abstract:The memex (a portmanteau of "memory" and "index" or "memory" and "extender") is the name of the hypothetical proto-hypertext system that Vannevar Bush described in his 1945 The Atlantic Monthly article "As We May Think" (AWMT). Bush envisioned the memex as a device in which individuals would compress and store all of their books, records, and communications, "mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility.
Inthis paperhedescribed a theoreticalstorageandretrievaldevice, called a "Memex," which woulduse a system remarkably similar to what wenowcallhypertext.