pmsumner

As We May Think - by Vannevar Bush (July 1945)

I'm struggling to figure out what to put here as a description. Vannevar Bush wrote this piece, as a description of how human-kind of the near-present-day (1945) could help categorise and file and organise all the information and data that the world was producing.

"There is a growing mountain of research. But there is increased evidence that we are being bogged down today as specialization extends. The investigator is staggered by the findings and conclusions of thousands of other workers -- conclusions which he cannot find time to grasp, much less to remember, as they appear. Yet specialization becomes increasingly necessary for progress, and the effort to bridge between disciplines is correspondingly superficial."

His idea... his idea was to develop a system of inter-related cards, each one containing specialist information - but these cards would be linked - words or ideas from one card would link to other cards with related information.

Sound familar?

Read it - please - it's fascinating that someone thought of these ideas 50yrs before the World Wide Web and the ideas of hyperlinking Web pages came about, just using totally different base technology, appropriate for the age.

If you get bored enough also - have a look at The "Atanasoff Berry Machine". This is the first true multi-purpose, programmable electronic computer. Not ENIAC, which is commonly believed.

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