Early ebook history info wanted; "Alice"; Brown Corpus; Vannevar Bush; Asimov
Everyone, In doing some research on ebook history, which naturally will prominently include Project Gutenberg because of the obvious impact PG and Michael Hart has had on etexts and ebooks, I'm trying to reconstruct a fact database which includes the who, what, when, where, why and how of the various seminal events. So, I've just created a specialized Yahoo Group to collect/archive the snippets of facts that come up: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebook-history/ You're welcome to join and post any information you know on ebook history. Especially wanted is the pre-1990 period: commercial, academic, and public (free). We should collect this information before it is lost to the mists of time. ***** Anyway, in doing research on what is found in the early Google Groups archive on PG, Bowerbird recommended that I dig through textfiles.com, which appears to have archived a large number of ASCII texts that existed on various BBS systems of the 1980's and early 1990's (its coverage/completeness is unknown, however.) So, focusing on the first "modern" classic book that PG issued, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (text #11, officially released 01 Jan 1991), I dug through textfiles.com to see what they had. The oldest copy I found there was "alice11.txt", Millenium Fulcrum Edition 1.1, dated 1990 (by copyright claim.) See: http://www.textfiles.com/etext/FICTION/alice11.txt That was issued in the very early era when PG was still affiliated with Duncan Research. As an aside, it is interesting to note the huge differences in that early text's boilerplate compared with the present boilerplate. PG has evolved quite a bit in handling the legal aspects (particularly copyright) of its texts, which is to be fully expected. So this text is a nice historical reminder of how far PG has come in the last 16 years. I was hoping, though, to find a much older text version of "Alice". Bowerbird stated his belief that Michael Hart keypunched Alice a lot earlier than 1990/91, but so far I have not found that version, assuming it was distributed and ended up in some BBS or online archive. So, Michael, if you're reading this, did you keypunch "Alice" well before 1990, where did you distribute it, and does a copy exist somewhere? That would truly be a historical work, especially if it was "digiscribed" in the 1970's or early 80's (BBS systems began maturing in the mid- to late-1980's.) A question for others reading this: where else should I search for information on digitized books placed on BBS in the 1980's? Were there others besides Michael who "digiscribed" public domain books and texts in the 1980's and placed them online? (I plan to dig through more of the textfiles area to see what book texts are dated in the 1980's, if any, and who did them.) ***** Another interesting thing I discovered in my research -- and which some of you undoubtedly know about -- is the "Brown Corpus": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Corpus In the late-1960's, the partial/full texts of a variety of 500 works published in 1961 were keypunched for computer use (a maximum of 2000 words for each work), totalling a little over 1,000,000 words. The purpose was solely for lexicostatistics and not for direct reading. For this purpose the Brown Corpus is quite famous (enough to rate its own wikipedia article.) Only a few years later, in 1971 Michael Hart keypunched into a computer "The Declaration of Independence" for the purpose of electronic "distribution" and direct reading by others, so Michael is, as far as is now known, the first person documented to experiment with electronic distribution of readable, published digital texts. (I plan to contact the Brown Corpus people, if any are still alive, to see if there were experiments at Brown, or elsewhere, on this in the 1960's.) But nevertheless, to see major portions of published texts and books being keypunched and processed by computers in the 1960's is truly remarkable. ***** Another really cool thing, I found a Usenet message from 1987 which, in turn, is a fairly comprehensive description of an Atlantic Monthly article written by Vannevar Bush in July 1945, entitled "As We May Think". It is beyond amazing the insights Vannevar Bush had relevant to ebooks, to elibraries (like PG's) and the role of individuals and volunteers. Again, some of you have probably read Vannevar Bush's article, but for those who haven't... Usenet summary: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.mac.hypercard/msg/660f72a6e3b5f7a2?hl=en& And the actual article is reproduced here: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush ***** Finally, Mark Bernstein, the founder of Eastgate, which in 1987 issued several contemporary hypertext fiction ebooks on floppy disk and CD-ROM, mentioned to me Asimov's mid-50's book "Foundation" where ebooks are implicit. Has anyone read this book and can comment on Asimov's 1950's vision for ebooks? Thanks! Jon Noring
Thanks for providing the links, fascinating reading. In answer to one of your questions, The website: http://www.aston.ac.uk/lss/english/02_msc/02_diss/mward.jsp Mentions using alice10.txt, as well as a few other early PG texts, from the the Walnut Creek CD ROM. Any chance of finding one of those still floating around somewhere? Andrew On Mon, 9 Jan 2006, Jon Noring wrote:
Everyone,
In doing some research on ebook history, which naturally will prominently include Project Gutenberg because of the obvious impact PG and Michael Hart has had on etexts and ebooks, I'm trying to reconstruct a fact database which includes the who, what, when, where, why and how of the various seminal events.
[snip]
Andrew wrote:
Thanks for providing the links, fascinating reading.
You're welcome. I found my quickie search to yield fascinating stuff. Unfortunately, I have little time these days to pursue the level of research I'd like to (which involves talking to a lot of the old-timers by phone, digging through obscure archives, even doing some library research to get paper copies of old articles and books that I can't get online.)
In answer to one of your questions,
The website: http://www.aston.ac.uk/lss/english/02_msc/02_diss/mward.jsp
Mentions using alice10.txt, as well as a few other early PG texts, from the the Walnut Creek CD ROM.
Any chance of finding one of those still floating around somewhere?
Interesting. It is unknown whether this is the original one (version 1.0) which appeared before the version 1.1 edition linked in my prior message. This might have been version 10.0, for example (Alice is currently at version 30). Until we find it, we won't know for sure. (The date of the WC CD-ROM is 1997, and I would surmise they would have kept up with the latest PG texts, but then maybe not.) The ultimate authority on whether Michael Hart keyed-in and/or released "Alice" well before 1990 is Michael himself. Hopefully he will reply and clarify matters. Better yet, to point out which BBS had archived it, so we can try to locate a copy with a timestamp. Jon
On Mon, 9 Jan 2006, Andrew Sly wrote:
Mentions using alice10.txt, as well as a few other early PG texts, from the the Walnut Creek CD ROM.
I believe I have a copy of this, but I'm not sure what vintage. I'll have to look. -- Greg Weeks http://durendal.org:8080/greg/
On Mon, 9 Jan 2006, Greg Weeks wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jan 2006, Andrew Sly wrote:
Mentions using alice10.txt, as well as a few other early PG texts, from the the Walnut Creek CD ROM.
I believe I have a copy of this, but I'm not sure what vintage. I'll have to look.
The one I have is dated 1992. It probably doesn't have any of the older stuff on it. I also found my copy of "The Library of the Future" -- Greg Weeks http://durendal.org:8080/greg/
On Tue, 10 Jan 2006, Greg Weeks wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jan 2006, Greg Weeks wrote:
On Mon, 9 Jan 2006, Andrew Sly wrote:
Mentions using alice10.txt, as well as a few other early PG texts, from the the Walnut Creek CD ROM.
I believe I have a copy of this, but I'm not sure what vintage. I'll have to look.
The one I have is dated 1992. It probably doesn't have any of the older stuff on it. I also found my copy of "The Library of the Future"
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. 60,900,000 hits for "e-book" OR ebook OR ebooks. 60,900,000 hits for bomb. Give eBooks in 2006!!! Michael S. Hart Founder Project Gutenberg
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
Hello. I have the following. Write me off list if interested. I think as many of the early files should be saved as possible. I don't have alice10 but it might be floating around online somewhere. etext90: ALL11.ZIP ALL7011.ZIP BILL11.ZIP CONST11.ZIP GETTY11.ZIP JFK11.ZIP KJV10.ZIP LIBER11.ZIP LINC111.ZIP LINC211.ZIP MAYFL11.ZIP WHEN11.ZIP etext91: AESOP10.ZIP AESOP11.ZIP ALICE30.ZIP feder16.zip HISONG12.ZIP LGLASS18.ZIP lglass19.zip moby.zip MOBYNO.ZIP PETER15A.ZIP PETER16.ZIP PLBOSS10.ZIP ROGET13.ZIP ROGET13A.ZIP roget14.zip ROGET14A.ZIP roget15a.zip SNARK12.ZIP WORLD12.ZIP The plboss10.zip is particularly interesting because it contains a brief note from Judy Boss but none of the usual PG headers. As far as the standard PG headers go, this seems to be the oldest. It came from my Walnut Creek CD-ROM. I am not sure about the other titles but I used to have an older copy of Alice around somewhere.
... I was hoping, though, to find a much older text version of "Alice". Bowerbird stated his belief that Michael Hart keypunched Alice a lot earlier than 1990/91, but so far I have not found that version, assuming it was distributed and ended up in some BBS or online archive.
