In the beginning there was Dart, MultiMedia Workshop and Writer's Dream

The first time I heard of ebooks was in 1994 when I got a book called Paperless Publishing by Colin Haynes. The book described how people could write books electronically. The software that was suggested Dart, MultiMedia Workshop, and Writer's Dream. Writer's Dream, incidentally, still is my favorite way to create an ebook, even though it's no longer available. All of these programs create executable files so that they could only run on PC computers. All were DOS programs...that's pre-Windows. Mac owners were out of luck.

At the time, Writer's Dream was created by Jeff Napier of Another Company. Another Company had an area on AOL. That's how I got online in the first place, looking for Another Company. Writer's Dream eventually became a Windows application. Unfortunately for Writer's Dream and all the other programs, Adobe came along and created the PDF format. The other formats essentially died out. Yes, there are still some left, but, the PDF format is the primary way ebooks are made today.

I'll write about the few surviving applications that make .exe files. Incidentally, as a current (and very happy) Mac user, I really don't mind the fact that the .exe applications have dimished in use. I just think it's worth finding out a little about the history of ebooks.