Just Curious about old ebook formats

[GlenBarrington]

Is there anyone still using the older eBook formats? Things like lrf and some of the others? I notice that none of the major (and many minor) ebook stores only sell kindle of some sort and ePub. Is there some reason why you haven't switched?

No real reason for asking, on my part, just idle curiosity.

[Dr. Drib]

I stopped doing anything with LRF/Bbeb files a long time ago, even though I still own a perfectly fine and usable PRS-505 (and 500 - I think I still have).

I also no longer use my 3 RCA-whatever-they-were-called ebook readers, from about 11-12 years ago. Amazingly, two of them still work. I really liked those; they were great to hold.

I strangled my .lit files a long time ago.

PDB (was that the name?) is a distant memory.

[barryem]

I still have a lot of .pdb ebooks although I've long since converted them to epub and mobi in case I want to read them again. In fact most of the ones I'm sure I'll read again I've re-bought from Amazon as Kindle books to get the formatting. The .pdb books I have are plain text files inside with no formatting other than being organized into paragraphs. There's no bold or italics or any variation in text. Also no centering and no images.

I read those old text files for years and never missed the formatting and I wouldn't mind reading them again that way but it's nicer to have the formatting if I can get it, and i can.

Barry

[dwig]

I still have some, but not longer read any. They "live" as source material for the versions that I've converted to current formats. Over the eons, I've replaced many of the books with with newer version and deleted the antiques. The .PDB files that I have are a mix of plain text, most sourced from PG some 20-25 years ago, and some are AportisDOC/PalmDOC format, what was a "markup" format with modest formatting. I also have a good number of .PRC files, most are early MOBI versions, but some are other variants of OEBv1. Only the MOBI .PRC file exist in my calibre library and most have been converted to ePub. I also have a few ebooks in other antique formats.

I don't see any real need for any new distribution of ebooks in these antique formats.

[JSWolf]

.pdb is eReader format and yes, it's possible to have bold and italic. The last eReader book I got was a free Star Trek eBook and I did convert it with Calibre to read and it did have bold for the chapter titles and italics within the book.

To be honest, the only formats that are still alive are ePub, Mobi, KF8, KFX, PDF, kepub, and FB2. The rest are dead or will soon be.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

I stopped doing anything with LRF/Bbeb files a long time ago, even though I still own a perfectly fine and usable PRS-505 (and 500 - I think I still have).

I recently bought a 505 which had a few LRF files on it. I deleted all but a couple of the files just so I could test them. At least on the 505, LRF files seem slower and the font is horrible. (Now I just tried reading one in and it caused the 505 to reboot – I haven't had any issues at all with ePub files on this machine.) But they do have the title on each page. It looks like they tried to make them look just like printed pages from a book.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

To be honest, the only formats that are still alive are ePub, Mobi, KF8, KFX, PDF, and FB2. The rest are dead or will soon be.

Would KeyPub be considered it's own format?

[PeterT]

I'm not sure pdb was a format. pdbs were a Palm Database; a container similar to a zip file.

[drjd]

I never came across with .lrf or .pdb files because I never owned a Sony. However, I have a lot of old .lit and .mobi files in my library which were read long back and I don't feel like converting them to epub for now. If I need to re-read any of them, I'll buy 'em in latest formats. It's a distant possibility again, looking at the size of my present TBR list.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by PeterT

I'm not sure pdb was a format. pdbs were a Palm Database; a container similar to a zip file.

Correct.

The PalmOS only allowed two different file structures, the Palm Resource (PRC) and the Palm Database (PDB). PDB files are Palm Database files that could hold a wide range of differently formatted data, everything from simple text files to special ebook formats to actual database and spreadsheet data. The PRC format was used for binary files and was typically used for compiled applications.

MobiPocket and a few other ebook formats based on the Open EBook specification (OEB v1) used the PRC file format. This allowed them to include images and hyperlinks, features not possible in formats that used the PDB file structure.

The two PDB "ebook" formats that were common were simple pure text files and the text markup format that was created for the Aportis Reader and later by the Palm Reader, which became the Peanut Reader, and was commonly referred to originally as AportisDOC and later PalmDOC.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

.pdb is eReader format and yes, it's possible to have bold and italic. The last eReader book I got was a free Star Trek eBook and I did convert it with Calibre to read and it did have bold for the chapter titles and italics within the book.

To be honest, the only formats that are still alive are ePub, Mobi, KF8, KFX, PDF, kepub, and FB2. The rest are dead or will soon be.

Plain text is still going too. I don't know how many people use it but it is the oldest format out there for ebook files. Gutenberg opened its electronic doors with it.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I recently bought a 505 which had a few LRF files on it. I deleted all but a couple of the files just so I could test them. At least on the 505, LRF files seem slower and the font is horrible. (Now I just tried reading one in and it caused the 505 to reboot – I haven't had any issues at all with ePub files on this machine.) But they do have the title on each page. It looks like they tried to make them look just like printed pages from a book.

At the time, I remember thinking how nice the fonts looked, but that was 4-5 ebook generations ago. I actually haven't used mine in since about 2004. Maybe even earlier.

Those early Sony units were wonderfully made, though, I feel.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Those early Sony units were wonderfully made, though, I feel.

Absolutely. I've been reading with the 505 (mostly), but also the 300 and 350 because I'm currently reading older non-fiction (non-DRM) ebooks. I bought them on Amazon and converted them to ePubs via Calibre (using the Constantia font). I'm finding I like the non-touch 505 and 300 more than the 350. Just nice, high quality, devices.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Absolutely. I've been reading with the 505 (mostly), but also the 300 and 350 because I'm currently reading older non-fiction (non-DRM) ebooks. I bought them on Amazon and converted them to ePubs via Calibre (using the Constantia font). I'm finding I like the non-touch 505 and 300 more than the 350. Just nice, high quality, devices.

I kind of wish I had bought the PRS-350 when I saw it new. It was such an improvement over the earlier PRS-300.

I once owned the PRS-600 - so beautifully built! - but the screen was horrible. Again, I wish I had waited for the PRS-650.

Well, those days are long gone.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

.pdb is eReader format and yes, it's possible to have bold and italic. The last eReader book I got was a free Star Trek eBook and I did convert it with Calibre to read and it did have bold for the chapter titles and italics within the book.

To be honest, the only formats that are still alive are ePub, Mobi, KF8, KFX, PDF, kepub, and FB2. The rest are dead or will soon be.

Pdb was the Palm extension for data files and there was no format specified. They could contain data in any form whatever, including plain text or text in a markup language or compressed text or even images. There were only 2 extensions possible on Palms, .pdb and .prc. The first, .pdb, was intended for data and .prc was intended for executables but as I recall neither was enforced and they were interchangeable. And I think either could contain anything.

So yes, you can have formatting in pdb files. I think you're right that books from ereader.com did have some formatting. Most of the early Palm ebooks were simply plain text that had been compressed and put into a pdb file.

Barry