I got my first copy of Alice via email in about 1988, or possibly a little earlier (it was no later than June of 1988, because I got it while still at SUNY Albany). Unfortunately the file I got is lost, among some other old emails on 9-track tapes that didn't make one of my institutional transitions. It was the same (if earlier) Millenium Fulcrum edition that was in the PG collection, though at that time I had never heard of PG. (When I arrived at UIUC in 1991, I read a local newspaper article about Michael & PG and looked him up. The rest, as they say, is history!). -- Greg
Greg wrote:
I was hoping, though, to find a much older text version of "Alice". Bowerbird stated his belief that Michael Hart keypunched Alice a lot earlier than 1990/91, but so far I have not found that version, assuming it was distributed and ended up in some BBS or online archive.
I got my first copy of Alice via email in about 1988, or possibly a little earlier (it was no later than June of 1988, because I got it while still at SUNY Albany).
Thanks! This is useful information. I'll re-search in Google and see if someone archived this older version. The version 1.1 I found is dated (copyrighted) 1990, so I assume the version you had may have been the original version 1.0. You might ask Michael to think back when he first placed Alice online. It's a very historical fact. Besides the KJV of the Bible, did Michael post to the Internet before 1990 any other classic works? (I'm not referring to the nine political documents which form PG text #1-9, but more recognized book works like "Alice".)
Unfortunately the file I got is lost, among some other old emails on 9-track tapes that didn't make one of my institutional transitions.
Understood. I saved very little from the late 1980's when I first got online (Usenet and various BBS).
It was the same (if earlier) Millenium Fulcrum edition that was in the PG collection, though at that time I had never heard of PG.
Was the early GUTNBERG mailing list archived as well? When was that list formed? The first mention I see of GUTNBERG is January 1990. I don't believe Google has it archived, unfortunately. That would be a treasure trove of information on the early days of PG, and probably will mention, in passing, things that happened before GUTNBERG was started. Thanks again. Jon
On Mon, Jan 09, 2006 at 04:48:35PM -0700, Jon Noring wrote:
Was the early GUTNBERG mailing list archived as well? When was that list formed? The first mention I see of GUTNBERG is January 1990. I don't believe Google has it archived, unfortunately. That would be a treasure trove of information on the early days of PG, and probably will mention, in passing, things that happened before GUTNBERG was started.
I don't think it was. I believe our first automated list was on a LISTSERV run at uiuc (listserv.cso.uiuc.edu). That was from about 1992 or so through 1997 or earlier 1998). Then, we moved to UNC, which used similar software. listserv.unc.edu. I do have the archives from that period, somewhere. It was only in 2003 or so that we moved to mailman on lists.pglaf.org The number & makeup of lists changed over that time. Originally, the main (or only) purpose was for a monthly newsletter or similar, plus announcements of new titles. I am not aware of any archives we got from the UIUC LISTSERV lists. I'm sure some folks have their own personal copies, though. -- Greg
Greg wrote:
Jon Noring wrote:
Was the early GUTNBERG mailing list archived as well? When was that list formed? The first mention I see of GUTNBERG is January 1990. I don't believe Google has it archived, unfortunately. That would be a treasure trove of information on the early days of PG, and probably will mention, in passing, things that happened before GUTNBERG was started.
I don't think it was.
I believe our first automated list was on a LISTSERV run at uiuc (listserv.cso.uiuc.edu). That was from about 1992 or so through 1997 or earlier 1998).
Oh well. As noted in another message I just posted, a quick Google Groups search shows that it has archived 717 messages for the group bit.listserv.gutnberg. The first mention is from July 1990, and the rest start in 1991. I'm sure the early GUTNBERG list would be fascinating to follow, and itself contain historical information. Do you know when the GUTNBERG list was actually started?
I am not aware of any archives we got from the UIUC LISTSERV lists. I'm sure some folks have their own personal copies, though.
Well, hopefully someone saved the early GUTNBERG archive. If so, be sure to let Greg know. Jon
On Mon, 9 Jan 2006, Greg Newby wrote:
On Mon, Jan 09, 2006 at 04:48:35PM -0700, Jon Noring wrote:
Was the early GUTNBERG mailing list archived as well? When was that list formed? The first mention I see of GUTNBERG is January 1990. I don't believe Google has it archived, unfortunately. That would be a treasure trove of information on the early days of PG, and probably will mention, in passing, things that happened before GUTNBERG was started.
I don't think it was.
I believe our first automated list was on a LISTSERV run at uiuc (listserv.cso.uiuc.edu). That was from about 1992 or so through 1997 or earlier 1998).
Then, we moved to UNC, which used similar software. listserv.unc.edu. I do have the archives from that period, somewhere.
