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Michael S. Hart

Michael S. Hart was one of the first 100 members of the virtual community that has since become known as the Internet and World Wide Web. In 1971 with the great help of two operators of what was then a huge million dollar mainframe computer outclassed by calculators under $100 today, he began an effort destined for a historical niche as the first "site" on the now named Internet; but no one really paid much attention to this site until 1988-9 when the Internet finally passed 250,000 members and thus had a larger population, enough to support conversation on world wide ranges of topics. By 1991 the word "Internet" was finally able to appear for the first time on the front page or cover of some of the major media, and fittingly enough it was the new article about that very Project Gutenberg site in the Wall St. Journal. [October 29, 1991, p1]

Michael received his degree in "Human-Machine Interfaces"[1973] but academia was not interested in the distribution of "virtual libraries of free electronic texts" so after three aborted grad school efforts to pursue the "Neo-Industrial Revolution," he is still pursuing this effort as the largest "shoestring project."

At the moment Project Gutenberg is approaching 10,000 "eBooks," and is targeting December 10, 2003 as the "phase one completion date". . .only one decade from 100 eBooks to 10,000.

This was accomplished 8 weeks ahead of schedule on October 15-- this keeping up with Moore's Law from eBook #5,000 to #10,000.

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