「手写电报机」（telautograph）是现代电报的古典雏形，也是一个非常有想象力的发明。
[As We May Think]（译文[2023-08-12-21-31|诚如所思|文摘#34]） 里提到的「手写电报机」发明于 1888 年，发明者是 Elisha Gray，他也是电话的共同发明者之一。这个发明在当时并没有得到广泛应用，但它的概念和技术为后来的传真机和数字手写板奠定了基础。
记忆剧场（Memory Theatre）是文艺复兴时期意大利哲学家卡米罗构想出的奇异装置。
一个形如圆形剧场的空间，按不同的扇区分门别类存放着文献资料，人进入剧场中央，操纵装置即可将需要的文献、书籍呈现在自己眼前阅读。
这个构想蕴含着创造人类外脑的野心，也可视作是今日计算机与搜索引擎的概念原型。
编译自《Fast Company》2016 年 4 月 1 日文章「 Regis McKenna’s 1976 Notebook And The Invention Of Apple Computer, Inc.」
作者 ｜ Harry Mccracken
编译 ｜ Dkphhh
第一眼看过去，这就是一本平平无奇的线圈本，由马萨诸塞州 Holyoke 的 National Blank Book 公司生产，80 页、长宽分别为 10 英寸、8 英寸。
如随意横在封面的「RETURN TO REGIS McKENNA HIMSELF.」（如被拾取，请还给 Regis McKenna）图章印记所示，它属于 Regis McKenna 。
Regis McKenna 硅谷传奇，科技营销界的先驱。在科技产品成为民用消费品前，他就把科技产品当作民用消费品营销。他最为人所知的一段工作经历是在苹果，那是在 20 世纪 70 年代，苹果率先将电脑从发烧友的世界引入主流消费者。Regis McKenna 还曾帮助英特尔和 Genentech 从创业公司中脱颖而出，成为巨头。
1976 年，McKenna 第一次和苹果接触时，乔布斯和沃兹尼亚克一个 21 岁一个 25 岁。那一年的 4 月 1 日，他们俩就在乔布斯家的车库外成立了苹果公司，后来里程碑性质的 Apple II 电脑还尚未发布。
McKenna 的营销公司 Regis McKenna, Inc. (RMI)当时已经在硅谷小有名气，按理讲，他没有必要帮这两个初出茅庐的小伙子。
在 RMI 和苹果正式签下合同以后，McKenna 成为了世界上第一个尝试理解这家公司和他们产品的外部人员。之后，他的工作就是帮助世界上的其他人理解这家公司和他们的产品。
对于我们而言，幸运的是，他是一位痴迷于记录的人，并且像个收集癖一样，完好地保存了他职业生涯中的每一本笔记。这其中当然也包含了，自 1976 年 12 月开始，他为 Apple II 电脑起草营销计划所做的笔记。
McKenna 记笔记有几个目的：帮助他捕捉真相、组织思考、确保会议后项目的推进。「我不是一字不差地记录，」他解释，「它们是我的速写本，我会把数据和我的观点混杂在一起。有一些事情是要和客户对接的，还有一些是你要在飞机上处理的。你必须要和客户解释清楚它们才能跟进。」
McKenna 唯独没想到自己是在记录历史。但这本 1976 年的笔记就是苹果营销的死海卷轴——它记录了这家公司早期未见于世的岁月。
McKenna 是匹兹堡人，他的第一份工作是在本地的一家面向工程师的科技出版物机构担任制作人。1963 年，在任职期间，他横跨美国跑到了硅谷。那时候的硅谷都是做芯片的创业公司，他就在一家这样创业公司 General Micro-electronics 找了一份兼职性质的营销工作，「就在一间屋子里，我看到硅变成计算机的全过程，」他回忆，「我在工业界的 MBA 是在 GME 读的。」他那时做的广告就将重点放在了引人注目的图片，而不是技术的细枝末节，这一点恰好预言了他未来所做的事情。
在自己创业之前，McKenna 还在国家半导体（National Semiconductor）工作过几年时间。
1970 年，McKenna 成立了自己的广告公司，就是前文提过的 RMI。1971 年，羽翼渐丰的 RMI 签下了英特尔。当时的英特尔才刚刚成立三年，还不是后来的芯片巨头，不过这单生意仍算不错，因为当时的英特尔是存储芯片的主要供应商，而且已经制造出世界上第一款微处理器，Intel 4004。
微处理器是一场革命。在此之前，电脑没有处理器，没有集成电路，而是由电子管和数不清的电缆组成的庞大机器。微处理器的诞生使计算机小型化成为可能，小型机和后来的微机又推动了计算机向消费领域普及。计算机的历史就是这样一环扣一环，而 McKenna 的身影几乎出现在了每个至关重要的节点。
因为微处理器对电子工业意义重大，所以营销工作要从教育市场开始。McKenna 的广告不仅仅针对工程师，观众之中还有将微处理器视作机会的企业高管。虽然是一件高科技产品，但他们的广告却注重审美、版式和语言——就像一本消费杂志，而非科学期刊。
总的来说，「我们当时一年能做五、六十个广告」McKenna 回忆，「因为英特尔，当时每个新产品都想做广告。」
在这些寻求合作的客户中就有乔布斯，他自称是苹果的营销总监。其实他已经在当时颇为知名的电脑杂志《Interface》 上为 Apple I 刊登过一则小幅黑白广告。以 70 年代的标准看，那条广告除了有个比较显眼的错别字，整体来看还算凑合。
乔布斯对苹果的品牌野心早已超出那则小广告，所以他看到英特尔的广告以后就想知道是谁做的，他们能帮他推广 Apple II 吗？
乔布斯通过英特尔找到了 RMI， 和 McKenna 的助理、负责维系潜在客户的 Frank Burge 取得了联系。
在 1976 年的夏天，Apple-1 刚刚问世，苹果公司还籍籍无名。实际上，当时除了一小部分先锋极客，大部分人连个人电脑是什么都不知道。整个个人电脑产业才刚刚起步，唯一一款产品是 MITS 的 Altair 8800。
所以，苹果的挑战不是说服消费者选择他的产品，而是告诉消费者，个人电脑是什么，它能做什么。这正好是 McKenna 的兴趣所在。
不过，即便 RMI 既有能力也有兴趣，但苹果看起来并不是一个好客户。Michael Moritz 的《The Little Kingdom》（1984），是第一本关于苹果的传记，当中引用了 Burge 开车去乔布斯车库时的自言自语，「我要怎么样才能在最短的时间里心平气和的对待这个小丑然后拿到一个能赚钱的东西？」
McKenna 公司的另一个员工，Don Kobrin 也去了趟车库，然后在 RMI 的办公室和乔布斯见了一面。他将这次见面记录在了一份备忘录里，日期是 1976 年 6 月 22 日。
在这份备忘录里，Kobrin 对苹果没有什么热情。他觉得 Apple 1 这款产品要么特别成功，要么一败涂地，并不适合作为 RMI 的客户。他还强调乔布斯太年轻了，也没有做企业的经验，同时苹果的产品看起来也没什么市场。
不过他最后笔锋一转，又说和苹果一样卖个人电脑的雅达利的创始人 Bushnell 身价已经超过千万美元。看起来他自己也拿不定主意。
虽然乔布斯和沃兹尼亚克最终见到了 Regis McKenna，但这次见面并没有敲定双方是否会继续合作。
不过这次见面有一个有趣的小细节，因为 RMI 这家公司实际上是以 Regis McKenna 的名字命名，所以 Regis McKenna 名片上的职位那一栏写的是「本人」。据 Regis McKenna 说是因为公司比较小，只有几个人，写个总经理看上去有点显摆。
「沃兹尼亚克当时写了一篇文章介绍 Apple II」，McKenna 说，「里面有很多专业术语，他在对工程师说话。」McKenna 觉得，要买电脑，就应该把它解释给外行听。「我把这一点告诉沃兹尼亚克，他很生气。我就说，『那我也没有办法帮你了，拜拜。』他走了，但是乔布斯回来了。」
在第二次和乔布斯的单独会面中，McKenna 对乔布斯的营销直觉印象深刻，「他不懂技术，但他把个人电脑是什么解释得很清楚。」凭借着一点，苹果成为了 RMI 的客户。
也是在这段时间里，乔布斯和沃兹尼亚克将苹果从一个车库里的小项目变成了一家真正的公司。在 McKenna 和乔布斯刚认识那会儿，McKenna 就把乔布斯介绍给了他原来在国家半导体的老板 Don Valentine，此人后来成了著名的风险投资人。Valentine 见到乔布斯以后，又把他介绍给了 Mike Markkula，这人也是 McKenna 在英特尔的老相识了。Markkula 帮乔布斯和沃兹尼亚克写好了商业计划书，同时惊讶于 Apple II 展现出的巨大潜力，决定自己投资苹果 9.1 万美元，还替苹果申请了 25 万美元的信贷。如此一来，Markkula 得到了苹果三分之一的股份。1977 年 3 月，苹果电脑公司 （Apple Computer, Inc）正式成立。
苹果的第一个办公室在库比蒂诺的 Stevens Creek 大道，1977 年 1 月投入使用，一直到今天，这里都是苹果总部所在地，这座加州小镇也因苹果而闻名世界。
