Ebooks before Amazon

owly · 05-12-2014, 11:31 PM

Seeing as hand-held devices existed way before todays eink readers, how did you get books for your Palm pilots and the like? What where the big ebook sources before Amazon, was mobi the main file format?

AnemicOak · 05-12-2014, 11:34 PM

Didn't do a lot of eBooks before getting a Sony 505 in 2007, but before that I started with Peanut Press back in the day & later bought a lot at Fictionwise & Webscriptions. My format of choice was mainly LIT.

frahse · 05-13-2014, 12:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Didn't do a lot of eBooks before getting a Sony 505 in 2007, but before that I started with Peanut Press back in the day & later bought a lot at Fictionwise & Webscriptions. My format of choice was mainly LIT.

I still prefer the LIT format and use it on my computers.

The old devices used insertable memory cards a lot. I have a Franklin device which is a great dictionary and vocabulary device that will also accept "book" cards.

cromag · 05-13-2014, 12:46 AM

I was reading public domain works on my Amiga 3000 desktop in the early 90s. They were on CD-ROMs in TXT and DOC formats. I never had a hand-held device that could be used as an ereader until 2010.

danskmacabre · 05-13-2014, 12:48 AM

Before I got a Kobo Ereader some years ago, I used a Nintendo DS lite as a sort of ereader.
I had a special adapter that I could load text files onto and used I think a homebrew app called Moonreader for the DS to read TXT or RTF files.

I got ebooks from Project Gutenberg and places like that and converted them into TXT or RTF files.

Any commercial books I just read in pbook format.

The DS Lite was surprisingly good as an ereader. It had 2 screens and was backlit. Not bad really for a device that wasn't designed for that purpose.

FizzyWater · 05-13-2014, 01:23 AM

My first eBook reader was an eBookwise. The special format was IMP and I bought the books at Fictionwise.

I also read PDB (Peanut Press, then Palm Digital Media, then eReader) books and I have books in that format that date back to 2002-2003. I bought those at Fictionwise, SimonSays, eReader.com, Books On Board, at least one other I'm not remembering.

About the time I started buying eBooks, Amazon sold them in encrypted LIT and PDF. Then they decided to stop. I was anti-Amazon eBooks for a long time because of the way they screwed their customers.

I occasionally bought PRC (eventually MOBI) if a book I wanted wasn't available in PDB.

owly · 05-13-2014, 02:41 AM

Thanks, this is great! It's the type of unrecorded history that will otherwise disappear so keep the info coming.

Peak · 05-13-2014, 03:03 AM

I began reading ebooks on a Palm , and went through Palm Zire, Palm Zire 31 and finally a Palm TX. After Palm dissappeared I usually read on my computer (due to the fact that I couldn't find any other ereaders that had autoscroll). Tablets and Moon+ was the saving grace when it comes to handhelds.

The first eink reader I really like is the Kobo Aura HD, which is the one I mainly use now (I do have a Kobo Mini, but the small screen and no backlight made it... not optimal).

HarryT · 05-13-2014, 03:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

About the time I started buying eBooks, Amazon sold them in encrypted LIT and PDF. Then they decided to stop. I was anti-Amazon eBooks for a long time because of the way they screwed their customers.

That's hardly a fair description. They gave people something like a year's notice, as I recall. It wasn't exactly something that they did out of the blue, and given the fact that neither of their encryption formats were device-specific, nobody lost anything as a result of no longer being able to download them.

fjtorres · 05-13-2014, 07:20 AM

Mid 90's, there was this:
http://www.amazon.com/Library-The-Fu.../dp/B00002S8OW

Also a variety of PD CDs with the Gutenberg collection.

Around the turn of the century, a lot of Universities hosted their own digital libraries of classic literature. The University of Virginia partnered with Microsoft to produce very high quality digital editions for free. Around that time came the now legendary BLACK MASK collection you could d/l for free or buy on CD in the format of your choice; LIT, MOBI, PDF, HTML, or ROCKETREADER. I got all, of course. Repeatedly.

Amazon and B&N sold contemporary titles in Lit and pdf, Powells, too--availability was hit and miss, prices often outrageous. B&N ditched early, Amazon soldiered on until they started preliminary work on what became Kindle.

