Talk:Memex

As We May Think --> Memex Merge Proposal
I am proposing that we merge both of these articles since they are discussing the same thing just from two slightly different perspectives: Why do I propose we merge into Memex instead of into the As we may think article? Mostly because the name of the technology is more memorable. Google actually gives the name number of hits for both choices. --Ben Houston 04:51, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
 * As We May Think is the title of the article.
 * Memex is the name of the technology discussed in the article.


 * Merge - yes, good idea. Midgley 00:57, 23 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I prefer keeping them separate. "As We May Think" is about an essay, Memex about a concept that extended way beyond the original article. Merging them would be like folding The Origin of Species into evolution or Neuromancer into cyberspace. Algae 13:25, 23 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. They are separate entities.  They should be welllinked and even mutually explained within each article but not merged.--AlainV 03:38, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I also agree. Actually, I propose that the "As We May Think" entry should be expanded as to include implications and impact, pre considerations, post-view, feasibility and maybe even the article itself. I'm not sure about what's Wikipedia's stand on republishing the whole thing, but there's an entry dedicated to it, so it would make a lot of sense if the article itself was included. It's not the same case of a book, which can't be transcribed, but the entry could bring pieces of the original for illustration and discussion purposes (like the ones I suggest above). As the memex thing never took off on its own and was later considered very flawed, maybe its entry should only state that, in general terms, and point to the article entry for further clarification. The whole point about Bush, the article and the memex is not, IMHO, about the physical things or direct realization, but about the ideas behind them, which were decisive to a lot of stuff we know and use today. This probably makes the article way more important than the described device itself. (Anonymous, Brazil, 2 April 2006)

The issue of Bush knowing about any other technologies
That possibility was examined and dismissed in Colin Burke, Information and Secrecy: Vannevar Bush, Ultra, and the Other Memex, Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, Inc, 1994. Burke noted that Bush was a engineer at heart who hated humanists, librarians, social scientists, and the like. For example, as head of the Carnegie Foundation, Bush severely damaged American anthropology in the 1930s by slashing Carnegie funding for anthropological research. Thus, it was unlikely that he would have spoken with or read about other people who had already considered the information overload issue, like H.G. Wells or Paul Otlet; as Buckland and others have pointed out, the Memex's crude design is itself evidence of Bush's ignorance of library science (which had been developing for well over half a century before he came along). And yes, library science is information science. --Coolcaesar 21:37, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Side trails
Can somebody please send me your side-trails? --William sharkey 04:20, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Removing memetics category
I am removing the memetics category from this article since you learn no more about the article's contents from the category and v.v. Since so many things may be memes we should try to keep the category closely defined in order to remain useful. Hope you're okay with that. The link to meme would be enough I suggest. Facius 11:53, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Extending, storing and consulting the record of the race
I added a new section (title from AWMT) to broaden the scope of the Memex article a bit based on Oren (and Bush himself) quoted in "From Memex to Hypertext". The memex article seemed a bit too narrowly focused on its utility as a research aid for one individual. Bush's AWMT itself, authorities cited in "From Memex to Hypertext" and statements from Nelson, Engelbart, van Dam and other early hypertext researchers devote considerable attention to the memex as a device for creating and sharing a corpus of authored trails to the extend the published record as well as a personal aid. By projecting a future vision, Bush inspired some very smart and dedicated people to create their own implementations and interpretations of that vision. Belinda Barnet's 2004 thesis (see hypertext reference section), "From Memex to Hypertext" and other references are relevant sources tracing the influence of the memex in shaping a vision of a globally authored hypertext corpus as well as an personal tool --Grlloyd 04:31, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

On Criticism section
I sympathize and agree with the intent of the second para added by Maxent, which he summarizes as "POV fodder, but please also fix the misleading criticism I'm rebutting". I agree that this is a fascinating topic: In 1945 Bush envisions links as associations (modeling thought); in 1992 Buckland (a very distinguished UC Berkeley professor of Library and Information science) takes Bush to task for slighting earlier information technology research using microfilm, and ignoring indexing theory and practice; At about the same time as Buckland criticizes Bush, Berners Lee pops in with the WWW as minimalist link, transport and markup protocol (broken one way links and all) confounding generations of hypertext purists who thought it could never work; It did however work and scale like crazy. But with just links, anyone navigating the Web would have a flea's eye view of a growing net unless they were lucky enough to stumble upon a useful connection and follow it. But TBL's minimalist protocol enabled exogenous search engines to evolve on their own trajectory, making it possible to use indices to find what you really want to connect, save and share at a global scale. Then RSS/Atom based simple syndication protocols pop up with Web scale indexing of the syndication feeds making it possible to find anyone who is taking about you - or what you're interested in - in near real time, enabling you to add your own connection that's reindexed and fed to syndication engines etc. The problem is this is POV without a good current reference (I have a paper that hits a bit of this, but would like to find something better). I think Buckland's 1992 criticism and admonition to look to the microfilm researchers and technology that Bush branched from is valid and helpful in writing a good entry for "Memex". But rather than speculate on how Buckland might have responded to the web, why not ask him for a published reference that reflects his current thinking? See Buckland's UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Home page and seminar schedule. Or cite some other authority who has published good original research on the topic. We're in literature search time here folk - one nice reference and very brief synopsis would be great. --Grlloyd 22:18, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

