Vannevar Bush (March 11, 1890 – June 30, 1974)
An engineer and science administrator, also developer the atomic bomb, and idea of the memex He was unrelated to the Bush political family.
Studies
· Tufts College, graduating in 1913.
· He earned a doctorate in engineering from Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1917.
CV
· (World War I he worked with the National Research Council in developing improved techniques for detecting submarines.
· He joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at MIT in 1919, and was a professor there from 1923–32.
· He constructed a Differential Analyser, an analog computer that could solve differential equations with as many as 18 independent variables.
· Bush became vice-president and dean of engineering at MIT from 1932–38.
· In 1939 Bush accepted the prestigious appointment as president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
· In 1939 he fully moved into the political arena with his appointment as chairman of National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.
· In 1940, Bush became chairman of the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC). Bush had pressed for the creation of the NDRC because he had seen during World War I the lack of cooperation between civilian scientists and the military.
· In 1941 the NDRC was subsumed into the Office of Scientific Research and Development with Bush as director, which controlled the Manhattan Project and which also coordinated wartime scientific research during World War II.
· After the war, he recommended the creation of what would become in 1950 the National Science Foundation in order to cement the ties between science, industry and the military which had been forged during the war.
· Bush was also a co-founder of the defense contractor Raytheon.
· In 1943, he received the AIEE's Edison Medal 'For his contribution to the advancement of electrical engineering
· The Vannevar Bush Award was created by the National Science Foundation in 1980 to honor contributions to public service.
The Memex (Memory Extender He introduced the concept of what he called the memex in the 1930s, a microfilm-based "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."
The memex is still an important accomplishment, because it dispired the development of hypertext technology. After thinking about the potential of augmented memory for several years, Bush set out his thoughts at length in the essay "As We May Think" in the Atlantic Monthly in July 1945rectly in. In the article, Bush predicted that, "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." A few months later (10 September 1945) Life magazine published a condensed version of "As We May Think," accompanied by several illustrations showing the possible appearance of a memex machine and its companion devices. This version of the essay was subsequently read by both Ted Nelson and Douglas Engelbart, and inspired them to independently formulate the various ideas that became hypertext.
He also predicted "electronic brains" the size of the Empire State Building with a Niagara Falls-scale cooling system, although this could be considered a metaphor for systems such as Google's entire collection of Linux servers, whose collective size and thermal emissions may very well be on the same scale.
The "memex" (a portmanteau of "memory extender") is the name given by Vannevar Bush to the theoretical proto-hypertext computer system he proposed in his 1945 The Atlantic Monthly article "As We May Think". The memex has had tremendous influence on the development of subsequential hypertext and general intellect augmenting computer systems.
A Proto-Hypertext System Bush described the device as electronically linked to a library and able to display books and films from the library and automatically follow cross-references from one work to another. The memex not only offered linked information to a user, but was also a tool for establishing the links. The technology used would have been a combination of electromechanical controls and microfilm cameras and readers, all integrated into a large desk. Most of the microfilm library would have been contained within the desk, but the user could add or remove microfilm reels at will. The technology of the memex is often confused with that of hypertext. Although Bush's idea inspired the creation of hypertext, it is not considered to be hypertext. The memex as proposed by Bush could only create links between a pair of microfilm frames, but it could not create links in the modern sense where a hyperlink can be based on a single word, phrase or picture within a document.
Theodor Holm Nelson (born c. 1939)
A user interface should be so simple that a beginner in an emergency can understand it within ten seconds.
Sociologist, philosopher, and pioneer of information technology. He coined the term "hypertext" in 1963 and published it in 1965. He also invented the words hypermedia, transclusion, virtuality, intertwingularity and teledildonics. The main thrust of his work has been to make computers easily accessible to ordinary people.
Nelson founded Project Xanadu in 1960 with the goal of creating such a simple system on a computer network. Some aspects of its vision are in the process of being fulfilled by Tim Berners-Lee's invention of the World Wide Web. The Web owes much of its inspiration to Xanadu, but Nelson dislikes the World Wide Web, XML and all embedded markup, and regards Berners-Lee's work as a gross over-simplification of his own work: HTML is precisely what we were trying to PREVENT— ever-breaking links, links going outward only, quotes you can't follow to their origins, no version management, no rights management. – Ted Nelson (Ted Nelson one-liners ) Nelson is working on a new information structure, ZigZag, which is described on the Xanadu project website, which also hosts two versions of the Xanadu code.
