brief history:
The emergence of writing and reading coincided with the emergence of civilizations since ancient times in their various means and purposes.

For example, we find the civilizations of Mesopotamia that used cuneiform writing and inscriptions on clay tablets in the third millennium BC, and we see the Egyptians using papyrus papers and obelisks, while we find the civilizations of southern Arabia and Yemen writing in Musnad script and inscription on stones.

But the Arabs before Islam used to use leather, such as the pendants that were attached to the curtain of the Kaaba, and the oldest Arabic inscription is the inscription of Imru 'al-Qais ibn Amr, which is in the Louvre Museum.

As for the Chinese, they were the first to invent paper in its current form in about a year 105 After birth at the hands of Monk Tsai Lin.

And some of them were transferred by the Arabs after the Islamic conquests of Central Asia, where it was the first paper shop in Baghdad in a year 795M and from them to Europe through the Crusades.

And in the year 1447The human genius invented us with an invention considered the spearhead in the so-called Renaissance and to this day, namely, the invention of the printing press by John Gutenberg.

For hundreds of years, the paper book was the uninterested friend of civilizations and the undisputed lover of hearts, until the human clemency surprised us, as it usually does, with a new baby, my name is the electronic book (eBook) ..

The birth of electronic books:

The birth certificate for this newborn was issued in the year XNUMX 1971 And who was a forerunner of a cold war between printed books and electronic books, and that was at the hands of German Michael Hart in what was called Project Gutenberg.

The models presented in the XNUMXs by Park as a suggestion for the dynabook were among the first personal computers that could read electronic books.

The project continued to target a limited segment of readers and researchers until a year 1991 Where the Internet was popularized to the public, which represented a strong impetus for the spread of electronic books and the development of new book formats. It also witnessed the introduction of a number of programs for dealing with electronic books.

in a year 1993 The Digital Book Foundation publishes the first 50 e-books in DBF format on a floppy disk.

in a year 1995 Amazon has begun publishing its first batch of electronic books on the Internet, but they are not downloadable.

in a year 1996 Project Gutenberg announced that it had reached 1000 e-books and that the target was 1000000.

in a year 1998 Another newborn was born, which can be described as the spiritual twin of the e-book. The first electronic book reader, THE ROCKET READER from SOFTBOOK PRESS, was introduced, and this type of reader and its ilk was such a strong impetus in increasing the momentum of electronic books.

in a year 2000 Microsoft launches MICROSOFT READER powered by CLEARTYPE.

in a year 2003 Downloading of books is available from several US publishing houses.

And Amazon began to catch up with electronic readers and launched the first edition of its reader, known as Kindle, in the United States in a year. 2007 And in the same year, Bookeen launches the Cybook Gen3.

And in general 2008 An agreement was signed between Adobe and Sony to unify the software and hardware lines in a single product called Sony Reader PRS-505 and saw the light of day. 2009.

And it seems that Apple has contracted the infection with e-reader fever, as it was introduced at the beginning of the year 2010 Its product, known as the iPad, was distinguished from others in that it contracted with five out of six major publishing houses in Uncle Sam's country to distribute its books through the iBooks Store and using the iBooks reading program available on the software store.

In the second quarter of a year 2010 The Amazon report indicated that the percentage of electronic book sales to printed books is 140 for electronic versus 100 printed books, and in another report in January 2011 She indicated that the sales of electronic books have far exceeded the sales of printed books.

In the recent period, many programs have been introduced to convert or create electronic books such as Sigil and Adobe in Design, and with a little professionalism, the user can create his favorite books, and with these technologies we can say that the electronic book has been weaned and the former breastfeeding women no longer need Camazon and others.

One last pause:

To you, I am saddened by the fact that there is no publisher, institution, ministry of education, or Arab culture within the above dates - according to what came to me - and if there are Arab brilliance and attempts, but they are the jurisprudence of ambitious young people and not at the level of large institutions, with an emphasis not to diminish the efforts of those distinguished who They try to support the e-book just as we the users are one of the factors of encouragement or discouragement.

So what is the situation of the Arab reader with electronic books?

For more about e-books and bookstore applications Read here

Sources: English Wikipedia | The International Arab Encyclopedia | Amazon.com

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