The primary source for contemporary fiction through the 90's and early 21st was USENET: the demand was there, supply wasn't, so the underground stepped up. Lots of legends floating around from those days. Occasionally a "pirate" would surface to give an anonymous interview and swear they would happily stop if only the publishers would make the titles available. Even then the mantra was "Look at BAEN!".

I remember walking into a CompUSA (original chain) to look at the first CASIO color PocketPC and the store demo had a pristine copy of LORD OF THE RINGS in MS READER. When I asked the employee where you could get it, he took it away and said it was just a demo. Of course, I already knew it was a full copy so it didn't take much to figure out why he was spooked.

You needed to think like a scavenger in those days and it helped to be familiar with ALTAVISTA. It once coughed up for me an argentine university etext library of 19th century latinamerican fiction organized by country and author. No downloads but each title was a single scrolling page of nicely formatted HTML. Took me a few nights (via dialup) to screenscrape them and a week to convert to LIT and Mobi.

Amazon changed all that.

pwalker8 · 05-13-2014, 07:48 AM

I started on a palm pilot. My first ebook was Pratt & De Camp's The Complete Enchanter from peanut press. Alas, they went belly up and I lost access to the ebook. I didn't seriously start buying ebooks until Baen Books started the websubscription, I think it was back in 1999. Up until a few years ago, about the time Jim Baen died, I bought every month's websubscription. I did my ebook reading on various palm based, on pc's and then on an early windows based tablet. My first pure ebook reader was the Sony PRS-500.

latepaul · 05-13-2014, 07:51 AM

In the late 90s, early 200s I used to download short stories off the net but then print them out to read. Then I got a Palm pilot and used that to read and found it quite useable. I did buy a few ebooks but not many. I think there was a site called ereader.com? I definitely remember buying a piece of software called eReader to use on my Mac and there was an associated ebook store. The fact it was my Mac puts it 2004 or later.

But I didn't really start buying many full-length novels until I got my first Kindle in 2009. It's been all "downhill" since then

pwalker8 · 05-13-2014, 08:07 AM

Back before Amazon (though I think that Sony started their ebook store first, I bought a lot of books for my PRS-500 before the Kindle came out). Your basic choices were PD, Baen and pirate. Most of the major SF books were and probably still are available via the dark net.

At the time, many felt that it was ok to pirate, if the book was not available otherwise and if you already owned a dead tree version. Personally, I consider that a defensible position.

pdurrant · 05-13-2014, 08:16 AM

I was aware of electronic texts way back around 1988-1990, in particular the ones from Project Gutenberg and also the TidBITs weekly electronic newsletter, which started in 1990. Of course, pre-HTTP, access was mostly via bulletin boards and other forums, e.g. CIX. During the 1990s, I knew of at least one computer-based electronic magazines, and also some companies were issuing multimedia books on CD-ROM, e.g. Dorling Kindersley.

I didn't really get into reading electronic books until I came across Fictionwise in 2002 or so. And soon afterwards, I got a succession of Sony Clie hand-held PDAs, and read books from Fictionwise mostly in Mobipocket format. The two other popular formats with Microsoft LIT format, and the Palm PDB format.

Disillusion with DRM quickly set in, and I stoped buying DRMed fiction until the first Mobipocket DRM removal tools appeared in 2008.

But between 2002 and 2008, I moved from Sony Clies to one of the first eInk CyBooks from Bookeen. Since then I've had a variety of eInk based readers, as well as reading on iPod touch/iPhone.

jbcohen · 05-13-2014, 08:18 AM

I was unaware of just how many books there were in my basement and how hard it was getting to store them all. When some of the early readers were made available they were so expensive that they were not really a viable option to help stem the tide of those printed books. It wasn't until the three hit the market that the price came down to a point where they became an option.

05-12-2014, 11:31 PM	#1
owly Guru Posts: 729 Karma: 3822612 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Sweden Device: Paperwhite 2, Kobo Aura H2O	Ebooks before Amazon Seeing as hand-held devices existed way before todays eink readers, how did you get books for your Palm pilots and the like? What where the big ebook sources before Amazon, was mobi the main file format?

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05-12-2014, 11:34 PM	#2
AnemicOak Bookaholic Posts: 14,391 Karma: 54969924 Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Minnesota Device: iPad Mini 4, AuraHD, iPhone XR +	Didn't do a lot of eBooks before getting a Sony 505 in 2007, but before that I started with Peanut Press back in the day & later bought a lot at Fictionwise & Webscriptions. My format of choice was mainly LIT.