He is currently a philosopher and visiting professor at Oxford University working in the fields of information, computers, and human-machine interfaces.
In computing, hypertext is a user interface paradigm for displaying documents which, according to an early definition (Nelson 1970), "branch or perform on request." The most frequently discussed form of hypertext document contains automated cross-references to other documents called hyperlinks. Selecting a hyperlink causes the computer to display the linked document within a very short period of time. A document can be static (prepared and stored in advance) or dynamically generated (in response to user input). Therefore, a well-constructed hypertext system can encompass, incorporate or supersede many other user interface paradigms like menus and command lines, and can be used to access both static collections of cross-referenced documents and interactive applications. The documents and applications can be local or can come from anywhere with the assistance of a computer network like the Internet. The most famous implementation of hypertext is the World Wide Web. The term "hypertext" is often used where the term hypermedia would be more appropriate.
Project Xanadu was founded by Ted Nelson in 1960 as the original hypertext project. It was referred to by Wired Magazine as "longest-running vaporware story in the history of the computer industry": the first attempt at implementation began in 1960, but it wasn't until 1998 that (incomplete) software was released. In the meantime, the World Wide Web came into being, fulfilling many of the project's underlying visions.The influence of Xanadu Many of Project Xanadu's proposed features have found their way into other hypertext systems, including the World Wide Web and WikiWiki systems. Though lacking in the scope proposed by Nelson, transclusion is practised on the web. HTML's IFRAME element allows full web pages to be included within other pages, RSS aggregators provide compound web pages which consist of items from several locations, and the utopic/dystopic Googlezon’s autogenerated stories is an idea on how transclusion will become more and more widespread. Though micropayments have been slow to take off, PayPal is slowly gaining acceptance on the web. [edit] The web versus Xanadu. There are several reasons why the World Wide Web gained the popularity it now enjoys, while Project Xanadu remains a relatively obscure piece of computing history.
Project Xanadu contains many complex ideas. Transclusion in Xanadu allows documents to contain any part of any other document, whereas the web merely allows linking to complete documents. The web is compatible with existing file system ideas, while Xanadu would possibly require the use of complicated databases, which may be difficult to maintain.
An engineer and science administrator, also developer the atomic bomb, and idea of the memex He was unrelated to the Bush political family.
Studies
· Tufts College, graduating in 1913.
· He earned a doctorate in engineering from Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1917.
CV
· (World War I he worked with the National Research Council in developing improved techniques for detecting submarines.
· He joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at MIT in 1919, and was a professor there from 1923–32.
· He constructed a Differential Analyser, an analog computer that could solve differential equations with as many as 18 independent variables.
· Bush became vice-president and dean of engineering at MIT from 1932–38.
· In 1939 Bush accepted the prestigious appointment as president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
· In 1939 he fully moved into the political arena with his appointment as chairman of National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.
· In 1940, Bush became chairman of the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC). Bush had pressed for the creation of the NDRC because he had seen during World War I the lack of cooperation between civilian scientists and the military.
· In 1941 the NDRC was subsumed into the Office of Scientific Research and Development with Bush as director, which controlled the Manhattan Project and which also coordinated wartime scientific research during World War II.
· After the war, he recommended the creation of what would become in 1950 the National Science Foundation in order to cement the ties between science, industry and the military which had been forged during the war.
· Bush was also a co-founder of the defense contractor Raytheon.
· In 1943, he received the AIEE's Edison Medal 'For his contribution to the advancement of electrical engineering
· The Vannevar Bush Award was created by the National Science Foundation in 1980 to honor contributions to public service.
The Memex (Memory Extender He introduced the concept of what he called the memex in the 1930s, a microfilm-based "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."
The memex is still an important accomplishment, because it dispired the development of hypertext technology. After thinking about the potential of augmented memory for several years, Bush set out his thoughts at length in the essay "As We May Think" in the Atlantic Monthly in July 1945rectly in. In the article, Bush predicted that, "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." A few months later (10 September 1945) Life magazine published a condensed version of "As We May Think," accompanied by several illustrations showing the possible appearance of a memex machine and its companion devices. This version of the essay was subsequently read by both Ted Nelson and Douglas Engelbart, and inspired them to independently formulate the various ideas that became hypertext.
