--- title: The 'Knowledge Box': Picture an Early, Trippy, 3-D Wikipedia description: An invention that predated the World Wide Web by three decades also hinted at online information-gathering techniques that we all use today. canonical: https://time.com/3878795/knowledge-box-photos-of-an-early-analog-wikipedia/ author: Ben Cosgrove article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-01-30T16:12:18.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:03:47.108Z og:title: The 'Knowledge Box': Picture an Early, Trippy, 3-D Wikipedia og:description: An invention that predated the World Wide Web by three decades also hinted at online information-gathering techniques that we all use today. og:url: https://time.com/3878795/knowledge-box-photos-of-an-early-analog-wikipedia/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb3b8d822efa8906b/69884b1a5f570fcf86b1afa7/140121-knowledge-box-ken-issacs-03.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1500 og:image:height: 844 og:image:alt: The Knowledge Box 1962 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The 'Knowledge Box': Picture an Early, Trippy, 3-D Wikipedia twitter:description: An invention that predated the World Wide Web by three decades also hinted at online information-gathering techniques that we all use today. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb3b8d822efa8906b/69884b1a5f570fcf86b1afa7/140121-knowledge-box-ken-issacs-03.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The 'Knowledge Box': Picture an Early, Trippy, Analog, 3-D Wikipedia > Sponsored content. 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Kelley—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Jan 30, 2014 4:12 PM UTC A full three decades before a 35-year-old British computer scientist named [Tim Berners-Lee](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim%5FBerners-Lee) created the World Wide Web, forever changing the way humans share and consume information (translation: [cat photos](http://icanhas.cheezburger.com/)), a young, visionary designer in Chicago created a device that he called, simply and evocatively, a “knowledge box.” As LIFE magazine described the contraption to its readers in a September 1962 issue—in language similar to that used by both digital-age proselytizers and tech skeptics today—the knowledge box appeared to be an invention that would either help our willfully self-destructive species gain knowledge faster and more easily than ever before, perhaps allowing us to at least delay our extinction . . . or it might just hasten our inevitable demise. You know, either way. Whatever. --- > “” --- --- > “” --- The knowledge box was dismantled and went into storage not long after the article in LIFE came out. But Isaacs’ 12-foot, wood-framed cube—with its multiple slide projectors fire-hosing visual data at the occupant(s)—was [reconstructed and put on display](http://blogs.wsj.com/magazine/2009/10/13/wall-to-wall-futures-past-knowledge-box-reborn/) a few years back, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Sullivan Galleries. By all accounts, the “weird cellular contrivance” was as trippy and as impressive five decades later as it was when Isaacs first introduced it to an unprepared world in 1962.  Ken Isaacs (front) and a colleague work on the outside of Isaccs' "knowledge box," Chicago, 1962. Robert W. Kelley—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Designer Ken Isaacs sits inside his "knowledge box," 1962. Robert W. Kelley—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Designer Ken Isaacs inside his "knowledge box," 1962. Robert W. Kelley—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Designer Ken Isaacs inside his "knowledge box," 1962. Robert W. Kelley—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Designer Ken Isaacs inside his "knowledge box," 1962. Robert W. Kelley—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Designer Ken Isaacs inside his "knowledge box," 1962. Robert W. Kelley—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Designer Ken Isaacs confers with a colleague while standing in doorway of his "knowledge box," 1962. Robert W. 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