SciFi story - any idea on author or title

[G&T ice n slice]

All I can remember is that
(1) set on Earth
(2) everyone lives forever as there is a regeneration field
(3) this mean that also brain cells regenerate which wipes memory
(4) everyone has a little box which holds memory which has to be reuploaded to the brain every day
(5) everyone can edit memory by copying out memories to a central bank then deleting memories from the little memory box. There is also an emergency memory bank that holds a duplicate copy of all memories which can only be accessed in tightly controlled circumstances (similar to the controls over ICBMs)
(6) everyone stays the same age so babies stay babies and old people who are in "terminal" illness/pain can't die
(7) the main character is unhappy with the situation and by checking all his stored memories determines that he has wiped one specific set of inter-related memories from everything
(8) he then destroys his little memory box and also the central store
(9) he then obviously suffers a complete mental collapse which forces the medical team to backload all the memories held in the "emergency" bank
(10) once these memories have been backloaded to the main character's brain he remembers that he invented the regeneration field, how it works and where the field generator is hidden.
(11) he is then able to destroy the regenerator and the world can return to a normal pattern of life & death.

There you go

[500N]

How about what year you read it to give some idea of time it might have been written ?

Also, was it a book you read or something in a magazine ?

[A A Gruntpuddock]

A Planet Called Treason (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Planet_Called_Treason) by Orson Scott Card?

The Shockwave Rider (http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/AuthorSpecAlphaList.asp?BkNum=44), by John Brunner (http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/AuthorTotalAlphaList.asp?AuNum=24)?

[llondel]

I know the premise of the story, although I might be thinking of a short story. The main character runs over and kills a dog (regeneration works on all animals but can't restore life, just maintain it). He apologises to the family and builds a device that neutralises the field, uses it to raise a puppy and offers it to the family with the gadget (run it for an hour a day), only to find that they've edited all memories of the puppy from their files. He turns out to be the person who invented the field in the first place.

[John Hill]

There were two kinds of residents in Waimoana, those who had been criminals until their memory was erased and they were sent there for a life of servitude and those who paid to go there but also had their memory erased. Of course someone was making money out of this..

This Is Not My Life is a 2010 New Zealand television mystery thriller which originally aired on Television New Zealand's TV ONE channel on Thursday nights.

Set in the 2020s, the show centres on Alec Ross (Charles Mesure) who awakes one morning to find that he doesn't know who or where he is and doesn't recognise his wife or children.

This Is Not My Life - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_Not_My_Life)

Sorry, not what you are looking for but it may have been inspired by your story.

[Oktas8]

I'd like to be able to answer the question, but have a faded memory.

The story was I think a short story which I read in the eighties. Might have been old even then though, so perhaps published between 1950 and 1990.

I believe the main character wakes each morning to see a (standardised) message on the ceiling above his bed. "Don't panic" or "Don't worry" or similar. This is to reassure each amnesiac, until they can get over to the bedside cabinet to reload memories.

[acbus1]

How's about this:

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRTaW3tTJ3d7Rf-A9e9lfLMnFuKdOKOJ3ixBVLY-Rm00Hfjb9ij

[G&T ice n slice]

The main character runs over and kills a dog

yes, I'd forgotten - in fact I think it is that & the family having erased memories of the dog that triggers his actions to find & destroy the regeneration field machine.

I also think I read it in the 1970's/80's - I think it may have been a long short story in an anthology.

Very much like Asimov the author was more interested in the social aspects of the future rather than the whizz-bang so beloved by movie directors. THe "science" part of the science-fiction is just there in the background.

[tony draper]

Don't think computers as such featured much in sci fi before say the mid sixties,or if they did they called em electronic brains and were generally the size of a aircraft carrier.
I used to read a lot of Sci Fi in me yoof and young manhood,went off it for some reason or because the Sci Fi shelves started to fill up with Sword and Sorcery nonsense.
That plot does not ring a bell.
:uhoh:

[ExRAFRadar]

Tony - spot on.

Loved Sci-Fi when I was younger and still do but the shelves in the local bookstore, before it closed, were just full of barely clothed females with impossible figures invariably holding 2 Tiger like creatures.

Oh, and waving a sword that looks like it weighs the same as a small car.