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"But the problem with reincarnation is that it's hard to imagine what the storage medium for past lives would be. Not to mention the input-output device. I hesitate to rule it out completely, but I'd need pretty definite proof."
- Arthur C. Clarke
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| Telebook | ||
| A book made available in text on a television screen. |
| They turned the pages, which were yellow and crinkly... and then, when they turned back to the page before, it had the same words on it...
"Gee," said Tommy. "What a waste. When you're through with the book, you just throw it away, I guess. Our television screen must have had a million books on it and its good for plenty more. I wouldn't throw it away. "Same with mine," said Margie. She was eleven and hadn't seen as many telebooks as Tommy had. |
| Technovelgy from The Fun They Had,
by Isaac Asimov. Published by Children's Magazine in 1951 Additional resources -
|
This is not quite the same as an electronic book; but it does pretty effectively predict the existence of services like the Gutenberg project, which has many thousands of books onscreen in text form.
Take a look at the description of tanks from Murray Leinster's 1946 short story A Logic Named Joe. It specifically mentions the idea of a central repository that can find requested information and then display it on a screen (a "logic or vision-receiver) at your own home.
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'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.'
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
