Vannevar Bush’s 1945 essay “As We May Think” described the Memex, a mechanical desk that contained entire libraries allowing its owner to create and share lasting trails of knowledge with colleagues. This talk begins with the analog computers and microfilm readers that led to this speculative essay and how those ideas influenced digital computing pioneers in the 1960-70s: Doug Engelbart — the inventor of personal workstation, Ted Nelson — the creator of hypertext and visions of digital world containing all the world’s literature, and Alan Kay — whose DynaBook vision foreshadowed the form factors and user interface we carry around in our backpacks and pockets today.

1. Prepared by:
Paul Kahn
February, 2016
Information Design and
Visualization,
Northeastern University
A Person(alized)
History of Hypertext

2. A Personal History of Hypertext
— Four individuals whose work and writing inspired how we think about and
use computers today:
• Vannevar Bush
• Theodore Nelson
• Douglas Engelbart
• Alan Kay
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3. Vannevar Bush (1890-1974)
— Inventor of ANALOG COMPUTERS for
solving complex differential equations
— Engineering professor at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology 1920-1939
— President of the Carnegie Institute of
Washington, 1939-1955
— Director of the Office of Scientific
Research and Development, 1940-1945
— Founding partner of Raytheon, director of
Merck pharmaceuticals
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4. Paul Kahn | 4
Analog computers: Astrolabe

5. Analog computers: slide rule & electronic switchboards
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6. Analog computers: Paris Metro
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7. Differential Analyzer
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Designed by Bush and Harold Hazen at MIT, 1928-31 for solving
differential equations
The picture is reproduced from IEEE Spectrum, July 1995
Found on http://www.science.uva.nl/museum/vbush_tbl.html

8. Paul Kahn | 8
Differential Analyzer
Overall view of the Differential
Analyzer.
The integrator units (six of them)
are inside the wood and glass boxes
at left, the bus rods which carry
numerical information are in the
center, and the input and output
tables are at right. In the foreground
is a numerical tabulator which
converted shaft positions to printed
numerical output. Samuel Caldwell
is standing at left.
[from David A. Mindell website (not available 2013]

9. Paul Kahn | 9
Differential Analyzer
Operator's console of the
Differential Analyzer,
a literally "graphical" user interface.
The operator (at left, Samuel
Caldwell) manipulates a pointer by
hand to follow the curves on the
paper, which are then integrated or
otherwise processed by the machine,
which drives a plotter to make
another graph as output. Vannevar
Bush is looking on.
[from David A. Mindell website
http://web.mit.edu/mindell/www/analyzer.htm]

10. The UCLA Differential Analyzer
— Commercial computer built by General Electric in 1947
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11. Concept: A machine that solves complex problems
— Earth versus the Flying Saucers (1956)
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12. Paul Kahn | 12
Concept: A machine that miniaturizes and displays document
— Emmanuel Goldberg of Zeiss Ikon (Dresden) developed the first home-
movie camera
— demonstrated high-density microfilm readers and selectors in Brussels
(1931)
— Build a prototype microfilm “desk” for storing and retrieving documents

13. Paul Kahn | 13
Emmanuel Goldberg’s Statistical Machine (1931)
— Patent drawing for
Goldberg’s Statistical
Machine
— See Emanuel Goldberg page
— http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~b
uckland/goldberg.html

14. Concept: High-speed photography
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— Harold “Doc” Edgerton’s stroboscope for high-speed photography could
be used for precise control of light source and shutter speed
— 1931: Develops and perfects the stroboscope for use in ultra-high-speed and
stop-motion photography. Forms a partnership with Kenneth
Germeshausen, an MIT research affiliate to develop further uses for the
stroboscope. Edgerton receives his D.Sc. in electrical engineering from MIT.

