michael said:
>  
I have some supercomputer time
>   reserved for testing various compressions,
>   so if anyone wants to send me any DVDs or their images,
>   I can try to see how much we can pack onto a single $1 DVD.


actually, you can just take a look at richard seltzer's work and see.
his d.v.d. (which costs $99, not $1) holds 9,536 plain-text e-books.

since a very good majority of those books are public-domain,
you could spring for the $99 once, then re-sell copies for $1.
(or give 'em away, absorbing the $1 cost of the d.v.d yourself.)

for most of us, though legal, that might verge on the unethical;
but for you, michael, i think it would be quite proper, because
richard got many of those e-texts _from_ project gutenberg...

i'll chip in $10 to a fund to buy you a copy...

-bowerbird

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We are making books available on CD and DVD, at very low cost, selected and organized in an easy-to-use, well-indexed format. These CDs and DVDs contain text, not audio or video; they are designed for PCs, not Macs, that have CD and/or DVD drives. Our mission is to use technology to make books extremely inexpensive and easy to use.

Our CDs and DVDs are hand-crafted. The selection and organization are based on our judgment, not automated programs. These are the complete, unabridged books, in plain text format, with no compression and no encryption, to make them easy for anyone without computer skills to read, using Word, a Web browser or any other application that takes plain ASCII texts. You can move a copy of a book from the CD to your hard drive to edit and add notes. You can use the capabilities of Word or whatever other application you use to increase the type size, to copy-and-paste, to print. And the blind can use these books with their screen readers (which convert text to voice).

Our best bargains are:

The Complete Book DVD -- 9356 books for just $99. This DVD includes all the plain-text books from our Classic Collection CDs, plus more.

The Complete Classic Collection -- over 9055 books on 9 CDs, all for $149, including American Literature, British Literature (2-CD set), World Literature, Non-Fiction (2-CD set), Religion, Children's Books, and Books about Classical Music

We also provide CDs organized by time period (Ancient World, Medieval/Renaissance, etc.), by geography (Middle East, East Asia, etc.), by  author (Shakespeare, Mark Twain, etc.), by theme (US
History, Black Americans, Native Americans, Women, etc.), and by genre (drama, humor, philosophy, short stories, travel, etc.)

You can see details (including the tables of contents) of all the CDs at our online store at
http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat