The first Project Gutenberg eBook was created on July 4, 1971. Michael
S. Hart had been granted access to a powerful mainframe computer at
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and realized that his
greatest impact would be by digitizing and distributing free
literature (for more history, see: The eBook is 40 (1971-2011), by
Marie Lebert, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36985).
Michael took a printed copy of the United States Declaration of
Independence (www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1) to the computer laboratory,
where he sat at the teletype terminal and typed this first eBook. He
distributed it via email to the people he knew about via the Internet’s
predecessor, ARPAnet, which was available at UIUC. At that moment, the
first eBook had been freely distributed to the online community of the
day.
Digitization and production techniques, at the time of this first eBook,
were /ad hoc/ and informal. A single eBook producer would edit a single
file, from a single source. The first eBook’s printed source was a
single sheet of paper, without hyphenation, a book cover, images, or
other characteristics of book-length sources. In 1971, capitalization
was not an issue, as only upper case letters were available in the
character set used by the system.
Figure 1: Top view of a Model 33 Teletype, salvaged from the computer
laboratory where Michael Hart typed the first eBook. The paper roll was
where output would be printed.
[Illustration: 0002]
During the next twenty years, from approximately 1971-1991, techniques
of digitization would be dramatically improved, and regularized. Ongoing
developments since then have tracked the available technologies for
eBook creation and use, as well as preferences and interests of the many
volunteers who would produce those eBooks.
Throughout the history of Project Gutenberg, these techniques, while
refined and clearly articulated, have remained flexible (see the
Volunteers’ FAQ at https://www.gutenberg.org/help/volunteers_faq.html).