05-13-2014, 12:46 AM	#4
cromag Surfin the alpha waves ~~ Posts: 26,088 Karma: 459735575 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: New Jersey Device: Jetbook Lite & Mini, Nook STR, Kobo, Hanvon N516, Kindle 2, Androids	I was reading public domain works on my Amiga 3000 desktop in the early 90s. They were on CD-ROMs in TXT and DOC formats. I never had a hand-held device that could be used as an ereader until 2010.

05-13-2014, 12:48 AM	#5
danskmacabre Guru Posts: 733 Karma: 3593438 Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Glo. Galaxy Tab S 8.4	Before I got a Kobo Ereader some years ago, I used a Nintendo DS lite as a sort of ereader. I had a special adapter that I could load text files onto and used I think a homebrew app called Moonreader for the DS to read TXT or RTF files. I got ebooks from Project Gutenberg and places like that and converted them into TXT or RTF files. Any commercial books I just read in pbook format. The DS Lite was surprisingly good as an ereader. It had 2 screens and was backlit. Not bad really for a device that wasn't designed for that purpose.

05-13-2014, 01:23 AM	#6
FizzyWater You kids get off my lawn! Posts: 4,220 Karma: 73492664 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Columbus, Ohio Device: Oasis 2 and Libra H2O and half a dozen older models I can't let go of	My first eBook reader was an eBookwise. The special format was IMP and I bought the books at Fictionwise. I also read PDB (Peanut Press, then Palm Digital Media, then eReader) books and I have books in that format that date back to 2002-2003. I bought those at Fictionwise, SimonSays, eReader.com, Books On Board, at least one other I'm not remembering. About the time I started buying eBooks, Amazon sold them in encrypted LIT and PDF. Then they decided to stop. I was anti-Amazon eBooks for a long time because of the way they screwed their customers. I occasionally bought PRC (eventually MOBI) if a book I wanted wasn't available in PDB.

05-13-2014, 02:41 AM	#7
owly Guru Posts: 729 Karma: 3822612 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Sweden Device: Paperwhite 2, Kobo Aura H2O	Thanks, this is great! It's the type of unrecorded history that will otherwise disappear so keep the info coming.

05-13-2014, 03:03 AM	#8
Peak Junior Member Posts: 1 Karma: 10 Join Date: May 2014 Device: Kobo Aura HD, Kobo Mini, Kobo Arc, Surface RT	I began reading ebooks on a Palm , and went through Palm Zire, Palm Zire 31 and finally a Palm TX. After Palm dissappeared I usually read on my computer (due to the fact that I couldn't find any other ereaders that had autoscroll). Tablets and Moon+ was the saving grace when it comes to handhelds. The first eink reader I really like is the Kobo Aura HD, which is the one I mainly use now (I do have a Kobo Mini, but the small screen and no backlight made it... not optimal).

05-13-2014, 07:20 AM	#10
fjtorres Grand Sorcerer Posts: 11,732 Karma: 128354696 Join Date: May 2009 Location: 26 kly from Sgr A* Device: T100TA,PW2,PRS-T1,KT,FireHD 8.9,K2, PB360,BeBook One,Axim51v,TC1000	Mid 90's, there was this: http://www.amazon.com/Library-The-Fu.../dp/B00002S8OW Also a variety of PD CDs with the Gutenberg collection. Around the turn of the century, a lot of Universities hosted their own digital libraries of classic literature. The University of Virginia partnered with Microsoft to produce very high quality digital editions for free. Around that time came the now legendary BLACK MASK collection you could d/l for free or buy on CD in the format of your choice; LIT, MOBI, PDF, HTML, or ROCKETREADER. I got all, of course. Repeatedly. Amazon and B&N sold contemporary titles in Lit and pdf, Powells, too--availability was hit and miss, prices often outrageous. B&N ditched early, Amazon soldiered on until they started preliminary work on what became Kindle. The primary source for contemporary fiction through the 90's and early 21st was USENET: the demand was there, supply wasn't, so the underground stepped up. Lots of legends floating around from those days. Occasionally a "pirate" would surface to give an anonymous interview and swear they would happily stop if only the publishers would make the titles available. Even then the mantra was "Look at BAEN!". I remember walking into a CompUSA (original chain) to look at the first CASIO color PocketPC and the store demo had a pristine copy of LORD OF THE RINGS in MS READER. When I asked the employee where you could get it, he took it away and said it was just a demo. Of course, I already knew it was a full copy so it didn't take much to figure out why he was spooked. You needed to think like a scavenger in those days and it helped to be familiar with ALTAVISTA. It once coughed up for me an argentine university etext library of 19th century latinamerican fiction organized by country and author. No downloads but each title was a single scrolling page of nicely formatted HTML. Took me a few nights (via dialup) to screenscrape them and a week to convert to LIT and Mobi. Amazon changed all that.