好，现在说回 McKenna 的笔记。关于苹果营销计划的笔记从 1976 年 12 月 4 日开始，当时苹果刚刚准备推出 Apple II。这份手写笔记形式简洁，开头是用双下划线重点标注的「谁是苹果」。它也十分晦涩，有的字迹潦草到连 40 年后的 McKenna 都认不出来，但这一切都让这本笔记显得更加迷人。
Mckenna 的笔记
McKenna 的笔记反映了苹果和整个 PC 产业的过去，也是他们曾经规划的蓝图。他以及其简洁的语言，留下了许多洞见： 简历如其人：McKenna 在笔记中简短地提到了乔布斯和沃兹尼亚克过去在电子行业的经验（沃，工程师，惠普，3 年，设计芯片；乔，雅达利，两年）。McKenna 还记下了他们俩卖计算器和小货车给公司筹集资金的故事，为苹果的传奇故事留下了一个生动的细节。 Apple-1 详情： 这部分包括一些 Apple-1 的详细细节，例如这台设备是沃兹尼亚克设计的，价格 666 美元，还有 Byte Shop 的订单，总销量 150 台。 市场概况：「一切始于《流电》（流行电子/PopularElectronics）的一篇文章，」McKenna 写道。这篇 1975 年 1 月号的杂志文章介绍了 Altair 8800 微型计算机，并告诉读者如何以便宜的价格入手必要的组件。「现在，美国有超过 200 个计算机俱乐部」，他继续写道，「俱乐部成员在 5 到 500 人之间。」
Altair 和它的知名模仿者 IMSAI 都备受工程师欢迎但没有为游戏做过优化，McKenna 写道：「现在市场上的都是工具。」他列出了苹果的 8 个竞争对手：Processor Technology、Star、TDL、MITS、Digital Group、Intelligent Systems、PolyMorphic、Ohio Scientific、MiniTerm 以及 M&R Enterprises。结果证明，这些公司和产品都不足以和 Apple II 长期竞争。
Apple II 于 1977 年上市时，还有另外两台机器会加入到「即插即用大众微机」的市场竞争中，它们分别是 Radio Shack 的 TRS-80 和 Commodore 的 PET 2001。不过这两款机器在 1976 年末时尚未发布，所以 McKenna 的笔记尚未提及。
接下来是 IBM。McKenna 提到了他们和惠普，但只说了他们的计算机针对工程师群体，售价 5000 到 10000 美元，这个市场和 Apple II 的目标市场相去甚远。至于那具有跨时代意义的第一台 IBM PC，还要再等 4 年才会出现。
市场预测：McKenna 将个人电脑市场分成了两个部分——「商用」和「消费」，并在后者那一栏填了许多细分需求，如爱好、娱乐、教育、安全、家务等等。其中一大部分都成为了 Apple II 面世后的主要应用场景。
零售的可能性：McKenna 提到 PC 一般是通过邮件、电脑专卖店销售，然后他又列出了其他 Apple II 可以尝试的渠道。
电子元器件供应商店 消费类电子产品供应商店 直邮 Heathkit（一个电子产品零售品牌） Apple Store 大卖场
等等，「Apple Store」？是的，你没看错。如果 Apple II 取得了空前成功，它就需要一个能扩展 PC 零售市场边界的渠道。在 1976 年、1977 年，即便是 Terrell 的 Byte Shop 连锁店，目标受众也仅限电脑 f 发烧友，而非大众。「我一直在提 Apple Store，因为我们没有一个合适的渠道，」McKenna 说，「只有自营店才合适。」这一想法在 25 年后被证明是正确的。
Apple II 的定位：支持色彩图形、音频和动画，还自带一个手柄，可以说这台设备是为游戏而生。同时，这也是一台为专业用户打造的机器，从一开始，它就被设计为一个平台型设备，其他公司可以在它的基础上进行开发。「Apple II 有七个接口，适应性极强，」McKenna 说，「它是一个开放式的系统，许多第三方能够在上面开发自己的应用，替我们将它带入不同的市场。」 McKenna 的计划是让 Apple II 依靠其普适性取得市场成功。实际上，他们完全没有预料到市场正在发生变化——商务生产正在变成计算机的主要用途，尤其是 1979 年 Dan Bricklin 和 Bob Frankston 开发出第一个电子表格应用 VisiCalc 之后。不过，他们的预测已经非常接近了。
今天的买家需要更先进的设备，更多内存、更多算力等等 游戏和电子产品市场正在以同样的方式，基于计算机的发展而发展 现在还没有一个行业标准，苹果有机会成为标准制定者
这一段的结尾是句有点让人摸不着头脑的话：「我们接下来两年出售的东西不是最终的家用电脑。」（Things we sell in next 2 years will not sell the ultimate home computer）。现在，McKenna 也不能确定当初他想表达什么。不过他说，乔布斯从一开始很确定 Apple II 不是真正的个人电脑，而是达成这个构想的一小步。1984 年的 Macintosh ，26 年以后的 iPad，都是这个构想下的产物。
游戏计划的开端：在笔记结尾，McKenna 列出了一份苹果新品发售的事项清单，当中还提到了一篇《字节》杂志（Byte magazine）的文章，沃兹尼亚克写的，可能就是当初引起他俩矛盾的充斥着专业术语的文章。
4 月旧金山发烧友市集 Apple 2 发布 需要 广告 宣传册 直销邮件 摊位 logo 宣传稿 《字节》杂志文章=10 页产品介绍
目标：McKenna 甚至还为 Apple II 设定了几个激进的销量目标，不过因为同期的 TRS-80 和 PET 2001 售价更低，他们并没有达成目标，当然，从长远来看，这并不重要。
在 6 个月内占据市场主导地位 到 12 月份占据 10~15%的市场 在 78 年 6 月份占据 25%的市场
在最后一页，他草拟了一份广告概念：
利益点 游戏 在电视机边上坐着，玩自己用 BASIC 编写的游戏 多么有趣 做你能做的一切
后面他又重申了一遍自己野心勃勃的目标：在 1977 年卖出价值 500 万美元 1 电脑，占领 10%的市场。「从 4 月份开始，」他写道。然后，在那页的中间，他又写了一个和苹果无关的计划：为英特尔的存储芯片策划广告攻势。
在 McKenna 笔记执行的过程中，他会检查待办事项上的所有东西。苹果换了一个新 Logo（由 RMI 艺术总监 Rob Janoff 设计，最终成为苹果最知名的 logo 之一），在西海岸计算机展销会 (West Coast Computer Faire)引起轰动，首次在媒体上投放 Apple II 的广告，如 1977 年 6 月号的《比特》杂志（苹果更早之前还在和计算机八竿子打不着的《花花公子》上投了广告——这也表明了苹果将计算机引入大众市场的野心）。RMI 甚至参与了 Apple II 常规营销领域之外的一些事情，例如产品的包装设计。
Rob Janoff 设计的苹果 Logo
苹果当时的广告看起来比今天刊登在电脑杂志上的广告更华而不实，但信息量也很大。下面这则广告左页是一张照片，穿着蓝色高领毛衣的男人坐在餐桌前，若有所思地看着 Apple II 上的道琼斯工业指数（好吧，其实他正伸出一只手在电脑上打字，完全没有看屏幕，不过有吸引力的硬件展示往往比实际情况更重要）。右页则写满了计算机的配置、从教育到家庭的使用场景、扩展选项和用 basic 语言编程的乐趣。那时，月刊杂志几乎是苹果公司唯一的宣传渠道，广告就像一个主题演讲，挤满了两页纸。
在 Mckenna 做的那么多广告中，Apple II 的影响力最为持久，直到现在都很容易在互联网上找到。不过，在一款产品的上市过程中，公关的重要性不亚于广告，甚至操作难度更大。后来的苹果会开发布会，会让媒体帮忙宣传。但在 1977 年，不仅苹果是无名之辈，整个主流的商业和消费类媒体都没有注意到硅谷的创业公司。
「那时西海岸没有媒体，」Mckenna 略带遗憾地说，「直到大约 1983 年，《华尔街日报》才报道了一家没在纽交所上市的公司。」
他的秘密武器是乔布斯。「我总带着乔布斯，」他说，「他的人格极富吸引力。他们也不知道乔布斯是不是真这样，但乔布斯确实聪明、能说会道又热情，和 IBM 的总裁完全不一样。」
McKenna 见证了英特尔的跨越式发展，从 1971 年到 1976 年，年收入从 940 万美元到 2.26 亿美元。他觉得在苹果取得一个漂亮的年收入之前，都不算成功。「当我们年入 1 亿美元了，」他说，「才算有点东西了。」苹果在 1980 年实现了这个目标，那时他还是一个私有公司。调整过通胀以后，2015 年的苹果每天能赚两个 1 亿美元。
1981 年，McKenna 把自己的广告公司卖给了他的朋友兼前同事，Chiat/Day 广告公司的 Jay Chiat。Chiat/Day 后来为苹果制作了著名的「1984」广告片，将 Macintosh 带到消费者面前。直到现在，他们仍然在为苹果服务。虽然 McKenna 离开了广告行业，但他仍然深度参与了苹果的经营。在 80 年代，并非苹果员工的 McKenna 也要参加苹果的管理层周会、并且花费数年时间制定了 Mac 的营销计划。在 1985 年，他亲眼见证了乔布斯被自己一手创办的公司解雇。当时，McKenna 还努力劝说乔布斯留在苹果，当一个「首席技术官」，不过乔布斯和苹果的管理层都否定了这个方案。
