Media Devices: Kay & Goldberg’s Dynabook vs. Bush’s Memex

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Nowadays, personal computers, laptops, and tablets are devices that are regularly used for a range of purposes, including the education and creative work. However, in the 1960-1970s, the concepts of portable computers for the personal use were only developing. In the 1960s, Vannevar Bush presented his revolutionary vision of Memex, and in the 1970s, Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg proposed a prototype of the Dynabook that demonstrated even more advantages for individuals. Although ideas of Bush regarding Memex and concepts represented by Kay and Goldberg regarding Dynabook can be discussed as generally similar, Kay and Goldberg’s visions are more progressive because a decade in the computer industry development allowed the expansion of the Memex idea.

The reason to state that both Memex and Dynabook are based on the same idea and vision of the personal computer’s development is in the fact that Bush, Kay, and Goldberg were focused on creating the effective device in order to store the information for the personal use. It was important for Bush to propose the device that avoids losing the human thoughts and allows the easy access to a lot of sources of information. In this context, Memex was designed as a kind of the mechanized personal library (Bush, 2006, p. 85). Kay and Goldberg (2002) also focused on the idea of the information storage, but they mentioned the possibility to use both visual and auditory information (p. 178). The devices were designed to help individuals receive the access to manipulating great amounts of information to enable them to live and work effectively.

The other similarity in the researchers’ ideas is the reference to the work of the human mind and brain in order to design the most effective operating system for the device. Thus, Bush (2006) paid attention to associations, webs, and ‘trails’ to connect the data on the web (p. 87). In their turn, Kay and Goldberg (2002) also referred to the mind work and developed the concepts of creative work and simulation (p. 180). The researchers were intended to add to the individuals’ knowledge, development, and creativity and used the principles of the mind work to improve the selection, search, and problem-solving with the help of devices.

However, the main difference in the discussed concepts and devices is that Kay and Goldberg’s Dynabook can be viewed as the improved version of Bush’s Memex with the expanded functions. If Bush (2006) referred to Memex as the mechanized variant of a library and the development of the person’s knowledge, Kay and Goldberg (2002) put an emphasis on creativity and development of a person’s skills in writing, drawing, animating, and composing music. The researchers developed the idea of the dynamic media or hypermedia allowing the improvement of work for many professionals, including educators or musicians.

Another difference is in the researchers’ discussion of flexibility. For Bush, the development of the personal Memex in a form of a desk was both a target and a dream because of the limited development of the computer industry in the 1960s. For Kay and Goldberg, the development of the portable Dynabook in a size of a usual notebook became the reality. As a result, there were significant changes in the manipulation of such kind of a personal computer (Kay & Goldberg, 2002, p. 181). The focus was shifted from the access to the information at home to the manipulation of sources at any place.

In spite of many similarities in the concepts behind Memex and Dynabook, Kay and Goldberg’s visions added more to the basic model of the information storage proposed by Bush. The ideas of the information storage and manipulation through the specifically developed processes resembling the brain processes of selection and analysis were proposed. Therefore, the design of Memex allowed the development of the ‘hypertext’ idea, and the Dynabook ensured the development of the ‘hypermedia’ idea instead.

References

Bush, V. (2006). Memex revisited. In W. H. K. Chun & ‎T. Keenan (Eds.), New Media, Old Media (pp. 85-95). New York, NY: Routledge.

Kay, A., & Goldberg, A. (2002). Personal dynamic media. In K. Jordan & R. Packer (Eds.), Multimedia: From Wagner to virtual reality (pp. 173-184). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.

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