A re-reading of 'As we may think'

I met with a prospective client the other day and in talking to him was reminded of all those serendipitous moments that happened to me about ten years ago, the start of my love affair with the internet.

One of those moments was reading 'As We May Think' by Vannevar Bush. It's an extraordinary essay, written in 1945, in which the author (who worked for the US military during the war) talks about his visions of the future of communications, from a proto-internet which he called a Memex, to micro computing, digital cameras and more.

It's written very much a period style, with references to 'roomfuls of girls' operating keypunch machines. I wonder if Bush was envisaging today's computer-dominated world when he mused on the possible applications of technology beyond mere number-crunching: "Whenever logical processes of thought are employed—that is, whenever thought for a time runs along an accepted groove—there is an opportunity for the machine."

Re-reading it today I still find aspects of it amazingly fresh. Do check it out if you've not read it.