Michael Hart, who laid the foundation for today's e-book industry by launching Project Gutenberg 40 years ago, died on Tuesday at the age of 64, the project announced.
Michael Hart, founder of e-book organisation Project Gutenberg, has died at the age of 64. Photo credit: Project Gutenberg
Hart began the digitisation project on 4 July, 1971, by typing the text of the US Declaration of Independence into a Xerox Sigma V mainframe at the Materials Research Lab at the University of Illinois. Next came the Bill of Rights, the US Constitution, the Bible and Shakespeare.
It grew from there. In March, Project Gutenberg released its 40,000th digitised book and had combined another 60,000 from other sources, Hart said in an email message at the time. He gave the message a strong, but not entirely hyperbolic title: "It's The Year of the E-book!"
For more on this ZDNet UK-selected story, see E-book pioneer Michael Hart dies on CNET News.
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