Dear Dr. Pournelle,

Since you just became aware of ebooks, let me fill you in on how far they’ve gotten. I first started following this market last summer when three companies announced their upcoming products. These are the ones you’ve heard of: Rocket eBook, EveryBook and SoftBook. The Rocket eBook started shipping last November and the SoftBook started shipping in December or January. To the best of my knowledge the EveryBook hasn’t shipped yet. There are several other companies that have announced products such as GlassBook , the SummerWood Partnership’s LunchBOOK and the Librius Millennium. There are also a couple of tablets that are wireless web browsers that sort of fit into this category.

Rocket eBook and SoftBook texts are based on HTML. EveryBook uses Adobe’s PDF files. I don’t know what the others have planned. However, there is a consortium of market leaders (and Microsoft) that is working on open standards.

I’m the proud owner of a Rocket eBook. It weighs a little over one pound, it has a back-lit monochrome touch screen that’s about 5.5" diagonal with a resolution of 105 dpi. It’s a little larger than a paperback book. There are two physical buttons to page forward and page back. There are also four virtual buttons at the edge of the touch screen to bring up menus and select features. It has a self contained lithium-ion battery that lasts about 17 hours if you use the backlight and about 35 hours if you don’t. The 4 MB memory capacity allows it to store approximately 10 novels. You can use any TrueType font, store two sizes and switch between them at the push of a button. The page display can be rotated to any 90 degree increment so you can change hands comfortably during a long reading session. You can search the text, underline passages, add notes and place bookmarks using the touch screen and the included stylus (or your finder will do nicely).

The current software will only let you load texts that are specifically formatted—what they call RocketEditions. The manufacturer is promising an update which will also allow it to work with ASCII, HTML, email and some word processing file formats. As far as I know, the only source for RocketEditions so far is Barnes &; Noble. Prices for these vary widely. It seems that the traditional publishing companies are trying to get hard cover prices or higher. Some of them are in the range of $25 to $30. That may work for a while as long as the supply of content is limited. Personally, I’m inclined to hold out for paperback prices. When I can load ASCII and HTML I plan to take advantage of Project Gutenberg’s supply of public domain works. I have purchased about 30 books so far but most of them are published by companies that are dedicated to electronic texts and charge $5 or less.

Jerry,

In your recent View (April 11, 1999), you mention electronic books, and allude to potential applications for making currently out-of-print books available. This reminded me of a technology I read about, maybe a year ago now. I’m certain the company was Xerox, but I’ve searched their web site, and can’t find any mention of it. Anyway, the blurb I saw was probably a press release from them announcing a new high-end copier that could produce books, complete with cover (soft or hard I don’t remember) on demand, quickly and cheaply enough to allow "just-in-time" printing for small-market books. I think they were looking to partner with publishers, who would "publish" a book by registering the ready-to-print electronic media somewhere. When a sales order came in for that book, a hardcopy would be printed out and shipped to the customer.

Sounds great for resurrecting out-of-print books, and also for academic titles, which often sell so few copies that the author must find grant money to subsidize even a minimal run of press.

Sorry I can’t give you a URL. I’d be very interested if you’ve heard any more about this idea. It would be great if it really were to happen.

Null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane and empty of meaning for all time.

Another "urban legend" bites the dust!

From: Jonathan Janowski

Sent: Monday, April 12, 1999 1:02 PM

To: ALL

Subject: FW: From Congressman Tom Campbell

Hey all, you can relax on internet tax issue. The bill that was proposed will not affect per minute rates in the least. Following is a letter from Tom Campbell regarding the issue.

Thank you for your e-mail regarding per-minute fees or taxes that are reported to apply to local telephone calls to Internet Serivce Providers (ISP’s). I have received thousands of e-mails and letters on this topic, and I am grateful for the opportunity to respond.

On Thursday, February 25 the Federal Communications Commission ruled on the very complicated issue of reciprocal compensation that, in their words, "resolves a dispute among phone companies over how to compensate each other for Internet connections and to clarify the role of state and federal regulators." The ruling as it stands has has no effect on the rates that consumers pay to connect to their ISP’s.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to write, and please do not hesitate to contact me with questions or comments in the future.

