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To: Gil Gilbertson who wrote (19944)	10/4/1998 9:34:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

Where we've been The early years Electronic books first appeared in 1940s science fiction novels, but over the last ten years or so, we've seen many real-life attempts to bring products to market. Most failed. The few that did appear--like the Sony Bookman or the Franklin Bookman--never enjoyed mainstream use. The problems? Small, unreadable screens; short battery life; no encryption technology to protect publishers' copyrighted texts (and thus, a limited selection of titles); impractical means of distribution, such as CDs or proprietary cartridges. Still, e-books seem like a sound idea for both publishers and consumers. Electronic distribution reduces the high cost of printing books and allows publishers to back more titles that appeal to fringe markets. In addition, electronic books offer several conveniences: you can carry more than one book at a time (e-books today hold from 4,000 to 100,000 pages of text), search lengthy texts, and get immediate access to downloadable titles via the Net. On your desktop For quite some time, books have been available over the Internet for desktop or laptop computers. Project Gutenberg began organizing volunteers to type public-domain books into computers in 1971; today the site offers hundreds of titles, from Shakespeare and Dickens to the Bible and the Declaration of Independence. Other sites distribute electronic content--from literature to e-zines--as .html, .txt, .pdf, or ascii files. But few enjoy reading at a desktop computer for long--scrolling makes you woozy and the poor resolution on desktop displays hurts your eyes. If digital texts are to be read onscreen, they need a better display device, one's that more like a real book. On your PalmPilot Trying to capitalize on existing technologies, online publishers such as Online Originals made their titles available for download to the 3Com PalmPilot. Many independent sites have reformatted public-domain titles for the PalmPilot; another site, the Peanut Press, will offer a variety of titles from book publishers--everything from science fiction to first-run titles--later this fall. However, despite the PalmPilot's popularity, its small, gray screen leaves much to be desired in terms of readability.