15. Paul Kahn | 15
Concept: Miniaturization and duplication of knowledge
— Herbert George (H.G.) Wells, novelist, social commentator, science
fiction writer: The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, War of the Worlds
— Fabian socialists and pacifist
— essay “The World Brain” (1937), an essay for the
Encyclopédie Française, proposed that the libraries
of the world would soon be available to everyone on
reels of microfilm
(See https://sherlock.ischool.berkeley.edu/wells/world_brain.html)

16. Concept: Miniaturization and duplication of knowledge
— There is no practical obstacle whatever now to the creation of an
efficient index to all human knowledge, ideas and achievements,
to the creation, that is, of a complete planetary memory for all mankind. And
not simply an index; the direct reproduction of the thing itself can be
summoned to any properly prepared spot. A microfilm, coloured where
necessary, occupying an inch or so of space and weighing little more than a
letter, can be duplicated from the records and sent anywhere, and thrown
enlarged upon the screen so that the student may study it in every detail.
World Brain: The Idea of a Permanent World Encyclopaedia (1937)
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17. Paul Kahn | 17
Rapid Selector Concept (1930s)
— Sound-on-film development of composite 35mm film techniques throughout
the 1920s
— Emmanuel Goldberg of Zeiss Ikon (Dresden) demonstrated high-density
microfilm readers and selectors in Brussels (1931)
— Harold Edgerton’s stroboscope (1931) for high-speed photography was used
for rapid detection and re-photographing of coded frames.
— H.G. Wells essay “The World Brain” (1937) proposed that the libraries of the
world would soon be available to everyone on reels of microfilm
— Chester Carlson’s (1938) combination of electrostatic printing and
photography (xerography) to capture pages on film

18. Paul Kahn | 18
Vannevar Bush’s Microfilm Rapid Selector (1938)
A machine to rapidly
select documents recorded
as microfilm images on
reels of 35 mm movie film
Coding of document topics
as dot patterns on film
Strobotron to fire photo
cell detectors matching a
topic pattern “mask”

19. Paul Kahn | 19
Publication of “As We May Think” (summer, 1945)
— Bush writes “Mechanization and the Record” in 1939
and files it away
— The machine he describes as the Memex (memory
extender) is a microfilm rapid selector miniaturized
into a desk
— Features he imagines include projection of pages
onto dual screens, photo annotation, xerographic
input and recording trails between documents
— He mentions a machine to translate voice into text
(Vocoder) and a forehead-mounted miniature
camera (Walnut camera) to permit “hands-free”
photographic recording in the laboratory

20. Paul Kahn | 20
Concept: A machine that extends memory
— 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.
It consists of a desk, and while it can presumably be operated from a
distance, it is primarily the piece of furniture at which he works. On the top
are slanting translucent screens, on which material can be projected for
convenient reading. There is a keyboard, and sets of buttons and
levers. Otherwise it looks like an ordinary desk.

21. Paul Kahn | 21
Concept: Literature accessed and linked by a machine
— 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 patent attorney has on call the millions of
issued patents, with familiar trails to every point of his client's interest. The
physician, puzzled by a patient's reactions, strikes the trail established in
studying an earlier similar case, and runs rapidly through analogous case
histories, with side references to the classics for the pertinent anatomy and
histology. 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.

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Concept: navigational links as trails
— The historian, with a vast chronological account of a people, parallels it with
a skip trail which stops only on the salient items, and can follow at any
time contemporary trails which lead him all over civilization at a
particular epoch. 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.

23. Illustrations for As We May Think (1945)
— The essay is published in July
1945 in The Atlantic Monthly
— An illustrated version of the
essay appeared in LIFE
Magazine in September 1945
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24. Paul Kahn | 24
As We May Think on the web today
— Atlantic Monthly version
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/a
rchive/1969/12/as-we-may-think/3881/
— LIFE version: Google Books
http://books.google.fr/books?
id=uUkEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA136&dq=L
IFE%20september
%201945&pg=PA112#v=onepage&q=LI
FE%20september%201945&f=false

25. Paul Kahn | 25
Memex (illustration by Alfred Crimi)

26. Paul Kahn | 26
Annotating on the screen (illustration by Alfred Crimi)

27. — Memex animation (1995) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c539cK58ees
— Bush speaking about thebrain and machines: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=iAUC7Q8C6m8
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28. Vannevar Bush Legacy
— Bush ends his post-war governmental career as the founder of the National
Science Foundation (NSF)
— Rapid Selectors built in the 1950s and 1960s for the Library of Congress,
Department of Navy, Central Intelligence Agency all fail to operate properly.
— “As We May Think” influences the work of J.C.R. Licklider, Ted Nelson and
Douglas Engelbart
— “As We May Think” is reprinted and taught in Information (Library) Science
from 1960s onward.
— Computer Science Hypertext research literature refers to Bush’s essay as the
earliest example of hypertext concept, starting in the 1980s.
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29. Paul Kahn | 29
Theodor Holm Nelson (b. 1937)
— Inventor of new poetic language including
• hypertext *
• hypermedia
• cybercrud
• softcopy
• electronic visualization
• technoid
• Docuverse
• transclusion
* first appears in 1965: “A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing
and the Indeterminate”

30. Paul Kahn | 30
Concept: Simple Hypertext (1965)

31. Paul Kahn | 31
Ted Nelson
— Collaborator on Hypertext Editing System (HES) at Brown University (1972)
— Author of “underground” computer books
• Computer Lib / Dream Machine (1974)
• The Home Computer Revolution (1977)
• Literary Machine (1981-1993)
— Introduced the concepts of Project Xanadu in the 1980s through many
talks and articles in Creative Computing, Byte, and other magazines
— Led the Xanadu software system project at Autodesk in late 1980s

33. Paul Kahn | 33
Concept: universal access, follow and publish links
— At your screen of tomorrow you will have access to all the world’s
published work: all the books, all the magazines, all the photographs, the
recordings, the movies. (And to new kinds of publications, created especially
for the interactive screen.)
You will be able to bring any published work to your screen, or any part
of a published work.
You will be able to make links – comments, personal notes, or other
connections – between places in documents, and leave them there for others
(as well as yourself) to follow later. You may even publish these links.
from Literary Machines

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Concept: digital rights management & micropayments
— Royalty to each publisher will be automatic, as materials are delivered
over the network. Each piece delivered will be paid for automatically, from
the user’s account to the publisher’s account, when the user receives the
piece sent for.
Any document may quote another, because the quoted part is brought – and
bought – from the original at the instant of request, with automatic royalty
payment and credit to the originator.

35. Paul Kahn | 35
Harsh critiques of the file hierarchy and WWW
Some recent Ted Nelson quotes:
—Calling a hierarchical director a "folder" doesn't change its nature any
more than calling a prison guard a "counselor".
—Hierarchical directories were invented around 1947 – I should check this
– when somebody said, "How are we going to keep track of all these files?
"Gee, why don't we make a file that's a list of filenames?" And that was the
directory. It's a temporary fix that doesn't scale up.
—The Web is the minimal concession to hypertext that a sequence-and-
hierarchy chauvinist could possibly make.
Recent Ted Nelson books: Geeks Bearing Gifts and Possiplex,
both published via Lulu.com

36. Ted Nelson lectures: Demonstrating Xanadu Space
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En_2T7KH6RA

37. Paul Kahn | 37
Douglas Engelbart (1925-2013)
— Educated at University of California,
Berkeley
— Worked at Stanford Research Institute (SRI)
— Published his first theoretical paper,
Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual
Framework in 1962

38. Paul Kahn | 38
Concept: Augmenting Human Intellect
— By "augmenting human intellect" we mean increasing the capability of a
man to approach a complex problem situation, to gain
comprehension to suit his particular needs, and to derive solutions to
problems. Increased capability in this respect is taken to mean a mixture of
the following: more-rapid comprehension, better comprehension, the
possibility of gaining a useful degree of comprehension in a situation that
previously was too complex, speedier solutions, better solutions, and the
possibility of finding solutions to problems that before seemed insoluble.

