But even that isn't enough, you know.... There's
talk nowadays in publishing circles about a new device for
books, called a ReadMan. Like a Walkman only you carry it
in your hands like this.... Has a very nice little
graphics screen, theoretically, a high-definition thing,
very legible.... And you play your books on it.... You
buy the book as a floppy and you stick it in...
...
And just think when the ReadMan goes
obsolete, all the product that was written for it will be
blessedly gone forever!!! Erased from the memory of
mankind!
...
Now I'm the farthest thing from a Luddite ladies and
gentlemen, but when I contemplate this particular
technical marvel my author's blood runs cold... For God's sake don't put my books into the Thomas Edison kinetoscope. Don't put me into the stereograph, don't write me on the wax cylinder, don't tie my words and my thoughts to the fate of a piece of hardware, because hardware is even more mortal than I
am, and I'm a hell of a lot more mortal than I care to be.
---
So both ereaders (Kindle, Nook, Kobo, etc) and one of its significant existential problems were imagined 2+ decades before it even existed. I'm always fascinated by how much the classic SF writers "got right" (though granted they got much wroong as well) and this is no exception. Wow.
At the time this talk was given, I was reading Neuromancer as an ebook. I never read it on paper, only as a commercial ebook. It was implemented as a HyperCard stack on a 3.5" floppy published by Voyager. It was packaged in a glossy cardboard jacket quite similar in size to a cardboard CD package and printed with book cover art.
I no longer have any working 3.5" floppy drive nor a copy of HyperCard. I still have the ebook floppy in its original cover, but I can no longer read it.
...
And just think when the ReadMan goes obsolete, all the product that was written for it will be blessedly gone forever!!! Erased from the memory of mankind!
...
Now I'm the farthest thing from a Luddite ladies and gentlemen, but when I contemplate this particular technical marvel my author's blood runs cold... For God's sake don't put my books into the Thomas Edison kinetoscope. Don't put me into the stereograph, don't write me on the wax cylinder, don't tie my words and my thoughts to the fate of a piece of hardware, because hardware is even more mortal than I am, and I'm a hell of a lot more mortal than I care to be.
--- So both ereaders (Kindle, Nook, Kobo, etc) and one of its significant existential problems were imagined 2+ decades before it even existed. I'm always fascinated by how much the classic SF writers "got right" (though granted they got much wroong as well) and this is no exception. Wow.