"It...is a 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. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory."
Thus did Bush describe what he called a "memex," which he envisioned as a desk-size appliance festooned with "slanting translucent screens," buttons and levers, and loaded with microfilm. Data entry would be accomplished by means of "dry photography" on a transparent platen--a midcentury vision of the scanner.
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