I recently started building a MEMEX device for a new exhibition “Das Netz” in the Berlin Museum of Technolgy. The MEMEX is a vision of a scientist from the 1940s about future knowledge management based on microfilms.

The exhibit will use computer components instead but it will simulate the look and feel of a microfilm device. At the moment I have fully functional software simulation (coded in python) of the device to define and test the complete user interface and the typical processes.

In the next step we will build the components (database, displays, keyboard and camera) as independent modules. These modules will communicate over a standard ethernet connection.

The current design is the following: