Tens of thousands of index cards
cataloguing medical information.
H.G. Wells
As the individual brain quickens and
becomes more skilful, there also appears a collective brain, the
encyclopaedia, the Fundamental Knowledge System, which accumulates,
sorts, keeps in order and renders available everything that is
known."
(The Shape of Things to Come,
1933)
VANNEVAR BUSH
"As We May Think" published in
Atlantic Review July 1945
Coordinate Scientific Research for
Roosevelt Administration.
Described a 'memory extension'
system called MEMEX, images text stored on microfilm linked by simple
code. Described photo-mechanical system, electromagnetic memory
cards, linked by television network.
The principal of an 'associative
indexing'
"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"
HTML version by Denys Duchier,
University of Ottawa or @Simon Fraser University.
DOUGLAS ENGELBART:
"The Augmentation of Human
Intellect"
Described 'tool systems' to augment
human thought. A vision of 'symbolic' tools.
(Invented the mouse).
1950 J.C.R Licklider
"Man-Computer Symbiosis"
1957
'CMC': 'Computer Mediated
Communications'
U.S. Dept of Defence: Advanced
Research Projects Agency (ARPA) Funded CMC research.
Screens and Keyboards in - Punch
cards out.
"Interactive Computing".
TED NELSON:
1970's coined "Hypermedia".
Hyper to describe non-sequential
reading.
Xanadu project.
ALAN KAY
1968
DYNABOOK: A cardboard model, to be
networked as a read/write animation/information system.
Xerox Palo Alto Research Centre
(PARC) - developed into Apple Windows interface, hypertalk language,
Software agents, etc.
WILLIAM GIBSON:
in his Cyberpunk/SciFi book
'Neuromancer' Gibson describes data structures of Cyberspace (a word
he coined) as "city lights receeding".
