From Memex To Hypertext: Vannevar Bush and the Mind's Machine

by James M. Nyce, Paul Kahn

Vannevar Bush, the engineer who designed the world's most powerful analog computer, predicted the development of a new kind of computing machine he called Memex. For many computer and information scientists, Bush's Memex has been the prototype for a machine to help people think. This book contains Bush's essays, and original essays by academic and commerical researchers relating the state of art in personal computing, hypertext and information retrieval software to bush's ideas and Memex.

Genres: Nonfiction, Technology

367 pages, Hardcover

First published December 17, 1991

Reviews

[Gilles Douaire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great context on the original Bush writings; however, the last section which focuses on Bush's legacy and consists in a few articles written in 1991 sound very dated as too much emphasis is put on implementation details.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

"For mature thought there is no mechanical substitute."

"Prophesy based on extension of the known has substance, while prophesy founded on the unknown is only a doubly involved guess."