Best regards,

For the first time I have been moved to write in reply to your commentary. It hits so close to home that I almost fell out of my chair. The view you express in writing ".....if you doubt our ability to do something, then you do not want it strongly enough, and therefore do not have the right attitude; and therefore you need not be heard." can be expressed in many ways, and is not restricted to our political leaders. I fear all too many of our corporate leaders share the same ill-fated view. In my last job, new personnel were brought in at the top, and brought with them the view that "..Everything done before was WRONG, regardless if it worked or not.." If you didn’t join in the self chastisement you were branded "Not a TEAM player...", or "Difficult to work with..." Simply because you didn’t immediately buy into pie in the sky and the newly overhauled mission statement (Created by a team of credential bearing academics and business professionals who really know HOW to create a good mission statement.)

Dissenting views were no longer viewed as an asset in making comparison and reality checking possible, they were now seeds of evil to be brought out in the open and openly ridiculed. I personally saw an occasion where a new VP modified existing data to indicate that there were problems where there were none, so that he could look good cleaning them up. He really came through for the "Team." How much of this goes on in the Whitehouse? More than I care to imagine. I am now of the opinion that most people who use the phrase "Be a team player" mean "Do what I say, and keep your mouth shut" NOT "Do what you need to for the good of the TEAM"

Anyway, that aside, I have a tattered and torn copy of "The Mote in God’s Eye" that is probably the best SF novel I have ever read (read it in the early 80’s, ‘83 maybe). Probably the only paperback I have ever held on to for any length of time. Thanks for the great work!

(Name witheld)

IS Manager

Regarding Netscape 4.51. I am, like you, strongly opposed to having excess software installed on my system without my permission. It was therefore with some trepidation that I upgraded to Netscape 4.51 (128 bit encryption). However, I found that the AOL Message program was not installed, and I have seen no references to it. Hopefully, this was because Netscape got the message from all the complaints.

I choose not to use IE for several reasons. In past incarnations, it has been bloated and slow, and I am relatively unforgiving.

Second, I have seen no clear advantage to moving away from Netscape.

Third, I am apprehensive about its "integration" into the OS. I find the added "functions" of the browser/OS to be annoying, and less than useful. While I am sure that the browser can be used as a distinct entity, I take no chances. Microsoft has bitten me a few times, and I am leary. Again, I am not the forgiving sort.

In short (too late, I know), I can recommend you try the latest versions of Netscape, as they should be AOL Instant Messager free.

Bryan Broyles

Across the pale parabola of joy...

Many thanks.

--Brad

From: Francisco García Maceda (maceda@pobox.com)

Subject: Rambus

Dear Jerry:

One very important aspect of the Rambus connection is that it is not an open standard. This means that Toshiba, Micron, Samsung, etc. will have to license the technology from Rambus Inc. They will have to pay royalties for every chip they sell, and although no official numbers are out, the lowest I have seen is 5%.

Of course this goes much deeper since Intel owns Rambus. Intel does not want competing memory on the market so no Intel chipset is going to support PC 133 SDRAM. Since Rambus is late, the Camino chipset is late and thus the 133 MHz front side bus; and the Pentium III 533 has been scrubbed in favor of the PIII 550. Since Rambus is still late, Intel has been dumping hundreds of millions of dollars to memory manufacturers (i.e. Micron) so they can accelerate testing and production of Rambus. Since yields have been impossible to achieve at the official 800 MHz rating, Rambus has just published a "new" specification calling for 700 MHz parts.

On technical terms I have seen very little besides the huge bandwidth and horrible latency issues. Perhaps some of your more knowledgeable readers might enlighten us here. I have tried to find some information on how is this 800 MHz speed going to be used, since the FSB will only be 133 MHz. Will the processor talk to the memory on a separate bus at processor speed? If this is the case, what is going to happen next year when processors break the 800 MHz mark?

Truly yours

Francisco García Maceda

It will be possible to get an Intel-based system with PC133 SDRAM, but it won’t have an Intel chipset. VIA has a Pentium II chipset called the Apollo Pro that they’re updating for use with PC133 memory. So PC133 systems won’t necessarily be limited to AMD/Cyrix/IDT/Rise CPUs. It’ll be interesting to see if they can pick up any market share. I hope they do, because Intel needs competition.

Subject: Fed up with computers

Jerry -

Is it just me, or are we fighting a losing battle with computers and software?

A PC that I purchased only one year ago - not the cheapest available, but reasonably priced - has had replaced: the motherboard, two chip fans, one power supply, one modem. Now the case is falling apart and the monitor squeals at me. Again, this was not a bargain system, and the shop that sold it did so in good faith, but nearly every component in it has either died or turned out to be just plain shoddy.

