Quote:
Originally Posted by curtw
According to this reference, the first science fiction writer to posit an electronic book was Stanislaw Lem, in Return From the Stars, in 1961. Just five years (and a fantastic paradigm shift) from your Heinlein book. |
and 22 years after the first publication of a description of this device, the Memex:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memex
It was published in 1939 and later in a slightly expanded article "As We May Think", in the mass market magazine Atlantic Monthly in 1945:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_We_May_Think
The memex and electronic searchable hypertext linked encyclopedias and books are really the invention of this man, Vannevar Bush:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush