] 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
] records 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
] excursions 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.

Vannevar Bush's 1945 Memex article, in which he explains a hypertext like system involving microfiche. Unfortunately, the Atlantic neglected to include the illustrations.

Whats most interesting about this article is the capability, such as annotation, which does not exist on the web. The MemeStreams thread bookmarket is supposed to provide an annotation function.