Michael Hart wrote:
Alice was possibly the first widely distributed eBook, but my recollection doesn't seem to match everyone else's.
I recall completing it in 1988, and many of the files contain a notice of the 1988 Millennium Fulcrum Edition. . .that was me, thinking outside the box of the then current limitations of Project Gutenberg, which had been mostly a History of Democracy sort of thing in the 1970's.
Some people, including our CEO Greg Newby, tell me that I released Alice a few years earlier than that, perhaps in 1984, as Greg says he first saw it around 1985 and that's how he first became aware of me and PG.
This IS possible, since I was a BBS Sysop in 1984-1985 and did put a LOT of the early Project Gutenberg works on the Champaign County Computer Club BBS during those years for free download, which might have included the earliest versions of Alice. My own recollection is that I did Alice no earlier than 1985, after I moved into this house in September, because I seem to recall doing the typing and proofreading at this very desk on an early incarnation of this same computer system.
Thanks for the details, Michael. Very good historical information. I've cross-posted this reply to the ebook-history list so it may be preserved. What other books, besides the "history of democracy type texts", do you recall placing on the Champaign County Computer Club BBS in 1984-85? Jon