1/183.2.1 Vannevar Bush's Memex (1945)
It can be claimed that hypermedia, as well as Computer Supported Collaborative Work and Online Education, have their origins in Vannevar Bush's Memex (``memory extender''). Vannevar Bush (1890-1974), President Roosevelt's science adviser, presented Memex in the article ``As we may think'' [Bus45] which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1945. Although his system has never been implemented, it provided scientists with the basic ideas of modern hypermedia systems.
The Memex is a system to store any kind of information, both personal and common. It would be built into the user's desk. The data, which would be stored on microfilm, could be projected onto the desk, and several projectors would enable the user to view more than one document at the same time. Bush developed the idea of a system to retrieve information more easily than on paper because he foresaw the ``explosion of scientific information''. People would be able to insert arbitrary documents as well as making handwritten personal annotations to existing documents. The Memex would provide links between documents (``The process of tying two items together is the important thing.''), and ``trails'', which were sets of links which would combine relevant information for a specific perspective on a specific topic. Bush reckoned that there will be so-called ``trail blazers'', people who establish useful trails through the mass of common information.