05-13-2014, 07:48 AM	#11
pwalker8 Grand Sorcerer Posts: 7,196 Karma: 70314280 Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Atlanta, GA Device: iPad Pro, iPad mini, Kobo Aura, Amazon paperwhite, Sony PRS-T2	I started on a palm pilot. My first ebook was Pratt & De Camp's The Complete Enchanter from peanut press. Alas, they went belly up and I lost access to the ebook. I didn't seriously start buying ebooks until Baen Books started the websubscription, I think it was back in 1999. Up until a few years ago, about the time Jim Baen died, I bought every month's websubscription. I did my ebook reading on various palm based, on pc's and then on an early windows based tablet. My first pure ebook reader was the Sony PRS-500.

05-13-2014, 07:51 AM	#12
latepaul Wizard Posts: 1,270 Karma: 10468300 Join Date: Dec 2011 Device: a variety (mostly kindles and kobos)	In the late 90s, early 200s I used to download short stories off the net but then print them out to read. Then I got a Palm pilot and used that to read and found it quite useable. I did buy a few ebooks but not many. I think there was a site called ereader.com? I definitely remember buying a piece of software called eReader to use on my Mac and there was an associated ebook store. The fact it was my Mac puts it 2004 or later. But I didn't really start buying many full-length novels until I got my first Kindle in 2009. It's been all "downhill" since then

05-13-2014, 08:07 AM	#13
pwalker8 Grand Sorcerer Posts: 7,196 Karma: 70314280 Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Atlanta, GA Device: iPad Pro, iPad mini, Kobo Aura, Amazon paperwhite, Sony PRS-T2	Back before Amazon (though I think that Sony started their ebook store first, I bought a lot of books for my PRS-500 before the Kindle came out). Your basic choices were PD, Baen and pirate. Most of the major SF books were and probably still are available via the dark net. At the time, many felt that it was ok to pirate, if the book was not available otherwise and if you already owned a dead tree version. Personally, I consider that a defensible position.

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05-13-2014, 08:16 AM	#14
pdurrant The Grand Mouse 高貴的老鼠 Posts: 73,722 Karma: 315126578 Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Norfolk, England Device: Kindle Oasis	I was aware of electronic texts way back around 1988-1990, in particular the ones from Project Gutenberg and also the TidBITs weekly electronic newsletter, which started in 1990. Of course, pre-HTTP, access was mostly via bulletin boards and other forums, e.g. CIX. During the 1990s, I knew of at least one computer-based electronic magazines, and also some companies were issuing multimedia books on CD-ROM, e.g. Dorling Kindersley. I didn't really get into reading electronic books until I came across Fictionwise in 2002 or so. And soon afterwards, I got a succession of Sony Clie hand-held PDAs, and read books from Fictionwise mostly in Mobipocket format. The two other popular formats with Microsoft LIT format, and the Palm PDB format. Disillusion with DRM quickly set in, and I stoped buying DRMed fiction until the first Mobipocket DRM removal tools appeared in 2008. But between 2002 and 2008, I moved from Sony Clies to one of the first eInk CyBooks from Bookeen. Since then I've had a variety of eInk based readers, as well as reading on iPod touch/iPhone.

05-13-2014, 08:18 AM	#15
jbcohen Wizard Posts: 3,030 Karma: 11196738 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Where am I? Device: Kindle Paperwhite Signature edition and a Samsung S24 Ultra	I was unaware of just how many books there were in my basement and how hard it was getting to store them all. When some of the early readers were made available they were so expensive that they were not really a viable option to help stem the tide of those printed books. It wasn't until the three hit the market that the price came down to a point where they became an option.