Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!uicvm.uic.edu!u46837 Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago Date: Friday, 7 Jun 1991 11:32:42 CDT From: Message-ID: <91158.113242U46837@uicvm.uic.edu> Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds Subject: Re: Don't Panic - a dream Distribution: comp References: <7444@acorn.co.uk> >I ONCE HAD A DREAM, IT CONSISTED MAINLY OF TAKING A MANUFACTURER, >ENCYCLOPAEDEA BRITTANICA, TIMELIFE BOOKS AND DOUGLAS ADAMS; THEN ROLLING >THEM ALL TOGETHER TO WORK ON A PROJECT. THE PROJECT WAS A SMALL HAND HEL >COMPUTER WITH A COLOUR SCREEN, THE WHOLE OF THE EN. BRITTANICA, ALL OF THE >TIMELIFE BOOKS, DETAILED MAPS OF THE WORLD, SPELL >CHECKER/DICTIONARY/THESORUS AND A POWERFULL CALCULATOR ALL BUILT IN. >INSCRIBE 'DON'T PANIC' IN LARGE FRIENDLY LETTERS ON TOP, THEN MARKET IT AS >THE FIRST EARTH VERSION OF THE HITCH HIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY... I recently heard Douglas Adams speak at a book signing for "Last Chance to See", a book he wrote with Mark Carwardine. This is a non- fiction book about their travels around the world to find animals on the verge of extinction. He spoke about his hope to make a CD-Interactive version of this book, since he took thousands of pictures and there were many more animals that he wanted to make mention of. He said he would make the CD once a standard was set for CD-I and CD-I units were around (I'm not familiar with CD-I, this is just an understanding of what he said). I don't believe that the unit that you propose is that far out, since SONY has some sort of CD "book terminal" thing-a-mi-jig that is a CD-rom reader with a LCD display. The purpose is to buy books on CD and view them with this electronic reader. This product is already available in Japan, was recently shown at the Consumer Electronics show in Chicago, and is supposed to be on sale in the U.S. this year. This unit is supposed to be able to have a 50000 page capacity; now does this mean 50000 LCD screens worth of info or 50000 paper-back bookish pages, I don't know and am interested in finding out. I believe that we'll see such units in our life time for sure, if not within ten years. It would be nice to have this as a CD-Interactive/PC unit that is set up with a GO operating system with a color touch-screen display. What would be even cooler is if this were a system that clipped onto your belt like a beeper, with another device that electronically stimulated your optical nerves to produce the display. That I believe is a little far off, but still within my lifetime. ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| || GENE JABLONOWSKI || || || || CHICAGO, ILLINOIS || |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||