It was only in 2003 or so that we moved to mailman on lists.pglaf.org
The number & makeup of lists changed over that time. Originally, the main (or only) purpose was for a monthly newsletter or similar, plus announcements of new titles.
I am not aware of any archives we got from the UIUC LISTSERV lists. I'm sure some folks have their own personal copies, though. -- Greg
I think the first PG Newsletters went out from one of the IBM mainframes at the UI in 1988 or 1989. We moved several times. . .I remember at least two: vmd.cso.uiuc.edu and vme.cso.uiuc.edu before we moved to the UNIX machines. I'm not sure if we ever ran from vmc.cso.uiuc.edu. Michael
Dear All, I shall shortly be publishing an interview I did with Michael Hart, and am very keen to include a recent color photo of him. Does anyone happen to have such a photo that they could send to me by e-mail? If so, I would be most grateful. Best wishes, Richard Poynder Richard Poynder Freelance Journalist www.richardpoynder.com http://poynder.blogspot.com
Hopefully any of the three color pics here will fill the bill, or the right hand b/w. lynx http://pglaf.org/~hart/ "If what you did yesterday Still seems great today, Then your goals for tomorrow Are not big enough." Ling Yu Fu, circa 600 BC Break Down The Bars Of Ignorance And Illiteracy Michael S. Hart (hart@pobox.com) On Sun, 26 Feb 2006, Richard Poynder wrote:
Dear All,
I shall shortly be publishing an interview I did with Michael Hart, and am very keen to include a recent color photo of him.
Does anyone happen to have such a photo that they could send to me by e-mail? If so, I would be most grateful.
Best wishes,
Richard Poynder
Richard Poynder Freelance Journalist www.richardpoynder.com http://poynder.blogspot.com
_______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d
Thank you. The interview is now published at: http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/03/interview-with-michael-hart.html Best wishes, Richard Poynder Richard Poynder Freelance Journalist www.richardpoynder.com http://poynder.blogspot.com At 18:53 26/02/2006, you wrote:
Hopefully any of the three color pics here will fill the bill, or the right hand b/w.
"If what you did yesterday Still seems great today, Then your goals for tomorrow Are not big enough."
Ling Yu Fu, circa 600 BC
Break Down The Bars Of Ignorance And Illiteracy
Michael S. Hart (hart@pobox.com)
On Sun, 26 Feb 2006, Richard Poynder wrote:
Dear All,
I shall shortly be publishing an interview I did with Michael Hart, and am very keen to include a recent color photo of him.
Does anyone happen to have such a photo that they could send to me by e-mail? If so, I would be most grateful.
Best wishes,
Richard Poynder
Richard Poynder Freelance Journalist www.richardpoynder.com http://poynder.blogspot.com
Jon: Here's a very promising lead for you to follow up. Check out the notes at the beginning of Paradise Lost http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/26 "This etext was originally created in 1964-1965 according to Dr. Joseph Raben of Queens College, NY..." At a closer look, "edition 12" appears to be the only one right now in the main PG archive. http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext92/plrabn12.txt However, a search for "plrabn10.txt" and "plrabn11.txt" finds some sites that still have them. Andrew
Hello. One other source of old books is OBI, or the Online Books Initiative. PG borrowed some books from them including Moby. Also there was Wiretap. OBI used to be at ftp://world.std.com/ but I think it's long gone. However, it was reasonably famous for its time so it might be archived somewhere. I remember browsing it when PG was much smaller, even in 1996 or so. Also ftp.ibiblio.org has quite a bit of old articles and such.
On Tue, Jan 10, 2006 at 12:07:36AM -0800, Tony Baechler wrote:
Hello. One other source of old books is OBI, or the Online Books Initiative. PG borrowed some books from them including Moby. Also there was Wiretap. OBI used to be at ftp://world.std.com/ but I think it's long gone. However, it was reasonably famous for its time so it might be archived somewhere. I remember browsing it when PG was much smaller, even in 1996 or so. Also ftp.ibiblio.org has quite a bit of old articles and such.
Spies in the wire http://wiretap.area.com/Gopher/ I have a local copy from a few years ago, but it looks about the same. When wiretap was active, they took some stuff from PG, and vice-versa. Most of the eBook content from Wiretap is now in textfiles.org, I think. -- Greg
participants (7)
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Andrew Sly -
Greg Newby -
Greg Weeks -
Jon Noring -
Michael Hart -
Richard Poynder -
Tony Baechler