The

Franklin Franklin may refer to: People * Franklin (given name) * Franklin (surname) * Franklin (class), a member of a historical English social class Places Australia * Franklin, Tasmania, a township * Division of Franklin, federal electoral d ...

eBookMan is a discontinued handheld device made to read

ebook An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...

s. This gadget, made from 1999 until 2002, has standard

PDA PDA may refer to: Science and technology * Patron-driven acquisition, a mechanism for libraries to purchase books *Personal digital assistant, a mobile device * Photodiode array, a type of detector * Polydiacetylenes, a family of conducting poly ...

functions and can play and record sounds. It has a black on green touchscreen, contains 8 or 16 MB of RAM, and uses its own proprietary

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

. Its handwriting recognition system accepts nearly natural handwriting. Three models of eBookman were produced: the 900 (8 Mb memory - no backlight), the 901 (8 Mb memory - backlight) and the 911 (16 Mb memory - backlight). All come with an MMC (not SD-compatible for the 8Mb model, but properly compatible with the 16Mb models.) slot which allows for memory expansion. The eBookMan can read contacts and appointments from

Microsoft Outlook Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager software system from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365 software suites. Though primarily an email client, Outlook also includes such functions as Calen ...

; synchronization with a Windows PC is done through a

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad v ...

cable. Early eBookMan units lost all information stored on them when the batteries were changed. Franklin acknowledged the problem, and replaced all defective units at no charge. Its

DRM DRM may refer to: Government, military and politics * Defense reform movement, U.S. campaign inspired by Col. John Boyd * Democratic Republic of Madagascar, a former socialist state (1975–1992) on Madagascar * Direction du renseignement militai ...

system is tied directly to the hardware, which resulted in an immediate problem for marketing: it was not possible to try the device in-store since it wouldn't work until the user connected it to an Internet-linked PC and downloaded their own registered version of the OS. Support was provided via a home page at Franklin, now removed, which when development ceased in 2002 was still describing the device as 'new'. Although

research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving existi ...

on the eBookMan ceased in 2002, new eBookMans continued to be available from

Ectaco ECTACO Inc. (East-Coast Trading American Company Incorporated) is a US-based developer and manufacturer of hardware and software products for speech recognition and electronic translation. They also make jetBook eBook readers. Speech recognit ...

. As of April 30, 2011, all support and downloads for eBookMan were discontinued. There is an active user base. Some users have written programs for the eBookMan. Many games were developed and a free version of the

Mobipocket Mobipocket SA was a French company incorporated in March 2000 that created the .mobi e-book file format and produced the Mobipocket Reader software for mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDA) and desktop operating systems. The Mobipoc ...

reader was developed for the eBookMan to take the place of the underpowered Franklin reader which came with the device.

References

External links

* * {{webarchive , url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121019035838/http://www.pcworld.com/article/48373/article.html , date=October 19, 2012 , title=PC World review Apr 30, 2001 Personal digital assistants Dedicated ebook devices

See also

References

External links