On Memex revisited section
I added details to this section concerning the specific technologies Bush envisioned would allow for the creation of an actual Memex, and some of the limitations he discussed concerning access and selection. I also added some quotes from DARPA's website about their MEMEX program in the "Legacy" section, and noted that Bush did not intend "Memex" to be a portmanteau, as was originally stated in this article, but that he instead coined it at random, as was stated in "As We May Think." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.239.196.135 (talk) 08:54, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Image
Hello all, I happen to be searching for a public domain image of the Memex and if I find one, will happily submit it here. My ignorance of the exact tenets of copyright law in this instance are hindering me, but I've read through some materials at the Library of Congress and I hazard a guess that it's possible the image might still be under copyright, but that including an image might qualify as fair use. There seem to be multiple images on the web in various places but I can't determine the copyright status of any of them. The Atlantic Monthly article does not seem to offer any illustrations. Can any of you all point me in the right direction?--Kwikiva (talk) 23:18, 27 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The earliest illustration of Bush's imaginary invention were published in an abbreviated version of "As We May Think" in the Sep 10, 1945 issue of Life Magazine, see http://people.virginia.edu/~dg6n/classes/0405.1.fall.mdst110/lectures/09.html I'm sure of the Life reference since I have a physical copy of the magazine, but don't see a web version of the article except for scattered scanned copies of illustrations.


 * Paul Kahn and Ian Adelman created a very nice Memex simulation / animation for "As We May Think - A Celebration of Vannevar Bush's Vision" held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, October 12-13, 1995. I believe the intent of the Conference organizers was to retain the right to freely post and distribute this animation along with all other conference resources (at least for non-profit use with attribution ~ the corresponding Creative Commons license).


 * Most of the old links refer to a Dynamic Diagrams page which is broken. But Paul Kahn has posted the animation (an Macromedia Director application) here http://www.kahnplus.com/en/publications/online.htm If you write paul.kahn@kahnplus.com he may be willing to give a Creative Commons style copyright clearance as the original creator with default rights, or a clarification of its copyright status. A video of the animation is posted here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c539cK58ees --Grlloyd (talk) 00:33, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Memex Image
please add this image https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Memex.png MhdSyrwan (talk) 12:02, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I just added one. Mechachleopteryx (talk) 23:12, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

MEMEX vs. Memex
I was reading "As We May Think", and in the article Bush calls the device a "MEMEX" in all caps, even though most related literature calls is a "Memex". I was wondering if it would be proper to change the title of the article to "MEMEX" and have "Memex" redirect to that, since that is the name Bush originally gave the machine. Loserpenguin15 (talk) 23:07, 23 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Huh? Which copy of the essay are you looking at? I haven't read "As We May Think" for years, but I'm fairly certain that memex was typeset in lowercase in both the original Atlantic Monthly and Life magazine versions.  --Coolcaesar (talk) 00:10, 25 April 2010 (UTC)


 * So far, I have never seen this typed in all caps. Mejorasi723 (talk) 11:21, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Origin of the Name
After reading "As We May Think" and noticing the detail about the randomly chosen name, I added a small blurb about this at the start of the article, though I kept the information describing Memex as a portmanteau of "memory" and "index".

I remember reading somewhere (no idea where though) and since then believing that the name "MEMEX" was derived from "MEMory EXtension" rather than "Memory Index" as stated in the current version of the article here. Can anyone confirm or disprove that? HeikoHaller (talk) 18:03, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Here, e.g., the author says it probably came from "Memory Extender": https://www.cs.colorado.edu/department/publications/reports/docs/CU-CS-997-05.pdf HeikoHaller (talk) 18:24, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

When talked about the name "Memex" in the original article [1], V. Bush writes: "It needs to have a name, and to coin one at random, "memex" will do" (p.121).

Parts of the text alternates between indexing and association, favoring the last one.

There are some parts in the original text that let us think that it is not about indexing: "Our inaptitude in getting at the record is caused by the artificiality of the systems of indexing" (p.121). "Selection by association, rather than by indexing, may yet be mechanized" (p.121).

I think that the term index is misleading in this context. I don't know why the extended, but it is more appropriate: "It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his [user's] memory" (p.121).

[1]V. Bush, “As we may think” The Atlantic Monthly, vol. 176, no. 1, pp. 112–124, Sep. 1945. Ioan.szilagyi (talk) 01:38, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Copy editing
This page needs some punctuation copy editing. Please add necessary punctuation marks, also remove unnecessary punctuation marks if you find any. Mejorasi723 (talk) 16:09, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Communications of the ACM quotes.
p. 80: "Granted, the vision he described has inspired a variety of other research endeavors, from information retrieval to distributed hypertext systems."

p. 82: "The hypertext community proudly points to Bush’s article as the cornerstone of their heritage. Hence the development of hypertext techniques, while seldom applied specifically toward PKB [personal knowledge base] solutions, is historically important."

- --some jerk on the Internet    (talk)  21:45, 12 December 2011 (UTC)