As We May Think

29 Oct 09

Antti Raike

"As We May Think"

23 Sep 09

Ronda Wery

Our ineptitude in getting at the record is largely caused by
the artificiality of systems of indexing
It can be in only
one place, unless duplicates are used; one has to have rules as to which path
will locate it, and the rules are cumbersome. Having found one item, moreover,
one has to emerge from the system and re-enter on a new path.
12 more annotations...
- The human mind does not work that way. It operates by association.
- intricate web of trails
- Selection by association, rather than
  indexing, may yet be mechanized.
- 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.
- associative
  indexing
- This is the essential
  feature of the memex. The process of tying two items together is the important
  thing.
- oreover, when numerous items have been thus joined together to form a
  trail, they can be reviewed in turn, rapidly or slowly
- Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear
- a skip trail which stops only on the salient items
- All our steps in creating or absorbing material of the record proceed through
  one of the senses—the tactile when we touch keys, the oral when we speak or
  listen, the visual when we read. Is it not possible that some day the path may
  be established more directly?
- In the outside world, all forms of intelligence whether of sound or sight, have
  been reduced to the form of varying currents in an electric circuit in order
  that they may be transmitted. Inside the human frame exactly the same sort of
  process occurs.
- He has
  built a civilization so complex that he needs to mechanize his records more
  fully if he is to push his experiment to its logical conclusion and not merely
  become bogged down part way there by overtaxing his limited memory. His
  excursions may be more enjoyable if he can reacquire the privilege of
  forgetting the manifold things he does not need to have immediately at hand,
  with some assurance that he can find them again if they prove important.

05 Sep 09

Vivian Linderman

The human mind does not work that way. It operates by association. With one
item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the
association of thoughts, in accordance with some intricate web of trails
carried by the cells of the brain. It has other characteristics, of course;
trails that are not frequently followed are prone to fade, items are not fully
permanent, memory is transitory. Yet the speed of action, the intricacy of
trails, the detail of mental pictures, is awe-inspiring beyond all else in
nature.
Selection by association, rather than
indexing, may yet be mechanized. One cannot hope thus to equal the speed and
flexibility with which the mind follows an associative trail, but it should be
possible to beat the mind decisively in regard to the permanence and clarity of
the items resurrected from storage.
4 more annotations...
- 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.
- Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of
  associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and
  there amplified.
- encompass the great record
- learns to wield that record for his true good.

19 Jul 09

Charles Kane

Selection by association, rather than
indexing, may yet be mechanized.
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.
4 more annotations...
- When the user is building a trail, he names it, inserts the name in his code
  book, and taps it out on his keyboard.
- t is
  an interesting trail, pertinent to the discussion. So he sets a reproducer in
  action, photographs the whole trail out, and passes it to his friend for
  insertion in his own memex, there to be linked into the more general trail.
- Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear,
- His
  excursions may be more enjoyable if he can reacquire the privilege of
  forgetting the manifold things he does not need to have immediately at hand,
  with some assurance that he can find them again if they prove important.

06 Sep 08

Steve Ersinghaus

hypertext Memex systems

The real heart of the matter of selection, however, goes deeper than a lag in
the adoption of mechanisms by libraries, or a lack of development of devices for their use. Our ineptitude in getting at the record is largely caused by
the artificiality of systems of indexing. When data of any sort are placed in
storage, they are filed alphabetically or numerically, and information is found
(when it is) by tracing it down from subclass to subclass. It can be in only
one place, unless duplicates are used; one has to have rules as to which path
will locate it, and the rules are cumbersome. Having found one item, moreover,
one has to emerge from the system and re-enter on a new path.
With one
item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the
association of thoughts, in accordance with some intricate web of trails
carried by the cells of the brain. It has other characteristics, of course;
trails that are not frequently followed are prone to fade, items are not fully
permanent, memory is transitory. Yet the speed of action, the intricacy of
trails, the detail of mental pictures, is awe-inspiring beyond all else in
nature.
16 more annotations...
- The human mind does not work that way. It operates by association.
- 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.
- device
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- a trail
- 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.
- The owner of the memex, let us say, is interested in the origin and properties
  of the bow and arrow. Specifically he is studying why the short Turkish bow was
  apparently superior to the English long bow in the skirmishes of the Crusades.
  He has dozens of possibly pertinent books and articles in his memex. First he
  runs through an encyclopedia, finds an interesting but sketchy article, leaves
  it projected. Next, in a history, he finds another pertinent item, and ties the
  two together. Thus he goes, building a trail of many items. Occasionally he
  inserts a comment of his own, either linking it into the main trail or joining
  it by a side trail to a particular item. When it becomes evident that the
  elastic properties of available materials had a great deal to do with the bow,
  he branches off on a side trail which takes him through textbooks on elasticity
  and tables of physical constants. He inserts a page of longhand analysis of his
  own. Thus he builds a trail of his interest through the maze of materials
  available to him.
- Several years later, his talk with a friend turns
  to the queer ways in which a people resist innovations
- Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of
  associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and
  there amplified. The lawyer has at his touch the associated opinions and
  decisions of his whole experience, and of the experience of friends and
  authorities.
- The
  chemist, struggling with the synthesis of an organic compound, has all the
  chemical literature before him in his laboratory, with trails following the
  analogies of compounds, and side trails to their physical and chemical
  behavior.
- There is a new profession of trail blazers, those who find delight in the task
  of establishing useful trails through the enormous mass of the common record.
- The inheritance from the master becomes, not only his additions to the world's
  record, but for his disciples the entire scaffolding by which they were
  erected.
- Presumably man's spirit should be elevated if he can better review his shady
  past and analyze more completely and objectively his present problems. He has
  built a civilization so complex that he needs to mechanize his records more
  fully if he is to push his experiment to its logical conclusion and not merely
  become bogged down part way there by overtaxing his limited memory. His
  excursions may be more enjoyable if he can reacquire the privilege of
  forgetting the manifold things he does not need to have immediately at hand,
  with some assurance that he can find them again if they prove important.