Software? There has not been one week in the past year when I didn't download and install a patch or upgrade for at least one piece of software. Some of which made problems worse. All of this takes time which I can ill afford. I have reached the point where I simply don't upgrade software anymore. I know - just KNOW - that the new version will be buggy and annoying, and will cost me more in lost time than I will gain in productivity.

Still I persevere, except that it seems the standard of support from the companies selling me these goods gets worse and worse. I have a Fujitsu laptop, which I like, and a brand new Zip drive, which I also like. They won't work together. Surely one of the thousands of Fujitsu owners in the last year has tried to plug a Zip drive into the parallel port and has also had problems. Fujitsu MUST have dealt with this problem at some point. There is nothing on their website. Nothing I can find on Iomega's. Once again I turn to newsgroups.

So what do I do? I assume that any hardware I buy will have a 50/50 chance of not working as advertised. I assume from experience that any software I buy will crash my system regularly. I assume that the companies I buy from won't be able to solve the problems with their products, except to blame The Other Guy.

Thank you for your columns and website. I get more useful information here than from any magazine that I've read. And thank you for letting us look over your shoulder as you fight with hardware and software. Misery does love company.

My only question is: how much worse does this all have to get before we stop accepting the status quo from hardware and software companies?

I have been a faithful reader of Chaos Manor for years, (both in Byte and now online), and saw a small but frequently occurring error that bears correcting on your Gulf War Syndrome page.

You state:

"Insight Magazine is a publication of the Washington Times, and its web policy is odd: you can see the next issue on the web, but the one I just got in the mail is available only through Lexus, a service I don’t have" (emphasis mine)

Just a slight point but an important one. LEXUS is the car company. The service that you do not currently subscribe to is actually called LEXIS®-NEXIS® a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.

So as to not bore you with the details in this e-mail if you would like to

read a little bit of background about the company and its offerings they

How to remove the AOL Instant Messenger

Regarding ZIP disks under Win98, my brother has had nothing but problems with his parallel port ZIP drive and Win98. The first time he installed the drivers, it rendered the system unbootable. He had to boot to safe mode, remove the drivers, restart and reinstall them.

In addition, under Win98, the "Import from CSV text file" option is inexplicably ABSENT from his "Open Database" dialog in Access. He’s reinstalled a number of times and in the Setup, under File Formats, the box is checked, but also greyed out, so he can’t go in and check exactly WHAT’S installing and what isn’t. Because these problems were keeping him from getting any work done on his latest database project which required importing CSV files (he’s a database consultant), he went back to Win95 and bingo, the option returned in Access.

FLASH: Just checked Microsoft’s website. There’s a "fix" for this which is a 9MB update to the Office suite.

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

Greetings. The discussion on ebooks caught my attention. You mentioned in a previous mail discussion that you read ebooks on a Palm device. I was wondering if you or your readers know of any software that allows ebooks to be installed on a WinCE device? I currently have and use a Philips Nino320. I will continue to look for such a beast and if I find anything I will let you know.

Dear Sir,

I thought the url

Over the past 40 years a collective form of systems development has evolved on the electronic networks of the world. In the wake of the information technology revolution has come a proven method for developing, deploying and maintaining these systems. This method, developed under the auspices of Department of Defense research grants, has resulted in the most successful and reliable software in existence.

This method, based on collective intelligence, peer review and functional evolution, has rippled through the world of Information Technology. It depends on the uninhibited distribution of the currency of this realm: the source code, documentation and data which are the building blocks of these complex systems. The release of source code is commonly called open source licensing. The release of electronic information is known as open content licensing. Together, they comprise Open Licensing.

There are significant gains to be realized through the formal adoption, support and use of open licensed systems by the Department of Defense. Secondary gains may be made in the morale and retention of Airmen involved in information technology. This adoption can take place at any point in the acquisition cycle and can even benefit deployed and operational systems. The benefits include reduced acquisition, development, maintenance and support costs and increased interoperability among our own systems and those of our Allies.

Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn’t know what it was called.

Sent: Sunday, April 18, 1999 8:52 AM

Subject: and now for something completely different

Jerry,

I don't recall reading any mention of the movie "Life Is Beautiful" on your web page. If you haven't seen it yet, you owe it to yourself (and Roberta) to see it soon. WOW, what a fantastic movie!

"The Matrix" was also enjoyable, but not in the same league.

Your obediant servant,

Calvin Dodge

-- "When the toast is burned, and all the milk has turned and Captain Crunch is waving 'farewell' When the big one finds you, may this song remind you that they don't serve breakfast in Hell"