在 1995 年之前，RMI 还一直为苹果提供公关服务。即便后来 McKenna 不再参与公关事务，他仍然和乔布斯有联系。在 2010 年 iPhone「天线门」爆发时，乔布斯还向 McKenna 征求过建议。McKenna 后来还写书，向公司和非营利组织提供咨询。他也投资了不少公司，包括刊载本文的《Fast Company》。
McKenna 为苹果及其产品带来了巨大变化。将 McKenna 为 Apple II 设计的形象和今天苹果在媒体中传递的形象放在一起对比，我们能发现许多共同点。（1977 年的 Apple II 宣传册封面上写着「复杂的终点是简单」，放在今天的 MacBook、iPhone 和 Apple Watch 上依然适用。）我不禁想问他：你对苹果现在的营销有什么看法？
我期待他会回答一下对某条广告的看法，但恰好相反，McKenna 选择了一个截然不同的角度。Tim Cook 作为乔布斯的继任者，一直以供应链管理大师闻名，但外界认为并不是一个营销专家。McKenna 则认为，那些说 Tim Cook 不懂营销的人才是真的不懂。「供应链就是营销，」他对我说，「无论在何时何地都能得到你想要的产品，就是营销。我认为 Tim 是个好家伙，大家还不太理解他。」
图片来自原文
二十世纪六十年代是个伟大的时代。
反越战游行、爱之夏、女权运动、性解放和马丁路德金的演讲都在这一时间段爆发；后世的历史学家把这十年间，在青年中间展开的运动笼统地称为反文化运动(counter-culture movement)。所谓反文化，意思是反主流文化。这一点，从当时流行于青年间的文化消费品中可窥见一斑：他们读的是杰克·凯鲁亚克的《在路上》，艾伦·金斯堡的《嚎叫》和肯·克西的《飞跃疯人院》，听的是感恩而死、平克·弗洛伊德，鲍勃·迪伦和披头士。
我们再把镜头移到另一边，在美国军工联合体的实验室里，集成电路技术的发展让计算设备小型化成为可能。计算机行业的先驱施乐成立了帕罗奥多研究中心 (Xerox PARC)，开始构想计算设备的未来。哦，对了，还有 1968 年道格拉斯·恩格尔巴特在旧金山秋季计算机大会上做的计算机演示，向观众展示了鼠标，窗口，超链接，视频会议，还有所见即所得的编辑流程。这些我们习以为常的东西其实在五十年前就出现了，后世将这次的演示称作「演示之母」（The Mother of All Demos）。在台下，受聘前来记录这次活动的摄影师叫斯图尔特·布兰。几个月前，他刚刚创办一本名为《全球概览》的杂志。
《全球概览》的诞生和嬉皮士有关。在反文化运动的大背景下，嬉皮士们掀起了一场「反土归田」运动，二战后，进入大学的中产阶级白人青年受不了压抑的社会环境，他们受到一些诗人和艺术家的启发，决定去乡村成立公社开辟「新边疆」、或是去异地他乡流浪。脱离城市迈向荒野的他们需要获取各种工具和知识帮助他们在乡村的生活，布兰在跟随嬉皮士们四处流浪时发现了这个需求，同时也是出于对这一群体的热爱，他决定创办一本帮助人们「access to tools」的杂志，于是《全球概览》诞生了。
杂志里的内容无所不包，从种植工具到木匠工具、从打猎穿的靴子到女性自慰的工具，从诺伯特·维纳（Norbert Wiener）的《控制论》到老子的《道德经》。所有这一切工具与知识只为回归人的生活与创造，帮助你不依靠任何现有的体制与机构，也能实现良好的生活。就像这本杂志第一期的宣言所说：
We are as gods and might as well get used to it. So far,remotely done power and glory—as via government, big business, formal education, church—has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing—power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG
（译文：我们就是上帝，最好也习惯当个上帝。到目前为止，遥不可及的权力和荣耀——政府、大企业、正规教育、教会——已经到了缺陷大于优点的地步。为了应对这种困境，一个私密的、关于个体力量的领域正在发展——这个力量能让个体进行自我教育、能让个体寻找创意、能塑造个体周遭的环境并与任何感兴趣的人分享自己的冒险经历。《全球概览》在寻找和推荐有助于这一过程的工具）
《全球概览》在当时不仅仅是一本杂志。他成为了「互联网之前的互联网」，它不仅仅链接人与工具，他还链接人与人，团体与团体。
道格拉斯·恩格尔巴特（Douglas Carl Engelbart）在斯坦福大学的增智研究中心（Augmentation Research Center）工作，一生致力于创造能增强人类的智能和协作能力的工具。通过《全球概览》，恩格尔巴特和研究中心从成员结识了公社运动中的嬉皮士，双方一同举办聚会，恩格尔巴特后来回忆道，他「对反主流文化中『社群』的观念、这一观念如何有利于能力创造和合理行为、一个集体怎样共同工作，有着同样的理解。」
《全球概览》的精神是通过工具实现个人的完整，这种精神融入当时新兴的计算机行业，将其从「理性工具」变成「人性工具」。我们不能说是《全球概览》把计算机从实验室和大公司的写字楼里搬了出来，变成能为个人所用的工具，这太片面了，但毫无疑问，《全球概览》塑造了个人计算机的哲学。
施乐帕罗奥多研究中心成立于 1970 年，计算机科学家艾伦·凯 (Alan Kay) 是第一名员工。2004 年，凯回忆起第一次看《全球概览》的情景，「我当时是这样想的：『噢，没错，这就是我的想法』，『自己会施肥总要方便些，同样的道理，你应该会用计算机建模来处理复杂问题的能力。』」对于凯和 PARC 的其他成员，《全球概览》体现出来一种「自己动手」的理念，这恰好呼应了他们关于个人计算机的构想。之后，这个中心里诞生了最早的图形操作界面和鼠标。PARC 展示的原型机启发了乔布斯推出 Apple Lisa——全世界第一款搭载图形界面的个人计算机。
反主流文化孕育出的计算机继承了《全球概览》的精神，成为了一个实现自我教育和个人创造的工具。而互联网则彻底实现了《全球概览》「access to tools」的理想。
但在计算设备和互联网高度发达的今天，我们好像并没有实现这种个人的完整。高度专业化的知识体系和分工体系让个人无法脱离社会生存。互联网原本平等自由免费的环境如今变成了商业和政治的舞台，计算机也从一个获取信息的工具变成了人类无法割舍的「体外器官」——这一点恰恰是《全球概览》所反对的。这是哪里出了问题吗？
撇开商业和政治这两个不受控制的因素，计算机和互联网并变坏了吗？并没有。作为工具，它依旧能帮我们「access to tools」。但作为使用者的我们呢？我们一边在批判电脑和智能手机变成了新「电视」，一边成为了互联网世代的「沙发土豆」。
相关链接：
1.数字乌托邦
3.革命性的目录
5.[2018-12-19-doug-engelbart|Bret Victor 写给 Doug Engelbart 的悼文]
1968 年 12 月 9 日，交互设计先驱Doug Engelbart 在旧金山的秋季计算机大会上向人们展示了五十年后的我们习以为常的东西：鼠标，窗口，超链接，视频会议，还有所见即所得的编辑流程。在当年的观众看来，他这一系列操作足够「令人窒息」。而更让人不可思议的是，他所做的演示并不是在演示场地的工作站上完成，而是通过线路，将操作信号传输到 30 英里外的斯坦福大学，由那里的一台计算机实现，再将那台计算机的屏幕输出到大会现场。1994 年，记者 Steven Levy 给这场演讲取名为「演示之母」（The Mother of All Demos）。
关于他的事迹，大家可以阅读这篇文章：《道格拉斯·恩格尔巴特：早在个人电脑出现之前，他就发明了鼠标 》
本文由作者 Bret Victor 写于 2013 年 7 月 3 日，即 Doug Engelbart 去世第二天。Bret Victor 也是一名颇具先锋气质的交互设计师，参与了初代 iPhone 的设计。
以下是原文的译文：
Doug Engelbart 今天死了。对于记者而言，他的成就很难用文字解释出来。
尤其是科技记者，他们可悲地忽视了重点，因为他们总把这些问题视作技术的问题。而 Engelbart 终其一生想解决的其实是人的问题，技术只是解决方案的一部分。当我读到这些人对 Engelbart 的采访时，我仿佛看见他们在采访 George Orwell，但却一直讨论他的那台打字机。
尤其是下面这条来自纽约时报的标题，轻率地对 Engelbart 下了定论：
《鼠标的发明者 Douglas C. Engelbart 去世，享年 88 岁》
这就像你指着一个发明了写作的人说，他发明了铅笔。
随后这篇报导开始了列清单式的解释：