03 Sep 08

Lori Emerson

memex hypertext bush AI

07 Jul 08

Olivier Le Deuff

bush

Sarah Sutter

reading for Educational Seminar this month

edt616 seminar article 1945

. Our ineptitude in getting at the record is largely caused by
the artificiality of systems of indexing. When data of any sort are placed in
storage, they are filed alphabetically or numerically, and information is found
(when it is) by tracing it down from subclass to subclass. It can be in only
one place, unless duplicates are used; one has to have rules as to which path
will locate it, and the rules are cumbersome. Having found one item, moreover,
one has to emerge from the system and re-enter on a new path.

The human mind does not work that way. It operates by association.
With one
item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the
association of thoughts, in accordance with some intricate web of trails
carried by the cells of the brain
8 more annotations...
- 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 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.
- Thus he builds a trail of his interest through the maze of materials
  available to him.
- passes it to his friend for
  insertion in his own memex
- science may implement the ways in which man produces, stores, and consults
  the record of the race
- our steps in creating or absorbing material of the record proceed through
- path may
  be established more directly
- He has
  built a civilization so complex that he needs to mechanize his records more
  fully if he is to push his experiment to its logical conclusion and not merely
  become bogged down part way there by overtaxing his limited memory. His
  excursions may be more enjoyable if he can reacquire the privilege of
  forgetting the manifold things he does not need to have immediately at hand,
  with some assurance that he can find them again if they prove important.

24 Feb 08

jordan123

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.

10 Jan 08

advee77

Selection by association, rather than
indexing, may yet be mechanized. One cannot hope thus to equal the speed and
flexibility with which the mind follows an associative trail, but it should be
possible to beat the mind decisively in regard to the permanence and clarity of
the items resurrected from storage.
It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.
2 more annotations...
- 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.
- He has
  built a civilization so complex that he needs to mechanize his records more
  fully if he is to push his experiment to its logical conclusion and not merely
  become bogged down part way there by overtaxing his limited memory. His
  excursions may be more enjoyable if he can reacquire the privilege of
  forgetting the manifold things he does not need to have immediately at hand,
  with some assurance that he can find them again if they prove important.

12 Sep 07

rrancken

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.

29 Aug 06

barbara i

Our ineptitude in getting at the record is largely caused by
the artificiality of systems of indexing. When data of any sort are placed in
storage, they are filed alphabetically or numerically, and information is found
(when it is) by tracing it down from subclass to subclass. It can be in only
one place, unless duplicates are used; one has to have rules as to which path
will locate it, and the rules are cumbersome. Having found one item, moreover,
one has to emerge from the system and re-enter on a new path.
The human mind does not work that way. It operates by association. With one
item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the
association of thoughts, in accordance with some intricate web of trails
carried by the cells of the brain. It has other characteristics, of course;
trails that are not frequently followed are prone to fade, items are not fully
permanent, memory is transitory. Yet the speed of action, the intricacy of
trails, the detail of mental pictures, is awe-inspiring beyond all else in
nature.
7 more annotations...
- 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.
- 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.
- Wholly new forms of encyclopedias
- There is a new profession of trail blazers, those who find delight in the task
  of establishing useful trails through the enormous mass of the common record
- All our steps in creating or absorbing material of the record proceed through
  one of the senses—the tactile when we touch keys, the oral when we speak or
  listen, the visual when we read. Is it not possible that some day the path may
  be established more directly?
- Must we always transform to mechanical movements in order to
  proceed from one electrical phenomenon to another? It is a suggestive thought,
  but it hardly warrants prediction without losing touch with reality and
  immediateness.
- His
  excursions may be more enjoyable if he can reacquire the privilege of
  forgetting the manifold things he does not need to have immediately at hand,
  with some assurance that he can find them again if they prove important.