Kanji Dictionary Publishing Society

The Electronic Book format was introduced by Sony to provide a standard method for publishers to record text, graphics and sound information on 8cm CD ROM discs. The EB format provides six search methods: Word, Endword, Keyword, Multi-Search, Menu Search and Graphic Search. A given Book or Volume can support any or all of these methods.

Up to eight volumes can be included on one "Book" (disc) and users can jump via hypertext links to text, graphics or audio. Graphical menus are available on many Books. Eight centimeter CD-ROM discs can hold up to six hours of ADPCM audio and roughly 200 MB of digital information. EB discs are taken out of the 8cm caddy and played directly on the Mac or PC. Tray type CD-ROM drives typically support the 8cm discs on the tray itself. For caddy based 12cm drives, the widely available 8cm adapter can be attached to the disc and then inserted into the 12cm caddy. The adapter is included with the software.

There are over 100 publishers supporting the EB format in Japan. Portable EB players are now being manufactured by Sony and Kyushu Matsushita. Several IBM PC compatible manufacturers are now supporting the format such as IBM Japan, NEC, and Matsushita Denki. EB discs can also be played on Sega CD-ROM game machines.