Book People Archive

Re: Early ebook history info wanted; "Alice"; Brown Corpus; Vannevar...


Dividing my reply to Mr. Noring's message into the three major
sections he broke it down into.

Part 1

***

On Thu, 12 Jan 2006, Jon Noring wrote:

> David Reed wrote:
>> hart@[redacted] writes:
>
>>> In addition, he refers to my work on Project Gutenberg as an
>>> "experiment."
>
> Sigh. I did not say this.

Included "experiment" quotation in previous message.


>> Although there are experiments which go on for more than 34 years,
>> multigenerational experiments are few and far between.  So I would say
>> that the use of "experiment" in relation to Project Gutenberg is a poor
>> choice in words.  I have heard people way that "the U.S. is a 200
>> plus year experiment in freedom...."
>
> Actually, David, if what I wrote is read more carefully, I used the
> word "experiment" NOT to refer to Project Gutenberg as a whole, but
> specifically to the 1971 keypunch entry of the Declaration of
> Independence. I apologize for not making this clear as glass.

Obviously this was NOT the way we use the word "experiment" when we
describe someone who is trying something out to see if it will work
and then stop doing it after the "experiment" is over.

You don't do something like that in the real world arena without an
expectation that you are going to have a real world effect.

Particularly when everyone you talk to about it thinks you're nuts.


> I view that as experimental. Of course we get into semantics as to
> what 'experimental' means. So let me give an example. In 1972 I had
> free computer time in my school (in Minnesota) with a Control Data
> computer. Entry was with a teletype machine. So, as a fun experiment,
> I wrote a code to calculate 'e' to 1000 decimal places, which
> successfully ran. I should have saved that code, but did not. But I
> consider that similar to what Michael did.

That's the difference.  I kept working on promoting eBooks. . .to the
point of doing pretty much all the work myself for the first 17 years
without ever giving up on the idea/ideal.

None of the examples you brought up did that.



> And I had visions of computers calculating all kinds of
> mathematical constants to millions of decimal places.

As you may be aware, Project Gutenberg did a number of these,
in reality.


> (I came close to majoring in mathematics, thus my interest
> in math topics -- I essentially minored in numerical analysis when
> I got my engineering degree, with an interest in numerical simulation.)
>
> Now Michael may protest saying what he did in 1971 was not an
> experiment -- that it was somehow historical in the cosmic scheme
> of things and that he envisioned PG and ebooks and all of that. Fine.
> Again a semantic issue. And even if he did, Michael Hart was not
> the first to *visualize* all this, nor was he the first to digitize
> published texts -- he was a few years late.

I never said I was the first person to type words into a computer.

I never said I was the first person to type pages into a computer.

I never said I was the first person to type books into a computer.

What I said was that I was the first person to type in words designed
to go out into general publication via computers and/or the Internet.

I don't think anyone else has said they did that, or can say it.

And certainly not that they kept at it until they succeeded.


Give eBooks In 2006!!!

Michael S. Hart
Founder
Project Gutenberg