他创造的 NLS 系统，向我们展现了超文本、同屏协作，多窗口、视频电话会议以及作为输入设备的鼠标的原型。
这些陈述并不准确。
Engelbart 有他的决心、目标和使命。他曾简洁但深刻地陈述过。他要增强人类的智力（augment human intellect）。他想提升集体智慧并让知识工作者通过强大的新型方式协同解决紧迫的全球性问题。
说 Engelbart 「发明了超文本」或「发明了视频电话会议」的问题在于，你试图通过现在去理解过去。「超文本」对于今天的我们而言已经有了特定含义。当你说 Engelbart 发明了超文本，你就把这个含义当作 Engelbart 的成果。
只要你把过去解释为「略微粗糙的现在」，你就搞错了重点。但在 Engelbar 身上，你错得简直离谱。
我们的超文本和 Engelbart 的超文本不一样，因为它们服务的目的不同。我们的视频会议和 Engelbart 的视频会议不一样，因为它们服务的目的也不相同。它们表面看起来一样，但是有不同的含义。它们只是同音词。
下面举个例子：
假设你穿越到 1968 年的演示现场。远程协作者 Bill Paxton 的脸出现在了大屏幕上，Engelbart 和 Paxton 开始交谈起来。
「啊！」你说，「这有点像 Skype！」
然后，Engelbart 和 Paxton 开始同时在一个屏幕上写文档。
「啊！」你说，「这有点像屏幕共享！」
不，这一点也不像屏幕共享。
如果你仔细看，你会发现屏幕上有两个光标，Engelbart 和 Paxton 各自控制一个。
「好吧，」你说，「他们有两个独立的光标，我们现在共享屏幕得俩人抢一个，但这是个不重要的细节，大体上还是一样的。」
不，并不是一个东西。完全不是。它（现在的共享屏幕）忽略了设计的初衷，对于一个研究系统而言，这个出发点是最重要的。
Engelbart 的愿景，从一开始就是协作。他的愿景是人们在一个共享的智慧空间里协作。他的所有设计都以此为出发点。
从这个角度看， 独立的光标不是特性而是一个表象。这是唯一合理的设计。协作者必须在屏幕上指示信息，就像他们在黑板上那样指。所以显而易见，他们需要一个自己的光标。
Engelbart 系统的每一个地方都是如此。整个系统的设计都有一个清晰的出发点。
另一方面，我们的共享屏幕，就像一次黑客攻击，并没有改变电脑单用户的设计。我们的计算机从头到尾都基于单用户使用的假设，仅仅只是远程镜像屏幕并没有将其变成适合协作的环境。
如果你想通过我们现在的操作系统来理解当年 Engelbart 的设计，你就错了，因为我们现在的系统并没有体现 Engelbart 的理念。Engelbart 讨厌我们现在的系统。
如果你真想理解 NLS，你要忘记现在的这一切，忘记你对计算机的种种成见，忘记你所以为的计算机。回到 1962 年，然后阅读他的理念。
你最不应该问的问题就是，「他创造了什么？」如果你问这个问题，你就把你自己放到了敬仰他的地位，敬畏他的成就，把他奉为英雄。但崇拜对谁都毫无意义。对你没有，对他也没有。
你最应该问的是，「他究竟想要创造一个什么样的世界？」当你问出这个问题，你就把自己放在了创造世界的位置上。
最后再次附上原文链接
11 月底，我们推送过”理论“和”剧场“共享的词源（点击这里跳转）。借着这两个词的启发，我们在今天这篇文章中展开一些其他的联想。
好的理论并不是故作晦涩的玄谈，而是具备一种明晰感，或者说，学习理论就像是操练“视力增强术”，混乱无序的世界在这种增强的视力下变得有章可循。
剧场与理论之间的联系也让我联想到文艺复兴时期意大利哲学家卡米罗（Giulio Camillo）发明的“记忆剧场”（Memory Theatre）。
这个“技艺高超的作品”是卡米罗的神秘杰作，他认为这个空间可以**“定位和管理所有的人类概念和存在于整个世界的一切”**。据同时期的思想家描述，只要进入这个剧场，任何问题都可以对答如流，成为一个极致的博学者，就像是最近爆火的 ChatGPT 那样。
要描述记忆剧场具体是什么好像有些困难。由于年代久远，除了一些书信文字记载和后人所绘制的图示，现在已经没有其他资料了。对我们来说，它是一个概念化的模型，像我们之前写过的圆形监狱（点击这里跳转）。但对于卡米罗来说，它应该是一个木质结构。在我们能够找到的书信里，有记载表明它曾在法国和威尼斯展出过。也有人曾和卡米罗一起进入过这个剧场，因此，我们可以推测记忆剧场至少可以容纳一两个人。但它是否是可移动的，具体尺寸如何没有确切的记载。
这位意大利哲学家一直四处游说，寻找资助，希望完善这个剧场，法国国王也曾是他的投资人。他一生都在完善这个剧场，但最终也没有完成。
卡米罗的记忆剧场平面图。图源：弗朗西斯·叶芝（Frances Yates）《记忆的艺术》
虽然被称为剧场，但是与传统的剧场不同，记忆剧场并非用来欣赏表演，而是一个用来帮助记忆知识和概念的工具。
它将传统剧场的功能倒转过来——不再是观众们坐在外侧的观众席看向中央的舞台，而是唯一的“观众”，独自站在舞台的位置，凝视外侧的看台。“看台”的阶梯上标满了图像，还有有很多盒子，按某种秩序分为许多等级，虽然图像繁多但每个事物都有它们安放的位置。
卡米罗的记忆剧场。
记忆剧场对知识和信息的归纳法是卡米罗基于同时代理论的有趣创造。
记忆剧场的形态原型是罗马剧场。所以我们可以看到，也正像是罗马剧场，它被分为七个区域，每个区域都由一个天体代表（金星、水星、木星…）。卡米罗相信，这七个区域的划分是基于一种基本的、底层的秩序，它代表了真理和真理的秩序。世间的一切可以按照它们之间“有机的联系（organic association）”被分类，他将这些信息存贮在记忆剧场中相应的固定的空间中。这样，通过观看这个记忆剧场，观者就可以掌握世界中一切的知识，而剧场的空间关系也代表了知识体系的结构。
卡米罗将空间和记忆结合在一起的方法并不新颖——在古希腊和古罗马，演讲者就会用空间帮助背诵大段的文字。他们讲要讲述的文字与日常经过的街道或室内的特定地点、空间或者景观联系在一起。**在演讲时，通过回忆这段“路程”按顺序从每个地点抓取之前“存储”的段落。这样可以快速地记忆和背诵，保证演讲通顺而完美。**这和我们在《血字的研究》中看到的福尔摩斯的“记忆宫殿”十分相似。澳洲、北美和太平洋岛原住民或许比古希腊更早开始使用这种空间记忆法。
英剧神探夏洛克剧照
不过，**卡米罗独特的尝试在于他将所有知识和信息置于同一个可以被同时观看到的空间中。**因此，**卡米罗选择剧场作为原型或许与这个空间所塑造的观看行为有很重要的关系。**他曾中用树林举例：
如果我们发现自己深处一片广袤的森林并希望看到它的全貌，我们从目前所处的位置是无法做到的，因为我们的视线会被周围环绕着的树木遮挡，无法看到远处。
但如果，森林附近有一处通向高山的坡地，我们从树林中走出，向上攀爬就会开始看到大部分的树林。而在山顶上，我们就可以看到整片树林。树林是我们的下层世界；山坡是天堂；山顶是天体的世界。
因此，为了理解下层世界，上升到上层世界是重要的，从高处向下看，我们可以获得关于下层事物的更多知识。
即使在反转的剧场中，“看”也会自然发生：从舞台看向看台，就像在山顶看到的森林一样，众多的图像和信息在观者面前展开。英国历史学家弗朗西斯·叶芝（Frances Yates）在著作《记忆的艺术》中这样描述：“（卡米洛的）剧院是从高处看世界的视野。”在现在看来，卡米罗的剧场似乎有些疯狂，然而它仍然充满启发性。英国医生兼神秘学家罗伯特·弗勒德（Robert Fludd）在之后也进行了一系列其他形式的记忆剧场的尝试，而叶芝也他对于记忆的研究中大量引述了卡米罗的记忆剧场。记忆剧场也常被认为是现代“博物馆”这一空间和概念的前身之一。罗伯特·弗勒德（Robert Fludd）发明的“音乐宫殿”，是用来帮助记忆音乐的装置。与我们现在十分熟悉的百科全书不同，卡米罗的剧场提供了一种非线性的获取知识和理解世界的方式——这种方式不是全无逻辑的堆积信息，而是有明确的基础框架的（虽然他所用的整理知识的结构或许过于神秘主义了）。**这种非线性结构与互联网和其他超文本系统有着十分相似的设想。**就像是边沁的圆形监狱并未成为一个绝对成功的建成方案，但（在福柯的解读下）无疑是一个特殊的概念模型。记忆剧场或许也是如此——很少有人真正进入这个空间体验这个神秘的剧场，它对人的记忆的神奇效果也很难有确凿的证据，但这种把世间万物空间化，以包罗万象的方式为观者展现所谓“一切”，似乎也正是博物馆、百科全书、甚至互联网的雏形。
泰德·尼尔森(Ted Nelson)发明的世外桃源计划（Project Xanadu）。图源：Project Xanadu
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译文：[2023-08-12-21-31|诚如所思|文摘#34]
by Vannevar Bush
This article was originally published in the July 1945 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. It is reproduced here with their permission.
