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Regarding the mechanics of the Memex, there are some suggestions that are still
good design goals. One, of course, was that the machine be easy to use. Secondly, the
process of reading, and skimming, should be just as easy as handling a real book,
including the ability to flip though pages with “a recognizing glance.” For adding
material to the Memex that was not acquired in microfilm format, there were four
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possibilities: typing on the keyboard; placing materials face down on a glass for
photographing; writing with a stylus that would cause the lines to be copied to microfilm;
and perhaps speaking to the machine so that text would be generated (possibly directly
onto the microfilm).
2t-S-1Ed-D-P
Finally, the article was based on the idea of shrinking massive quantities of
recorded information into an incredibly small space. Some writers believe we have
already passed Bush’s goal, but it depends on how you look at it. The Memex described
in 1945 could accumulate 5000 pages a day (or a little under 2 million pages per year) for
“hundreds of years.” After 200 to 300 years, we would have 400 to 600 million pages.
With digital technology, the next step is to assume how many bytes per page, and that
then depends upon the content and format of the document and any compression used.
Just to take one example, a certain book available in PDF format via Amazon.com is 455
pages and about 6 Megabytes, or a little over 13 kilobytes per page. That may not be a
representative figure, but at that rate, the personal Memex needs a minimum 5,200
gigabytes of storage to be good for 200 years. This is doable today, but it is not exactly a
configuration marketed for personal or desktop systems.
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John Wiley & Sons
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