As the name suggests, electronic literature is inextricably linked to technology and the development of the IT sector. Every electronic tool, digital device, software program or reading modality can be turned into a medium for creating electronic literature.
A look at the history of web technology reveals that every five years there is a major change in the field of New Media as the scheme below illustrates. For each new technology or innovation brought by web technology, there are works of electronic literature that translate, sort of speak, the technology into a literary work.
Description of the scheme:
Weak or narrow AI is designed to perform a specific task or set of tasks. Examples include:
Strong AI or Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is a hypothetical type of AI that possesses human-like intelligence and can understand, learn, and apply knowledge across a wide range of tasks. It would be capable of:
Around the year 1895, various worked on the creation of wireless communication. In 1896, the invention of the radio was patented by Guglielmo Marconi.
The Lumière brothers present projected moving pictures to a paying audience in December 1895 in Paris, France
Founded in 1911.
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti founds the avant-garde movement Futurism in 1909.
Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Tristan Tzara, Richard Huelsenbeck, Marcel Janco and Hans Arp found the avant-garde movement Dada in Zürich (Switzerland) at the Cabaret Voltaire in 1916.
Philo Taylor Farnsworth designs the first electronic television in San Francisco in 1927.
Konrad Zuse develops the Z3 in 1938.
Konrad Zuse develops the Z4 in1945.
Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman develop the code-breaking machine known as the Bombe.
Vannevar Bush develops Memex in 1945.
Roberto Busa begins working on his 30-year project, Index Thomisticus, in 1946.
Ángela Ruiz Robles invents the Enciclopedia Mecánica, or Mechanical Encyclopaedia in 1948, which is considered to be an early version of an ebook.
Christopher Strachey creates “Love Letters” in 1952.
Theo Lutz creates "Stochastische Texte" using the Zuse Z2 electronic mainframe in 1959.
Founded in 1960.
Ted Nelson founds Project Xanadu in 1960.
Morton Heilig invents the Sensorama in 1962.
Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais found the OULIPO in 1960.
Nanni Balestrini creates “Tape Mark I” in collaboration with IBM engineer Alberto Nobis, using the IBM 7070 computer in 1961.
Founded in Sicily (Italy) in 1963.
Julio F. Cortázar publishes the novel "Rayuela" (Hopscotch) in 1963.
Brion Gysin records a series of sound poems for the BBC radio in 1966.
Emmett Williams creates a generative poem in 1966. He randomly chose 26 words from a dictionary and associated each in a list with a letter of the alphabet to form lines; the letters of words in one line are then permuted to make subsequent lines.
Olivetti releases the Programma 101 in 1965.
Joseph Weizenbaum releases ELIZA in 1966.
NASA develops the AGC in 1966. The original Apollo 11 guidance computer (AGC) source code is available on GitHub
Founded in 1968.
Douglas Engelbart makes a computer demonstration called "The Mother of All Demos" in December 1968.
Engelbart patents the computer mouse in 1970.
Kenneth Colby develops PARRY in 1972.
IBM releases the floppy disk in 1971.
Intel 4004, first microprocessor in 1971.
Launched in 1971.
Motorola first mobile phone in 1973.
Founded in 1975.
Founded in 1976.
Donald Knuth releases TeX in 1976.
Founded in 1976.
Commodore releases the Commodore PET in 1977.
Will Crowther creates "Colossal Cave Adventure", the first widely played multi-user dungeon game.
IBM releases the IBM PC and the disk-based operating system DOS in 1981.
Released in 1982.
Motorola releases the Dynatac 8000X in 1984.
Commodore releases the Amiga 1000 in 1985.
Paul Braffort and Jacques Roubaud found the ALAMO in 1981.
Founded in 1982.
Michael Joyce creates "afternoon, a story" using Storyspace.
Released in 1987.
Rollo Carpenter develops Jabberwacky in 1988.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee creates the World Wide Web in 1989.
Jay David Bolter, John B. Smith and Michael Joyce release Storyspace in 1987. It's a software program for creating, editing, and reading hypertext fiction.
Released in 1991.
Creative Labs launches Dr. Sbaitso in 1992.
Released in 1993.
Founded in 1994.
Released in 1994.
Richard Wallace launches Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity A.L.I.C.E. in 1995.
Founded in 1994.
Pedro Barbosa develops Sintext-Web.
The fist version is based on DOS.
The first browser war, from 1995-2001.
The second browser war, since 2004.
From 1995-2000.
Developed from 1995-2022.
Developed from 1994-2008.
Developed from 1996-2021.
Released in 1995.
Released in 1996.
The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) develops the EPUB format from 1997-2017.
Launched in 1998.
Founded in 1998.
Released in 1998.
Founded in 1999.
December 1999.
Founded in 1999.
Released in 2000.
Aple launches the iPod in 2001.
Founded in 2001.
Founded in 2001.
Founded in 2003.
Founded in 2003.
Founded in 2003.
Founded in 2003.
Founded in 2004.
Developed from 2003-2013.
Mark Bernstein develops Tinderbox for Mac OS and Mac OS X in 2002.
Gavin Inglis publishes "Same Day Test" in 2002.
Founded in 2005.
Founded in 2005.
Founded in 2006.
Founded in 2006.
Launched in 2007.
Amazon releases the MOBI format in 2005 and the Kindle format in 2007.
The MOBI format is ed from 2005-2011/2022.
Apple launches the iPhone in 2007 and the iPad in 2010.
Launched in 2009.
Launched in 2009.
Patrick Boivin publishes "La Linea interactive"
Jenni Mason publishes "Choices"
Paolo Cirio publishes "The Big Plot" in 2009.
Launched in 2009. Twine is a free open-source tool created by Chris Klimas for making interactive fiction and hypertext fiction in the form of web pages.
Apple launches Siri in 2010.
Founded in 2010.
Founded in 2010.
Founded in 2013.
Microsoft launches Cortana in 2014.
Amazon launches Alexa in 2013.
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The W3C buys the EPUB format and launches the EPUB3 in 2017.
The European Accessibility Act is passed in 2019.
Kate Pullinger
Fabrizio Venerandi
OpenAI launches ChatGPT in 2021.
In August 2022, Amazon officially retired the MOBI format and replaces it with EPUB, which is now the universal format for eBook.
The European Accessibility Act comes into force on 28 June 2025.
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