39. Paul Kahn | 39
Concept: engineering tools for complex situtations
— And by "complex situations" we include the professional problems of
diplomats, executives, social scientists, life scientists, physical
scientists, attorneys, designers–whether the problem situation exists
for twenty minutes or twenty years. We do not speak of isolated clever tricks
that help in particular situations. We refer to a way of life in an integrated
domain where hunches, cut-and-try, intangibles, and the human "feel for a
situation" usefully co-exist with powerful concepts, streamlined terminology
and notation, sophisticated methods, and high-powered electronic aids.

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oNLine System (NLS)
— Augmentation Research Center developed
oNLine System (NLS) in 1968
— Focus on developing new Human-Computer
Interaction (HCI) models and tools
— Introduced new concepts
• Computers Supporting Collaborative Work
(CSCW)
• Bootstrapping – using the development
group to test new tools
• Co-evolution – the co-dependent evolution
of the software interface and human
behavior

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NLS (continued)
— Developed the Mouse (analog pointing device) and Chord (5-finger)
keyboard
— The NLS system (circa 1968) also included:
• Mixture of text and graphics
• Hypertext links
• Outline processing
• View control of text and graphic data
• Collaborative work space
• Shared pointing device
• Video conferencing

42. Paul Kahn | 42
William English at the augmentation laboratory at SRI

43. Paul Kahn | 43
See Douglas Engelbart 1968 demo
http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.html
(see Clips #5-8)

44. Paul Kahn | 44
Engelbart after 1968
— NLS failed due to timesharing computer technology: the more people
using it, the slower it responded.
— Many researchers from his laboratory moved to Xerox Palo Alto
Research Center (PARC) in 1971, where the mouse and the personal
workstation was (re)invented
— Engelbart developed Augment, a commercial timesharing system for
documentation in the aerospace industry
— Engelbart worked on the first network protocols for the ARPAnet, the
foundation of the current Internet (early 1970s)
— Engelbart created Bootstrap Institute in 1999,

45. Paul Kahn | 45
Alan Kay (b. 1940)
— Worked with Ivan Sutherland (Utah) on graphics programming
— Worked with Seymour Papert (MIT) on educational programming
— Principal Scientist at Xerox PARC, 1971-1981
— Chief Scientist at Atari, 1981-1984
— Apple Fellow and Disney Fellow, 1984-2001
— Viewpoints Research Institute (since 2006)
“reinventing programming”

46. Paul Kahn | 46
Some of Alan Kay’s Contributions
— Combining cognitive science, learning theory, and programming languages
— Development of Object-Oriented Programming Language – SmallTalk
• Support for direct manipulation graphical objects as interface
• Use of graphical icons to represent programs
• Cascading menus to select actions
— Interest in making computer programs as simple to use as possible

47. Paul Kahn | 47
DynaBook Concept (1972)
— A Portable Computer
— Powerful enough to
manage all kinds of media
— Simple enough to be used
by children

48. Paul Kahn | 48
from “A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages”
— Imagine having your own self-contained knowledge manipulator in a
portable package the size and shape of an ordinary notebook. Suppose it had
enough power to outrace your senses of sight and hearing, enough capacity
to store for later retrieval thousands of page-equivalents of reference
materials, poems, letters, recipes, records, drawings, animations, musical
scores, waveforms, dynamic simulations, and anything else you would like to
remember and change.
We envision a device as small and portable as possible which could both
take in and give out information in quantities approaching that of
human sensory systems. Visual output should be, at the least, of higher
quality than what can be obtained from newsprint. Audio output should
adhere to similar high-fidelity standards.

49. from “A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages”
— There should be no discernible pause between cause and effect.
One of the metaphors we used when designing such a system was that of a
musical instrument, such as a flute, which is owned by its user and responds
instantly and consistently to its owner’s wishes. Imagine the absurdity of a
one-second delay between blowing a note and hearing it!
These civilized desires for flexibility, resolution, and response lead to
the conclusion that a user of dynamic personal medium needs several
hundred times as much power as the average adult typically enjoys from
timeshared computing. This means that we should either build a new
resource several hundred times the capacity of current machines and share it
(very difficult and expensive), or we should investigate the possibility of
giving each person his own powerful machine. We choose the second
approach.
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50. The Xerox Alto (interim Dynabook system)
— Stand-alone computer processor
connected to other disc and printers
via Ethernet
— High-resolution graphic CRT
— Typewriter keyboard, chord
keyboard, music keyboard
— Mouse pointing device
— See “Alto Playroom” video from
Software Pioneers, Broy & Denert:
https://vimeo.com/111334072
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51. The Macintosh Child Video
— http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdL6dzWvm5M
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52. Xerox Alto’s Descendents
— Xerox Star – the first office product
with graphical user interface, mouse
and ethernet, $20-50,000 network
configuration (1981)
— See Xerox Star Demo 1984 on
YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=QYvxgNhUwBk
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53. Xerox Alto’s Descendents
— Apple Lisa – the first personal
computer with graphical user
interface and mouse,
$10,000 each (1983)
— See Apple Lisa Demo 1983 on
YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=W35vpsPIwlU&watch_response
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54. Xerox Alto’s Descendents
— Apple Macintosh – the first
successful personal computer with
graphical user interface and mouse,
$3,000 each (1984)
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55. Concepts, circa 1985
— Computers as intellectual tools in business, research and education
— Portable personal computers connected to the Network
— Software to support direct manipulation of text, graphics, video, sound
— Intuitive user interface with icons, menus, and multiple windows
— Collections of documents available on the Network
— Creating and following navigational links between selections in documents
— No integration with telephony
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56. Intermedia (1985-1990) at Brown University
— Apple User
Interface
running on
Unix
— Network
Hypertext
environment
with text,
graphics,
timeline,
animation,
video
— Anchors and
Links collected
in Webs
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57. Tim Berners-Lee World Wide Web at CERN (from 1989)
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58. World Wide Web at CERN (from 1989)
— Hypertext
Transport
Protocol
(HTTP)
— Hypertext
Markup
Language
(HTML)
— First browser
implemented on
the NeXT
computer
— All software in
public domain
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59. Early Web browsers: Mosaic and Netscape
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60. Fast-forward 25+ years
— All newly created music, books, photographs, film/video are digital
— Over 70% of population in North America and EU countries have internet
access
— Integrated telephony was the Missing Link to universal access
— Over 90% have a mobile device: a mobile phone
— 50% of that population have a “Smartphone”
— The Internet is becoming the “Cloud”
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61. Imagining Mobile Television, circa 1947
“La télévision oeil de demain”
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62. Paul Kahn | 62

63. rc
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64. The Digital Library Today
— Wikipedia collectively written in many languages
— Random things you can find via search engines and links on the public Web
(depending on what is or is not blocked in your country)
— National Digital Libraries and Archives: collections of bibliographical
records, images, audio-visual archives and scanned pages accessed via
various Boolean database search UIs
— Private digital libraries by subscription: news, business, science, law, finance
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65. The Digital Library Today
— Most “free” digital content supported by advertisements
— Most people view content on journalism sites, blogs, social networks, tweets
and video clips
— Google Books (books.google.com)
Nearly every book I have written is in Google Books, but the author does not
have the right to view them – access is limited to “snippet” view
— Digital rights issues and payment schemes are complex and unresolved
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66. Paul Kahn | 66
Contact Information
Paul Kahn
Experience Design Director
pkahn@madpow.com
Mad*Pow
Portsmouth | Boston
www.madpow.com