HTML version by Denys Duchier, University of Ottawa, April 1994. Updated August 1995, Simon Fraser University. - please email comments and corrections to duchier@cs.sfu.ca - an ASCII version is also available - both have been donated to Project Gutenberg.
As Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Dr. Vannevar Bush has coördinated the activities of some six thousand leading American scientists in the application of science to warfare. In this significant article he holds up an incentive for scientists when the fighting has ceased. He urges that men of science should then turn to the massive task of making more accessible our bewildering store of knowledge. For many years inventions have extended man’s physical powers rather than the powers of his mind. Trip hammers that multiply the fists, microscopes that sharpen the eye, and engines of destruction and detection are new results, but the end results, of modern science. Now, says Dr. Bush, instruments are at hand which, if properly developed, will give man access to and command over the inherited knowledge of the ages. The perfection of these pacific instruments should be the first objective of our scientists as they emerge from their war work. Like Emerson’s famous address of 1837 on “The American Scholar,” this paper by Dr. Bush calls for a new relationship between thinking man and the sum of our knowledge. - The Editor
This has not been a scientist’s war; it has been a war in which all have had a part. The scientists, burying their old professional competition in the demand of a common cause, have shared greatly and learned much. It has been exhilarating to work in effective partnership. Now, for many, this appears to be approaching an end. What are the scientists to do next?
For the biologists, and particularly for the medical scientists, there can be little indecision, for their war work has hardly required them to leave the old paths. Many indeed have been able to carry on their war research in their familiar peacetime laboratories. Their objectives remain much the same.
It is the physicists who have been thrown most violently off stride, who have left academic pursuits for the making of strange destructive gadgets, who have had to devise new methods for their unanticipated assignments. They have done their part on the devices that made it possible to turn back the enemy. They have worked in combined effort with the physicists of our allies. They have felt within themselves the stir of achievement. They have been part of a great team. Now, as peace approaches, one asks where they will find objectives worthy of their best.
Of what lasting benefit has been man’s use of science and of the new instruments which his research brought into existence? First, they have increased his control of his material environment. They have improved his food, his clothing, his shelter; they have increased his security and released him partly from the bondage of bare existence. They have given him increased knowledge of his own biological processes so that he has had a progressive freedom from disease and an increased span of life. They are illuminating the interactions of his physiological and psychological functions, giving the promise of an improved mental health.
Science has provided the swiftest communication between individuals; it has provided a record of ideas and has enabled man to manipulate and to make extracts from that record so that knowledge evolves and endures throughout the life of a race rather than that of an individual.
There is a growing mountain of research. But there is increased evidence that we are being bogged down today as specialization extends. The investigator is staggered by the findings and conclusions of thousands of other workers - conclusions which he cannot find time to grasp, much less to remember, as they appear. Yet specialization becomes increasingly necessary for progress, and the effort to bridge between disciplines is correspondingly superficial.
Professionally our methods of transmitting and reviewing the results of research are generations old and by now are totally inadequate for their purpose. If the aggregate time spent in writing scholarly works and in reading them could be evaluated, the ratio between these amounts of time might well be startling. Those who conscientiously attempt to keep abreast of current thought, even in restricted fields, by close and continuous reading might well shy away from an examination calculated to show how much of the previous month’s efforts could be produced on call. Mendel’s concept of the laws of genetics was lost to the world for a generation because his publication did not reach the few who were capable of grasping and extending it; and this sort of catastrophe is undoubtedly being repeated all about us, as truly significant attainments become lost in the mass of the inconsequential.
The difficulty seems to be, not so much that we publish unduly in view of the extent and variety of present-day interests, but rather that publication has been extended far beyond our present ability to make real use of the record. The summation of human experience is being expanded at a prodigious rate, and the means we use for threading through the consequent maze to the momentarily important item is the same as was used in the days of square-rigged ships.
But there are signs of a change as new and powerful instrumentalities come into use. Photocells capable of seeing things in a physical sense, advanced photography which can record what is seen or even what is not, thermionic tubes capable of controlling potent forces under the guidance of less power than a mosquito uses to vibrate his wings, cathode ray tubes rendering visible an occurrence so brief that by comparison a microsecond is a long time, relay combinations which will carry out involved sequences of movements more reliably than any human operator and thousand of times as fast - there are plenty of mechanical aids with which to effect a transformation in scientific records.
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. Moreover, it would have been subject to frequent breakdown, so that it could not have been depended upon; for at that time and long after, complexity and unreliability were synonymous.
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. Had a Pharaoh been given detailed and explicit designs of an automobile, and had he understood them completely, it would have taxed the resources of his kingdom to have fashioned the thousands of parts for a single car, and that car would have broken down on the first trip to Giza.
Machines with interchangeable parts can now be constructed with great economy of effort. In spite of much complexity, they perform reliably. Witness the humble typewriter, or the movie camera, or the automobile. Electrical contacts have ceased to stick when thoroughly understood. Note the automatic telephone exchange, which has hundreds of thousands of such contacts, and yet is reliable. A spider web of metal, sealed in a thin glass container, a wire heated to brilliant glow, in short, the thermionic tube of radio sets, is made by the hundred million, tossed about in packages, plugged into sockets - and it works! Its gossamer parts, the precise location and alignment involved in its construction, would have occupied a master craftsman of the guild for months; now it is built for thirty cents. The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it.
A record, if it is to be useful to science, must be continuously extended, it must be stored, and above all it must be consulted. Today we make the record conventionally by writing and photography, followed by printing; but we also record on film, on wax disks, and on magnetic wires. Even if utterly new recording procedures do not appear, these present ones are certainly in the process of modification and extension.
Certainly progress in photography is not going to stop. Faster material and lenses, more automatic cameras, finer-grained sensitive compounds to allow an extension of the minicamera idea, are all imminent. Let us project this trend ahead to a logical, if not inevitable, outcome. The camera hound of the future wears on his forehead a lump a little larger than a walnut. It takes pictures 3 millimeters square, later to be projected or enlarged, which after all involves only a factor of 10 beyond present practice. The lens is of universal focus, down to any distance accommodated by the unaided eye, simply because it is of short focal length. There is a built-in photocell on the walnut such as we now have on at least one camera, which automatically adjusts exposure for a wide range of illumination. There is film in the walnut for a hundred exposures, and the spring for operating its shutter and shifting its film is wound once for all when the film clip is inserted. It produces its result in full color. It may well be stereoscopic, and record with spaced glass eyes, for striking improvements in stereoscopic technique are just around the corner.
The cord which trips its shutter may reach down a man’s sleeve within easy reach of his fingers. A quick squeeze, and the picture is taken. On a pair of ordinary glasses is a square of fine lines near the top of one lens, where it is out of the way of ordinary vision. When an object appears in that square, it is lined up for its picture. As the scientist of the future moves about the laboratory or the field, every time he looks at something worthy of the record, he trips the shutter and in it goes, without even an audible click. Is this all fantastic? The only fantastic thing about it is the idea of making as many pictures as would result from its use.
