“The time available for solving a lot of the problems is getting shorter and shorter. In 1963, he published Augmenting Human Intellect: A conceptual framework. The report featured his famous brick-pencil experiment illustrating in a simple but clever way how the right tools allow us to work faster and to be more efficient. He was eager to design tools that augment our cognitive capacity and help us tackle what he later called problems of “urgent complexity.” Experimental results of tying a brick to a pencil to “de-augment” the individual (1963)Īs WWII was coming to an end, the article urged the scientific community to now turn to “the massive task of making more accessible our bewildering store of knowledge.”Įngelbart responded to this call by dedicating his life to human-computer interaction. This early vision for human-computer interaction had a huge influence on both Engelbart and Ivan Sutherland. But unlike human memory, the associative trails built in the memex would never fade. The memex would help us store data and share information with the same speed and flexibility that is common to the brain. It needs a name, and, to coin one at random, “memex” will do.” - Vannevar Bush “Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. A recent article by Vannevar Bush entitled “ As we may think.” This visionary essay depicted a future where machines could become a sort of collective memory which Bush called the memex. In the small bamboo hut, Engelbart discovered a source of inspiration for his future work. Bush envisioned the memex in the form of a desk that “would instantly bring files and materials on any subject to the operator’s fingertips.” (1945) His name was Douglas Engelbart, and he had just stumbled upon an impromptu Red Cross library. A young electrical engineer who had joined the US Navy as a radar technician was waiting for the formal end of WWII on the island of Leyte. ![]() You might be surprised to learn that the story of personal computing started on a remote island in the Philippines. “By augmenting human intellect, we mean increasing the capability of a man to approach a complex problem situation, to gain comprehension to suit his particular needs, and to derive solutions to problems.” - Douglas Engelbart
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