[pdurrant]

I came across electronic text before I came across eBooks.

There was TidBITS, which I read from the start in 1990, a weekly newsletter about the Apple Macintosh, first in Hypercard and then in setext format.

There was InterText, the on-line SF magazine that published from 1991 to 2004.

I was vaguely aware of Project Gutenberg from around 1996 onwards.

I first came across proper eBooks at Webscription.net in January 2002. Lots of great SF at great prices, with archives back to 1999. Wonderful.

But all these I could only read on my Macintosh - not the best way.

Then in late 2002 I bought a Sony Clie, the SL-10. This was one of the first Palm OS devices to have a 32x320 hi-res screen. It went everywhere with me.

I found and joined fictionwise in January 2003. Lots of books from lots of sources. And Analog SF magazine in eBook format! Splended!

In November 2003, I realised that DRM was going to be a hassle - I even write an email to Fictionwise about it, explaining that I wouldn't be buying any more DRMed eBooks, because I was just getting a taste of what problems it could cause me in the future. And, except for one dictionary, I didn't buy another DRMed eBook until this year*.

I bought lots of other eBooks though! Mostly from Fictionwise, but also from webscription.net.

I moved on from the SL-10 to the SJ-20. One of the best LCD screens for reading books - monochrome TFT LCD, easy to read with backlight or in bright daylight too. Only in half-light, too bright for the backlight yet to0 dark for reflective viewing did it fail.

My paper book buying almost ceased after 2002. The convenience of always having the books in my pocket was so great.

And so it's continued - various PDAs, mobile phones, and now a CyBook Gen3. None perfect, but all improving.

I very rarely buy paper books for myself now. Nearly all my purchases are eBooks (Mobipocket by preference at the moment).

Except reference books. No eBook reader so far is big enough of fast enough for me to replace paper reference books. But no doubt there'll be one soon.

Paul

*When MobiDeDRM appeared. Yes, that's right. A tool that strips DRM has increased sales of DRMed books, at least to me. I've even written to the publishers to tell them so.

Originally Posted by CommanderROR

now would be the right moment to sit back, think back to your first encounter with ebooks and tell us all about it!
Thanks!