Ebooks before Amazon

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The first dedicated one I'm aware of was the Sony Data Diskman, which was released in Japan in July 1990. It displayed books on CDs and, when released, had only 20 titles available - all reference works.

What about the Fiske Reading Machine‏‎ (1922) or does it have to be electronic?

The DynaBook would have been the first electronic reader but it never got past the prototype stage (Toshiba swiped the design specs & the name to produce their first laptops - still use the name)

@owly
Your thinking of the franklin bible (1989)
http://pnylab.com/pny/products/bible/main.html
Or the Microwriter (More a word-processor than reader though)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwriter

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

What about the Fiske Reading Machine‏‎ (1922) or does it have to be electronic?

That was essentially a hand-held microfiche reader. I'm not sure there are many people here who'd regard microfiche machines as bookreaders. Heck, there are probably some of our younger members who've never even used microfiche .

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That was essentially a hand-held microfiche reader. I'm not sure there are many people here who'd regard microfiche machines as bookreaders. Heck, there are probably some of our younger members who've never even used microfiche .

Depends what you mean by used (not claiming to be young btw!) In my first job all the mainframe session logs were archived onto microfiche. But I was never allowed to "use" the reader or the fiches, that would involving handling sacred objects I was unworthy to touch as a lowly programmer. I could stand over the operator whilst he twiddled the knobs for me in response to my carefully polite requests (you never got on the wrong side of an operator if you knew what was good for you).

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That was essentially a hand-held microfiche reader. I'm not sure there are many people here who'd regard microfiche machines as bookreaders. Heck, there are probably some of our younger members who've never even used microfiche .

I remember the one at the library (normal microfiche that is, I don't date back to 1922). White text on a blue background never really caught on for anything else.

Hang on, the blue screen of death is based on microfiche technology.

[Rich_D]

The first one that I remember was made by Franklin in the late 90's. It was the eBookman. I worked for an office supply retailer and we carried them. At the time, they were out of my price range, so I never purchased one, but did play around with the display model.

[owly]

Yes! it was the Franklin Bible http://pnylab.com/pny/products/bible/main.html

[mikeayers]

I'm thinking it was sometime in the 80s I downloaded the CIA-FactBook from a bulletin board. My computer might not have been a handheld device, but it was way cool reading that on my computer.

[FacebookVirus]

My first ereader was an HP Jornada in 2000 and 2001. Screen size was somewhere between a Kindle PW and a 5 inch phone.

Eyestrain was horrible on it, compared to modern eink devices, but it was better than reading from CRT monitors.

I mostly read online content such as news articles that I copied and pasted into a word processor for text formatting. I tried Gutenberg texts once or twice but couldn't take the eyestrain.

[OtterBooks]

I recall cranking up Edison's Book-o-Matic, what with the gears lubed with whale oil and such.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

I recall cranking up Edison's Book-o-Matic, what with the gears lubed with whale oil and such.

It was probably designed by Tesla. Ooh, snap!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

I recall cranking up Edison's Book-o-Matic, what with the gears lubed with whale oil and such.

Can you provide more details, please? When was it that you used this device?

[crich70]

Ebooks go back at least to 1971 and Michael Hart's work on what is now Project Gutenberg.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Rich_D

The first one that I remember was made by Franklin in the late 90's. It was the eBookman. I worked for an office supply retailer and we carried them. At the time, they were out of my price range, so I never purchased one, but did play around with the display model.

I bought one brand new in the packaging via ebay for around $40.00 I think back in the 90's. The batteries only lasted about 4 hrs on a charge as I recall, and it was dot matrix style printing on the screen. Then mobipocket stopped supporting it and newer books couldn't be read on the ebookman after that. Kindle is a lot better tech.