mained, e.g., of employees or customers
• the biggest problem in all of this is INDEXING!  Records are filed alphabetically or numerically or by classes.  Human mind does not work that way, it works by instantaneous association.  Association of thoughts.
• Future device outlined, he calls it a memex  Here is his description (from the original article):

                                                    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.

 
                It consists of a desk, and while it can
                presumably be operated from a distance, it is
                primarily the piece of furniture at which he
                works. On the top are slanting translucent
                screens, on which material can be projected for
                convenient reading. There is a keyboard, and
                sets of buttons and levers. Otherwise it looks
                like an ordinary desk.

                In one end is the stored material. The matter of
                bulk is well taken care of by improved
                microfilm. Only a small part of the interior of
                the memex is devoted to storage, the rest to
                mechanism. Yet if the user inserted 5000 pages
                of material a day it would take him hundreds of
                years to fill the repository, so he can be
                profligate and enter material freely.

                Most of the memex contents are purchased on
                microfilm ready for insertion. Books of all
                sorts, pictures, current periodicals, newspapers,
                are thus obtained and dropped into place.
                Business correspondence takes the same path.
                And there is provision for direct entry. On the
                top of the memex is a transparent platen. On this
                are placed longhand notes, photographs,
                memoranda, all sorts of things. When one is in
                place, the depression of a lever causes it to be
                photographed onto the next blank space in a
                section of the memex film, dry photography
                being employed.

                There is, of course, provision for consultation
                of the record by the usual scheme of indexing. If
                the user wishes to consult a certain book, he
                taps its code on the keyboard, and the title page
                of the book promptly appears before him,
                projected onto one of his viewing positions.
                Frequently-used codes are mnemonic, so that he
                seldom consults his code book; but when he
                does, a single tap of a key projects it for his
                use. Moreover, he has supplemental levers. On
                deflecting one of these levers to the right he
                runs through the book before him, each page in
                turn being projected at a speed which just
                allows a recognizing glance at each. If he
                deflects it further to the right, he steps through
                the book 10 pages at a time; still further at 100
                pages at a time. Deflection to the left gives him
                the same control backwards.

                A special button transfers him immediately to
                the first page of the index. Any given book of
                his library can thus be called up and consulted
                with far greater facility than if it were taken
                from a shelf. As he has several projection
                positions, he can leave one item in position
                while he calls up another. He can add marginal
                notes and comments, taking advantage of one
                possible type of dry photography, and it could
                even be arranged so that he can do this by a
                stylus scheme, such as is now employed in the
                telautograph seen in railroad waiting rooms,
                just as though he had the physical page before
                him.All this is conventional, except for the
                projection forward of present-day mechanisms
                and gadgetry. It affords an immediate step,
                however, to associative indexing, the basic idea
                of which is a provision whereby any item may
                be caused at will to select immediately and
                automatically another. This is the essential
                feature of the memex. The process of tying two
                items together is the important thing.

                When the user is building a trail, he names it,
                inserts the name in his code book, and taps it
                out on his keyboard. Before him are the two
                items to be joined, projected onto adjacent
                viewing positions. At the bottom of each there
                are a number of blank code spaces, and a
                pointer is set to indicate one of these on each
                item. The user taps a single key, and the items
                are permanently joined. In each code space
                appears the code word. Out of view, but also in
                the code space, is inserted a set of dots for
                photocell viewing; and on each item these dots
                by their positions designate the index number of
                the other item.

                Thereafter, at any time, when one of these items
                is in view, the other can be instantly recalled
                merely by tapping a button below the
                corresponding code space. Moreover, when
                numerous items have been thus joined together
                to form a trail, they can be reviewed in turn,
                rapidly or slowly, by deflecting a lever like that
                used for turning the pages of a book. It is
                exactly as though the physical items had been
                gathered together from widely separated
                sources and bound together to form a new book.
                It is more than this, for any item can be joined
                into numerous trails.

• Note the similarity of these ideas and those of Licklider, which we have already read.  One History of the Internet traces its earlies origins back to Licklider's 1962 article that we have already read.  Bushw as much earlier, before his time, because of the weakness of computer design at that time.
• Today, we have the World Wide Web, which works very much like Bush's description.
• It was an outcome of the Internet, which was first developed as a means of remote operation of computers.  Email came along as a side benefit that soon was more popular than the original function.
• The WEB was the result of the development of Hypertext Mark-up Language by Tim Berners-Lee, a physicist working for the European Particle Physics Laboratory.  He wanted a way of representing a document with hyperlinks on a WEB page, and developed the Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML.  The Hypertext Transfer Protocal, or HTTP, was developed to standardize the transmission of these documents from one system to another.  This is why most WEB documents are labeled http://  and written in HTML.