Quote:
Originally Posted by crane3
The list should include the Palm(s) as the really 1st ereader
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I do agree that the Palm should be on that list but it wasn't even close to being the first ereader. Xerox Parc laboratories developed an ereading program for their experimental portable computer the Dynabook sometime in the 1970's after Micheal Hart invented the ebook as we know it today in 1971. Sony made ebook discs available for their Data Discman in 1992.
My first exposure to ebooks was with an app called the Vertical Reader on my HP100lx, probably about 1993. A lot of people, me included, were scanning books and exchanging them with one another on Compuserve and on BBS systems then. It was done on a pretty small scale so no-one really cared. Even Compuserve, who had strictly enforced policies against piracy on their site, never cared about exchanging books. I don't think it occurred to anyone in those days that their might be legal issues.
The Palm Pilot didn't come along till several years later.
However, you're right that it was the device that first began to popularize ebooks. The earlier ways to read were more novelty than anything else. I did read quite a few books on my 100lx and later on my 200lx but it was when I got my first Palm that I started taking ebooks seriously.
By the way, I didn't have all those dates in my head. I just did a little googling to get my memories in a row before posting this reply.
[edited]
I posted the stuff above after reading the comment about Palms and before reading the rest of the posts, which I now see was a mistake. There were a lot of good thoughts expressed that might have changed what I said. But I'll leave it be and just add that I think we're all correct and at the same time we're all wrong.
Ereading is still new and, while I think we can all agree that there's a very profound revolution going on in reading, it's really just begun. Maybe a century from now we'll have enough perspective to decide what the high points of that revolution were. At the moment I don't think we can even say for certain that we've seen the important milestones yet. And we sure can't have much idea where all this is going yet.
I do love threads like this one. They're thought provoking and meaty and fun. Kind of like the discussions my friends and I had in our teens in the 1950's about where the world was headed. We made all sorts of fantastical predictions and it turns out we were still way too conservative.
Barry