Will there be dry photography? It is already here in two forms. When Brady made his Civil War pictures, the plate had to be wet at the time of exposure. Now it has to be wet during development instead. In the future perhaps it need not be wetted at all. There have long been films impregnated with diazo dyes which form a picture without development, so that it is already there as soon as the camera has been operated. An exposure to ammonia gas destroys the unexposed dye, and the picture can then be taken out into the light and examined. The process is now slow, but someone may speed it up, and it has no grain difficulties such as now keep photographic researchers busy. Often it would be advantageous to be able to snap the camera and to look at the picture immediately.
Another process now in use is also slow, and more or less clumsy. For fifty years impregnated papers have been used which turn dark at every point where an electrical contact touches them, by reason of the chemical change thus produced in an iodine compound included in the paper. They have been used to make records, for a pointer moving across them can leave a trail behind. If the electrical potential on the pointer is varied as it moves, the line becomes light or dark in accordance with the potential.
This scheme is now used in facsimile transmission. The pointer draws a set of closely spaced lines across the paper one after another. As it moves, its potential is varied in accordance with a varying current received over wires from a distant station, where these variations are produced by a photocell which is similarly scanning a picture. At every instant the darkness of the line being drawn is made equal to the darkness of the point on the picture being observed by the photocell. Thus, when the whole picture has been covered, a replica appears at the receiving end.
A scene itself can be just as well looked over line by line by the photocell in this way as can a photograph of the scene. This whole apparatus constitutes a camera, with the added feature, which can be dispensed with if desired, of making its picture at a distance. It is slow, and the picture is poor in detail. Still, it does give another process of dry photography, in which the picture is finished as soon as it is taken.
It would be a brave man who could predict that such a process will always remain clumsy, slow, and faulty in detail. Television equipment today transmits sixteen reasonably good images a second, and it involves only two essential differences from the process described above. For one, the record is made by a moving beam of electrons rather than a moving pointer, for the reason that an electron beam can sweep across the picture very rapidly indeed. The other difference involves merely the use of a screen which glows momentarily when the electrons hit, rather than a chemically treated paper or film which is permanently altered. This speed is necessary in television, for motion pictures rather than stills are the object.
Use chemically treated film in place of the glowing screen, allow the apparatus to transmit one picture rather than a succession, and a rapid camera for dry photography results. The treated film needs to be far faster in action than present examples, but it probably could be. More serious is the objection that this scheme would involve putting the film inside a vacuum chamber, for electron beams behave normally only in such a rarefied environment. This difficulty could be avoided by allowing the electron beam to play on one side of a partition, and by pressing the film against the other side, if this partition were such as to allow the electrons to go through perpendicular to its surface, and to prevent them from spreading out sideways. Such partitions, in crude form, could certainly be constructed, and they will hardly hold up the general development.
Like dry photography, microphotography still has a long way to go. The basic scheme of reducing the size of the record, and examining it by projection rather than directly, has possibilities too great to be ignored. The combination of optical projection and photographic reduction is already producing some results in microfilm for scholarly purposes, and the potentialities are highly suggestive. Today, with microfilm, reductions by a linear factor of 20 can be employed and still produce full clarity when the material is re-enlarged for examination. The limits are set by the graininess of the film, the excellence of the optical system, and the efficiency of the light sources employed. All of these are rapidly improving.
Assume a linear ratio of 100 for future use. Consider film of the same thickness as paper, although thinner film will certainly be usable. Even under these conditions there would be a total factor of 10,000 between the bulk of the ordinary record on books, and its microfilm replica. The _Encyclopoedia Britannica_ could be reduced to the volume of a matchbox. A library of a million volumes could be compressed into one end of a desk. If the human race has produced since the invention of movable type a total record, in the form of magazines, newspapers, books, tracts, advertising blurbs, correspondence, having a volume corresponding to a billion books, the whole affair, assembled and compressed, could be lugged off in a moving van. Mere compression, of course, is not enough; one needs not only to make and store a record but also to be able to consult it, and this aspect of the matter comes later. Even the modern great library is not generally consulted; it is nibbled by a few.
Compression is important, however, when it comes to costs. The material for the microfilm Britannica would cost a nickel, and it could be mailed anywhere for a cent. What would it cost to print a million copies? To print a sheet of newspaper, in a large edition, costs a small fraction of a cent. The entire material of the Britannica in reduced microfilm form would go on a sheet eight and one-half by eleven inches. Once it is available, with the photographic reproduction methods of the future, duplicates in large quantities could probably be turned out for a cent apiece beyond the cost of materials. The preparation of the original copy? That introduces the next aspect of the subject.
To make the record, we now push a pencil or tap a typewriter. Then comes the process of digestion and correction, followed by an intricate process of typesetting, printing, and distribution. To consider the first stage of the procedure, will the author of the future cease writing by hand or typewriter and talk directly to the record? He does so indirectly, by talking to a stenographer or a wax cylinder; but the elements are all present if he wishes to have his talk directly produce a typed record. All he needs to do is to take advantage of existing mechanisms and to alter his language.
At a recent World Fair a machine called a Voder was shown. A girl stroked its keys and it emitted recognizable speech. No human vocal cords entered in the procedure at any point; the keys simply combined some electrically produced vibrations and passed these on to a loud-speaker. In the Bell Laboratories there is the converse of this machine, called a Vocoder. The loudspeaker is replaced by a microphone, which picks up sound. Speak to it, and the corresponding keys move. This may be one element of the postulated system.
The other element is found in the stenotype, that somewhat disconcerting device encountered usually at public meetings. A girl strokes its keys languidly and looks about the room and sometimes at the speaker with a disquieting gaze. From it emerges a typed strip which records in a phonetically simplified language a record of what the speaker is supposed to have said. Later this strip is retyped into ordinary language, for in its nascent form it is intelligible only to the initiated. Combine these two elements, let the Vocoder run the stenotype, and the result is a machine which types when talked to.
Our present languages are not especially adapted to this sort of mechanization, it is true. It is strange that the inventors of universal languages have not seized upon the idea of producing one which better fitted the technique for transmitting and recording speech. Mechanization may yet force the issue, especially in the scientific field; whereupon scientific jargon would become still less intelligible to the layman.
One can now picture a future investigator in his laboratory. His hands are free, and he is not anchored. As he moves about and observes, he photographs and comments. Time is automatically recorded to tie the two records together. If he goes into the field, he may be connected by radio to his recorder. As he ponders over his notes in the evening, he again talks his comments into the record. His typed record, as well as his photographs, may both be in miniature, so that he projects them for examination.
Much needs to occur, however, between the collection of data and observations, the extraction of parallel material from the existing record, and the final insertion of new material into the general body of the common record. For mature thought there is no mechanical substitute. But creative thought and essentially repetitive thought are very different things. For the latter there are, and may be, powerful mechanical aids.
Adding a column of figures is a repetitive thought process, and it was long ago properly relegated to the machine. True, the machine is sometimes controlled by the keyboard, and thought of a sort enters in reading the figures and poking the corresponding keys, but even this is avoidable. Machines have been made which will read typed figures by photocells and then depress the corresponding keys; these are combinations of photocells for scanning the type, electric circuits for sorting the consequent variations, and relay circuits for interpreting the result into the action of solenoids to pull the keys down.
All this complication is needed because of the clumsy way in which we have learned to write figures. If we recorded them positionally, simply by the configuration of a set of dots on a card, the automatic reading mechanism would become comparatively simple. In fact, if the dots are holes, we have the punched-card machine long ago produced by Hollorith for the purposes of the census, and now used throughout business. Some types of complex businesses could hardly operate without these machines.
Adding is only one operation. To perform arithmetical computation involves also subtraction, multiplication, and division, and in addition some method for temporary storage of results, removal from storage for further manipulation, and recording of final results by printing. Machines for these purposes are now of two types: keyboard machines for accounting and the like, manually controlled for the insertion of data, and usually automatically controlled as far as the sequence of operations is concerned; and punched-card machines in which separate operations are usually delegated to a series of machines, and the cards then transferred bodily from one to another. Both forms are very useful; but as far as complex computations are concerned, both are still embryo.
Rapid electrical counting appeared soon after the physicists found it desirable to count cosmic rays. For their own purposes the physicists promptly constructed thermionic-tube equipment capable of counting electrical impulses at the rate of 100,000 a second. The advanced arithmetical machines of the future will be electrical in nature, and they will perform at 100 times present speeds, or more.
