The term memex indicates a theoretical analogical computer described by the scientist Vannevar Bush in the article " Ace We May Think " published in 1945 in the review The Atlantic Monthly . This term is an acronym for memory extender . In her article, Bush describes an electronic device connected to a library able to post books and to project films. This tool is also able automatically to create references between the various media. This vision directly influenced pioneers of modern data processing such Douglas Engelbart and posed the foundations of the Hypertexte created by Ted Nelson.

The memex is not solely satisfied to make it possible a user to sail through information, but it offers also a means of establishing the bonds between information. The description of the hypothetical realization is an assembly of electromechanical elements, cameras and microfilms, integrated in a large office. The majority of the microfilms necessary would have been integrated in the office, but a system of loading would have made it possible the user to add or withdraw microfilms.

The technology of the memex is often confused with hypertextuelle navigation. Although the idea of Bush took part in the creation of the hypertext, it is not yet the hypertext such as one knows it now. The system suggested is satisfied to create bonds between pairs of images of microfilms, but cannot connect documents using simple words or images in a document.

Moreover, the idea of Bush to create ways of association was not integrated in the systems hypertexts. The way of association proposed by Bush allows only one linear advance in information, while creating chains of sequences connected enter they. This kind of system is equivalent to a Web page where the only bond is the following entry.

The memex would also make it possible the user to create information, like adding photographs or text on a microfilm starting from a semi-transparent touchscreen. The memex is often regarded as the precursor of the personal computer containing microfilms. In fact certainly the ideas developed in this article inspired the project of Gordon Bell of, a digital warehouse of photographs, documents, communications, and even of statistics using of the Databases to allow research, the annotation and the indexing of the documents.

External bond

• the MyLifeBits project of Beautiful Gordon, inspired by the memex