Peter Pavement

I was doing some research for my project today when I stumbled upon this reference. It caught my eye because I’m always fascinated by the history of ideas – I want to know who first thought of the things and concepts that surround us and how we got from their idea to where we are now.

Anyway, I discovered a quote from an American engineer called Vannevar Bush about the possibilities for computing. He was writing in 1947 and exploring ideas for connected computing which he called the ‘memex’.

“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.”

He describes the mechanics of this thing, which in his mind were photographic – much like microfilm. But we could read as ‘personal computer’ or increasingly ‘smart phone’.

Anyway he then goes on to describe:

“… 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.

…

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.”

So, he’s saying – link two or more resources together (= a hyperlink), use a code to refer to each link (= a URL) and tap a button (= er, a button) to get from one to the other.

The thinking certainly impressed me. 

The original article that these quotes are source from is here: www.ps.uni-sb.de/~duchier/pub/vbush/vbush.shtml

I wanted to find a biography for him too and discovered a site that profiles many of the names behind the development of the world wide web. Go to www.ibiblio.org/pioneers/bush.html to see for yourself.