He also predicted "electronic brains" the size of the Empire State Building with a Niagara Falls-scale cooling system, although this could be considered a metaphor for systems such as Google's entire collection of Linux servers, whose collective size and thermal emissions may very well be on the same scale.
The "memex" (a portmanteau of "memory extender") is the name given by Vannevar Bush to the theoretical proto-hypertext computer system he proposed in his 1945 The Atlantic Monthly article "As We May Think". The memex has had tremendous influence on the development of subsequential hypertext and general intellect augmenting computer systems.
A Proto-Hypertext System Bush described the device as electronically linked to a library and able to display books and films from the library and automatically follow cross-references from one work to another. The memex not only offered linked information to a user, but was also a tool for establishing the links. The technology used would have been a combination of electromechanical controls and microfilm cameras and readers, all integrated into a large desk. Most of the microfilm library would have been contained within the desk, but the user could add or remove microfilm reels at will. The technology of the memex is often confused with that of hypertext. Although Bush's idea inspired the creation of hypertext, it is not considered to be hypertext. The memex as proposed by Bush could only create links between a pair of microfilm frames, but it could not create links in the modern sense where a hyperlink can be based on a single word, phrase or picture within a document.
Theodor Holm Nelson (born c. 1939)
A user interface should be so simple that a beginner in an emergency can understand it within ten seconds.
Sociologist, philosopher, and pioneer of information technology. He coined the term "hypertext" in 1963 and published it in 1965. He also invented the words hypermedia, transclusion, virtuality, intertwingularity and teledildonics. The main thrust of his work has been to make computers easily accessible to ordinary people.
Nelson founded Project Xanadu in 1960 with the goal of creating such a simple system on a computer network. Some aspects of its vision are in the process of being fulfilled by Tim Berners-Lee's invention of the World Wide Web. The Web owes much of its inspiration to Xanadu, but Nelson dislikes the World Wide Web, XML and all embedded markup, and regards Berners-Lee's work as a gross over-simplification of his own work: HTML is precisely what we were trying to PREVENT— ever-breaking links, links going outward only, quotes you can't follow to their origins, no version management, no rights management. – Ted Nelson (Ted Nelson one-liners ) Nelson is working on a new information structure, ZigZag, which is described on the Xanadu project website, which also hosts two versions of the Xanadu code.
He is currently a philosopher and visiting professor at Oxford University working in the fields of information, computers, and human-machine interfaces.
In computing, hypertext is a user interface paradigm for displaying documents which, according to an early definition (Nelson 1970), "branch or perform on request." The most frequently discussed form of hypertext document contains automated cross-references to other documents called hyperlinks. Selecting a hyperlink causes the computer to display the linked document within a very short period of time. A document can be static (prepared and stored in advance) or dynamically generated (in response to user input). Therefore, a well-constructed hypertext system can encompass, incorporate or supersede many other user interface paradigms like menus and command lines, and can be used to access both static collections of cross-referenced documents and interactive applications. The documents and applications can be local or can come from anywhere with the assistance of a computer network like the Internet. The most famous implementation of hypertext is the World Wide Web. The term "hypertext" is often used where the term hypermedia would be more appropriate.
Project Xanadu was founded by Ted Nelson in 1960 as the original hypertext project. It was referred to by Wired Magazine as "longest-running vaporware story in the history of the computer industry": the first attempt at implementation began in 1960, but it wasn't until 1998 that (incomplete) software was released. In the meantime, the World Wide Web came into being, fulfilling many of the project's underlying visions.The influence of Xanadu Many of Project Xanadu's proposed features have found their way into other hypertext systems, including the World Wide Web and WikiWiki systems. Though lacking in the scope proposed by Nelson, transclusion is practised on the web. HTML's IFRAME element allows full web pages to be included within other pages, RSS aggregators provide compound web pages which consist of items from several locations, and the utopic/dystopic Googlezon’s autogenerated stories is an idea on how transclusion will become more and more widespread. Though micropayments have been slow to take off, PayPal is slowly gaining acceptance on the web. [edit] The web versus Xanadu. There are several reasons why the World Wide Web gained the popularity it now enjoys, while Project Xanadu remains a relatively obscure piece of computing history.
Project Xanadu contains many complex ideas. Transclusion in Xanadu allows documents to contain any part of any other document, whereas the web merely allows linking to complete documents. The web is compatible with existing file system ideas, while Xanadu would possibly require the use of complicated databases, which may be difficult to maintain.
