Microcards and the Paper Internet

JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 729  Blog Bookstore
 

For several decades, say in the 1930’s-1970’s, microforms, microfiche, microfilm and their related compatriots certainly looked as though they were next the direct and epochal inheritors of printing traditions that was limited to papyrus, paper, Gutenberg, and, well, micro-whatevers.  They weren’t too terribly wrong, and were actually getting a  little close to Vannevar Bush’s (1890-1974) Memex idea, as these processes of reproduction could reduce bookcases worth of bound material into a pile of cards a few inches high. It really was a sensational idea, and a major advancement in the distribution of knowledge.

Out of all the important advancements in the history of printing, though, the mico- division of accomplishments lasted the shortest amount of time, being phenomenally replaced by the first real man-machine symbiosis (at least called so by the originator, JCR Licklider), the internet.

(It is interesting to point out that at about the same time as the Memex concept was published in 1945, another man, Murray Leinster, whose dates are very similar to that of Bush (1890-1975) published a short story in Astounding Science Fiction magazine called ”A Logic Named  Joe”. The first sentence of the story reads: "It was on the third day of August that Joe come off the assembly line, and on the fifth Laurine come into town, an' that afternoon I saved civilization." Indeedy! Read the whole thing here.)

Leinster foretold a future in which computers would be in every household and connected by an electrical grid.  The “logic” was the home node, or terminal; “Joe” was a logic that had developed a little past the machine stage,  gaining some human capacity.  It was an astonishing attempt, and actually perhaps a little more prescient than the genius technoid Bush’s idea. 

 

Comments

[Ray Girvan]

Indeedy! Read the whole thing here.

Oops: bad link. You've put the story quote in the URL rather than the address.

[John Ptak]

Thanks, Ray. Link is fixed.