Vannevar Bush was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator. In 1940, he  conceptualised a digital system called the “Memex” for storing large interconnected knowledge bases, which could be accessed from various and multiple levels as a form of memory augmentation involving a microfilm-based “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.“Bush, Vannevar (July 1945). “As We May Think”. The Atlantic Monthly. Retrieved 20 April 2012. “As We May Think” has turned out to be a visionary and influential essay and influenced many contemporary technologies and it includes many significant ideas about the hypertext. “Associative linkage, argues Bush, replicates more accurately the way the mind works. The continuing appeal of hypertext as both information storage and creative methodology has been that it appears to offer a better model of consciousness than linear storage systems.” 20

The human operates by association. With one item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the association of thoughts, in association with some intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the brain. (Bush in Mayer 1999:33)