Vannevar Bush's "As We May Think" was interesting, primarily because Bush speaks of machines not primarily aiding in efficiency of a physical nature but of a mental one as well. For this to have been published in 1945 is far ahead of its time! He even includes references stating that machines were "invented" at a time where they were so far ahead that they could not yet be assembled.
"Two centuries ago Leibnitz invented a calculating machine which embodied most of the essential features of recent keyboard devices, but it could not then come into use. The economics of the situation were against it: the labor involved in constructing it, before the days of mass production, exceeded the labor to be saved by its use, since all it could accomplish could be duplicated by sufficient use of pencil and paper. " as well as "Babbage, even with remarkably generous support for his time, could not produce his great arithmetical machine. His idea was sound enough, but construction and maintenance costs were then too heavy."
The memex machine he speaks of which would be capable of being an "improved" memory system is trying to supplement the human brain. Bush states that, "Man cannot hope fully to duplicate this mental process artificially, but he certainly ought to be able to learn from it." I find it odd that he's reaching so far into the future and then steers clear from suggesting we can model the brain, but nonetheless...IBM is trying today!
IBM's Blue GeneOh silly Vannevar.