Moreover, they will be far more versatile than present commercial machines, so that they may readily be adapted for a wide variety of operations. They will be controlled by a control card or film, they will select their own data and manipulate it in accordance with the instructions thus inserted, they will perform complex arithmetical computations at exceedingly high speeds, and they will record results in such form as to be readily available for distribution or for later further manipulation. Such machines will have enormous appetites. One of them will take instructions and data from a roomful of girls armed with simple keyboard punches, and will deliver sheets of computed results every few minutes. There will always be plenty of things to compute in the detailed affairs of millions of people doing complicated things.
The repetitive processes of thought are not confined, however, to matters of arithmetic and statistics. In fact, every time one combines and records facts in accordance with established logical processes, the creative aspect of thinking is concerned only with the selection of the data and the process to be employed, and the manipulation thereafter is repetitive in nature and hence a fit matter to be relegated to the machines. Not so much has been done along these lines, beyond the bounds of arithmetic, as might be done, primarily because of the economics of the situation. The needs of business, and the extensive market obviously waiting, assured the advent of mass-produced arithmetical machines just as soon as production methods were sufficiently advanced.
With machines for advanced analysis no such situation existed; for there was and is no extensive market; the users of advanced methods of manipulating data are a very small part of the population. There are, however, machines for solving differential equations - and functional and integral equations, for that matter. There are many special machines, such as the harmonic synthesizer which predicts the tides. There will be many more, appearing certainly first in the hands of the scientist and in small numbers.
If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability. The abacus, with its beads string on parallel wires, led the Arabs to positional numeration and the concept of zero many centuries before the rest of the world; and it was a useful tool - so useful that it still exists.
It is a far cry from the abacus to the modern keyboard accounting machine. It will be an equal step to the arithmetical machine of the future. But even this new machine will not take the scientist where he needs to go. Relief must be secured from laborious detailed manipulation of higher mathematics as well, if the users of it are to free their brains for something more than repetitive detailed transformations in accordance with established rules. A mathematician is not a man who can readily manipulate figures; often he cannot. He is not even a man who can readily perform the transformation of equations by the use of calculus. He is primarily an individual who is skilled in the use of symbolic logic on a high plane, and especially he is a man of intuitive judgment in the choice of the manipulative processes he employs.
All else he should be able to turn over to his mechanism, just as confidently as he turns over the propelling of his car to the intricate mechanism under the hood. Only then will mathematics be practically effective in bringing the growing knowledge of atomistics to the useful solution of the advanced problems of chemistry, metallurgy, and biology. For this reason there will come more machines to handle advanced mathematics for the scientist. Some of them will be sufficiently bizarre to suit the most fastidious connoisseur of the present artifacts of civilization.
The scientist, however, is not the only person who manipulates data and examines the world about him by the use of logical processes, although he sometimes preserves this appearance by adopting into the fold anyone who becomes logical, much in the manner in which a British labor leader is elevated to knighthood. 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. Formal logic used to be a keen instrument in the hands of the teacher in his trying of students’ souls. It is readily possible to construct a machine which will manipulate premises in accordance with formal logic, simply by the clever use of relay circuits. Put a set of premises into such a device and turn the crank, and it will readily pass out conclusion after conclusion, all in accordance with logical law, and with no more slips than would be expected of a keyboard adding machine.
Logic can become enormously difficult, and it would undoubtedly be well to produce more assurance in its use. The machines for higher analysis have usually been equation solvers. Ideas are beginning to appear for equation transformers, which will rearrange the relationship expressed by an equation in accordance with strict and rather advanced logic. Progress is inhibited by the exceedingly crude way in which mathematicians express their relationships. They employ a symbolism which grew like Topsy and has little consistency; a strange fact in that most logical field.
A new symbolism, probably positional, must apparently precede the reduction of mathematical transformations to machine processes. Then, on beyond the strict logic of the mathematician, lies the application of logic in everyday affairs. We may some day click off arguments on a machine with the same assurance that we now enter sales on a cash register. But the machine of logic will not look like a cash register, even a streamlined model.
So much for the manipulation of ideas and their insertion into the record. Thus far we seem to be worse off than before - for we can enormously extend the record; yet even in its present bulk we can hardly consult it. This is a much larger matter than merely the extraction of data for the purposes of scientific research; it involves the entire process by which man profits by his inheritance of acquired knowledge. The prime action of use is selection, and here we are halting indeed. There may be millions of fine thoughts, and the account of the experience on which they are based, all encased within stone walls of acceptable architectural form; but if the scholar can get at only one a week by diligent search, his syntheses are not likely to keep up with the current scene.
Selection, in this broad sense, is a stone adze in the hands of a cabinetmaker. Yet, in a narrow sense and in other areas, something has already been done mechanically on selection. The personnel officer of a factory drops a stack of a few thousand employee cards into a selecting machine, sets a code in accordance with an established convention, and produces in a short time a list of all employees who live in Trenton and know Spanish. Even such devices are much too slow when it comes, for example, to matching a set of fingerprints with one of five millions on file. Selection devices of this sort will soon be speeded up from their present rate of reviewing data at a few hundred a minute. By the use of photocells and microfilm they will survey items at the rate of thousands a second, and will print out duplicates of those selected.
This process, however, is simple selection: it proceeds by examining in turn every one of a large set of items, and by picking out those which have certain specified characteristics. There is another form of selection best illustrated by the automatic telephone exchange. You dial a number and the machine selects and connects just one of a million possible stations. It does not run over them all. It pays attention only to a class given by a first digit, and so on; and thus proceeds rapidly and almost unerringly to the selected station. It requires a few seconds to make the selection, although the process could be speeded up if increased speed were economically warranted. If necessary, it could be made extremely fast by substituting thermionic-tube switching for mechanical switching, so that the full selection could be made in one-hundredth of a second. No one would wish to spend the money necessary to make this change in the telephone system, but the general idea is applicable elsewhere.
Take the prosaic problem of the great department store. Every time a charge sale is made, there are a number of things to be done.. The inventory needs to be revised, the salesman needs to be given credit for the sale, the general accounts need an entry, and, most important, the customer needs to be charged. A central records device has been developed in which much of this work is done conveniently. The salesman places on a stand the customer’s identification card, his own card, and the card taken from the article sold - all punched cards. When he pulls a lever, contacts are made through the holes, machinery at a central point makes the necessary computations and entries, and the proper receipt is printed for the salesman to pass to the customer.
But there may be ten thousand charge customers doing business with the store, and before the full operation can be completed someone has to select the right card and insert it at the central office. Now rapid selection can slide just the proper card into position in an instant or two, and return it afterward. Another difficulty occurs, however. Someone must read a total on the card, so that the machine can add its computed item to it. Conceivably the cards might be of the dry photography type I have described. Existing totals could then be read by photocell, and the new total entered by an electron beam.
The cards may be in miniature, so that they occupy little space. They must move quickly. They need not be transferred far, but merely into position so that the photocell and recorder can operate on them. Positional dots can enter the data. At the end of the month a machine can readily be made to read these and to print an ordinary bill. With tube selection, in which no mechanical parts are involved in the switches, little time need be occupied in bringing the correct card into use - a second should suffice for the entire operation. The whole record on the card may be made by magnetic dots on a steel sheet if desired, instead of dots to be observed optically, following the scheme by which Poulsen long ago put speech on a magnetic wire. This method has the advantage of simplicity and ease of erasure. By using photography, however, one can arrange to project the record in enlarged form, and at a distance by using the process common in television equipment.
One can consider rapid selection of this form, and distant projection for other purposes. To be able to key one sheet of a million before an operator in a second or two, with the possibility of then adding notes thereto, is suggestive in many ways. It might even be of use in libraries, but that is another story. At any rate, there are now some interesting combinations possible. One might, for example, speak to a microphone, in the manner described in connection with the speech-controlled typewriter, and thus make his selections. It would certainly beat the usual file clerk.
The real heart of the matter of selection, however, goes deeper than a lag in the adoption of mechanisms by libraries, or a lack of development of devices for their use. Our ineptitude in getting at the record is largely caused by the artificiality of systems of indexing. When data of any sort are placed in storage, they are filed alphabetically or numerically, and information is found (when it is) by tracing it down from subclass to subclass. It can be in only one place, unless duplicates are used; one has to have rules as to which path will locate it, and the rules are cumbersome. Having found one item, moreover, one has to emerge from the system and re-enter on a new path.
The human mind does not work that way. It operates by association. With one item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the association of thoughts, in accordance with some intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the brain. It has other characteristics, of course; trails that are not frequently followed are prone to fade, items are not fully permanent, memory is transitory. Yet the speed of action, the intricacy of trails, the detail of mental pictures, is awe-inspiring beyond all else in nature.
Man cannot hope fully to duplicate this mental process artificially, but he certainly ought to be able to learn from it. In minor ways he may even improve, for his records have relative permanency. The first idea, however, to be drawn from the analogy concerns selection. Selection by association, rather than by indexing, may yet be mechanized. One cannot hope thus to equal the speed and flexibility with which the mind follows an associative trail, but it should be possible to beat the mind decisively in regard to the permanence and clarity of the items resurrected from storage.
Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and to coin one at random, “memex” will do. A memex 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.
It consists of a desk, and while it can presumably be operated from a distance, it is primarily the piece of furniture at which he works. On the top are slanting translucent screens, on which material can be projected for convenient reading. There is a keyboard, and sets of buttons and levers. Otherwise it looks like an ordinary desk.
In one end is the stored material. The matter of bulk is well taken care of by improved microfilm. Only a small part of the interior of the memex is devoted to storage, the rest to mechanism. Yet if the user inserted 5000 pages of material a day it would take him hundreds of years to fill the repository, so he can be profligate and enter material freely.
Most of the memex contents are purchased on microfilm ready for insertion. Books of all sorts, pictures, current periodicals, newspapers, are thus obtained and dropped into place. Business correspondence takes the same path. And there is provision for direct entry. On the top of the memex is a transparent platen. On this are placed longhand notes, photographs, memoranda, all sort of things. When one is in place, the depression of a lever causes it to be photographed onto the next blank space in a section of the memex film, dry photography being employed.
There is, of course, provision for consultation of the record by the usual scheme of indexing. If the user wishes to consult a certain book, he taps its code on the keyboard, and the title page of the book promptly appears before him, projected onto one of his viewing positions. Frequently-used codes are mnemonic, so that he seldom consults his code book; but when he does, a single tap of a key projects it for his use. Moreover, he has supplemental levers. On deflecting one of these levers to the right he runs through the book before him, each page in turn being projected at a speed which just allows a recognizing glance at each. If he deflects it further to the right, he steps through the book 10 pages at a time; still further at 100 pages at a time. Deflection to the left gives him the same control backwards.
A special button transfers him immediately to the first page of the index. Any given book of his library can thus be called up and consulted with far greater facility than if it were taken from a shelf. As he has several projection positions, he can leave one item in position while he calls up another. He can add marginal notes and comments, taking advantage of one possible type of dry photography, and it could even be arranged so that he can do this by a stylus scheme, such as is now employed in the telautograph seen in railroad waiting rooms, just as though he had the physical page before him.
All this is conventional, except for the projection forward of present-day mechanisms and gadgetry. It affords an immediate step, however, to associative indexing, the basic idea of which is a provision whereby any item may be caused at will to select immediately and automatically another. This is the essential feature of the memex. The process of tying two items together is the important thing.
When the user is building a trail, he names it, inserts the name in his code book, and taps it out on his keyboard. Before him are the two items to be joined, projected onto adjacent viewing positions. At the bottom of each there are a number of blank code spaces, and a pointer is set to indicate one of these on each item. The user taps a single key, and the items are permanently joined. In each code space appears the code word. Out of view, but also in the code space, is inserted a set of dots for photocell viewing; and on each item these dots by their positions designate the index number of the other item.
Thereafter, at any time, when one of these items is in view, the other can be instantly recalled merely by tapping a button below the corresponding code space. Moreover, when numerous items have been thus joined together to form a trail, they can be reviewed in turn, rapidly or slowly, by deflecting a lever like that used for turning the pages of a book. It is exactly as though the physical items had been gathered together to form a new book. It is more than this, for any item can be joined into numerous trails.
The owner of the memex, let us say, is interested in the origin and properties of the bow and arrow. Specifically he is studying why the short Turkish bow was apparently superior to the English long bow in the skirmishes of the Crusades. He has dozens of possibly pertinent books and articles in his memex. First he runs through an encyclopedia, finds an interesting but sketchy article, leaves it projected. Next, in a history, he finds another pertinent item, and ties the two together. Thus he goes, building a trail of many items. Occasionally he inserts a comment of his own, either linking it into the main trail or joining it by a side trail to a particular item. When it becomes evident that the elastic properties of available materials had a great deal to do with the bow, he branches off on a side trail which takes him through textbooks on elasticity and tables of physical constants. He inserts a page of longhand analysis of his own. Thus he builds a trail of his interest through the maze of materials available to him.
And his trails do not fade. Several years later, his talk with a friend turns to the queer ways in which a people resist innovations, even of vital interest. He has an example, in the fact that the outranged Europeans still failed to adopt the Turkish bow. In fact he has a trail on it. A touch brings up the code book. Tapping a few keys projects the head of the trail. A lever runs through it at will, stopping at interesting items, going off on side excursions. It is an interesting trail, pertinent to the discussion. So he sets a reproducer in action, photographs the whole trail out, and passes it to his friend for insertion in his own memex, there to be linked into the more general trail.
Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready-made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified. The lawyer has at his touch the associated opinions and decisions of his whole experience, and of the experience of friends and authorities. The patent attorney has on call the millions of issued patents, with familiar trails to every point of his client’s interest. The physician, puzzled by its patient’s reactions, strikes the trail established in studying an earlier similar case, and runs rapidly through analogous case histories, with side references to the classics for the pertinent anatomy and histology. The chemist, struggling with the synthesis of an organic compound, has all the chemical literature before him in his laboratory, with trails following the analogies of compounds, and side trails to their physical and chemical behavior.
The historian, with a vast chronological account of a people, parallels it with a skip trail which stops only at the salient items, and can follow at any time contemporary trails which lead him all over civilization at a particular epoch. There is a new profession of trail blazers, those who find delight in the task of establishing useful trails through the enormous mass of the common record. The inheritance from the master becomes, not only his additions to the world’s record, but for his disciples the entire scaffolding by which they were erected.
Thus science may implement the ways in which man produces, stores, and consults the record of the race. It might be striking to outline the instrumentalities of the future more spectacularly, rather than to stick closely to the methods and elements now known and undergoing rapid development, as has been done here. Technical difficulties of all sorts have been ignored, certainly, but also ignored are means as yet unknown which may come any day to accelerate technical progress as violently as did the advent of the thermionic tube. In order that the picture may not be too commonplace, by reason of sticking to present-day patterns, it may be well to mention one such possibility, not to prophesy but merely to suggest, for prophecy based on extension of the known has substance, while prophecy founded on the unknown is only a doubly involved guess.
All our steps in creating or absorbing material of the record proceed through one of the senses - the tactile when we touch keys, the oral when we speak or listen, the visual when we read. Is it not possible that some day the path may be established more directly?
We know that when the eye sees, all the consequent information is transmitted to the brain by means of electrical vibrations in the channel of the optic nerve. This is an exact analogy with the electrical vibrations which occur in the cable of a television set: they convey the picture from the photocells which see it to the radio transmitter from which it is broadcast. We know further that if we can approach that cable with the proper instruments, we do not need to touch it; we can pick up those vibrations by electrical induction and thus discover and reproduce the scene which is being transmitted, just as a telephone wire may be tapped for its message.
The impulses which flow in the arm nerves of a typist convey to her fingers the translated information which reaches her eye or ear, in order that the fingers may be caused to strike the proper keys. Might not these currents be intercepted, either in the original form in which information is conveyed to the brain, or in the marvelously metamorphosed form in which they then proceed to the hand?
By bone conduction we already introduce sounds into the nerve channels of the deaf in order that they may hear. Is it not possible that we may learn to introduce them without the present cumbersomeness of first transforming electrical vibrations to mechanical ones, which the human mechanism promptly transforms back to the electrical form? With a couple of electrodes on the skull the encephalograph now produces pen-and-ink traces which bear some relation to the electrical phenomena going on in the brain itself. True, the record is unintelligible, except as it points out certain gross misfunctioning of the cerebral mechanism; but who would now place bounds on where such a thing may lead?
In the outside world, all forms of intelligence, whether of sound or sight, have been reduced to the form of varying currents in an electric circuit in order that they may be transmitted. Inside the human frame exactly the same sort of process occurs. Must we always transform to mechanical movements in order to proceed from one electrical phenomenon to another? It is a suggestive thought, but it hardly warrants prediction without losing touch with reality and immediateness.
Presumably man’s spirit should be elevated if he can better review his shady past and analyze more completely and objectively his present problems. He has built a civilization so complex that he needs to mechanize his record more fully if he is to push his experiment to its logical conclusion and not merely become bogged down part way there by overtaxing his limited memory. His excursion may be more enjoyable if he can reacquire the privilege of forgetting the manifold things he does not need to have immediately at hand, with some assurance that he can find them again if they prove important.
The applications of science have built man a well-supplied house, and are teaching him to live healthily therein. They have enabled him to throw masses of people against another with cruel weapons. They may yet allow him truly to encompass the great record and to grow in the wisdom of race experience. He may perish in conflict before he learns to wield that record for his true good. Yet, in the application of science to the needs and desires of man, it would seem to be a singularly unfortunate stage at which to terminate the process, or to lose hope as to the outcome.
