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You can rock some serious MP3 Action in all it's 128kbps 22Khz Mono glory! - http://40hz.org/Pages/MADNewton

You played with Blunt? http://www.40hz.org/Blunt/
get a PCMICACF converter and a CF Bluetooth card and you are good to go. Very very way cool.

• A Bluetooth Stack/driver: http://www.40hz.org/Blunt/
• a 802.11b Wi-Fi driver: http://www.ff.iij4u.or.jp/~ngc/eng/newtwave.htm
• an ATA Flash Card driver: http://www.kallisys.com/newton/ata/

Apple should invent an e-book reader.

They already had one, years ago. It was called the Newton.

Back when I was working for ANS - err, UUNet - umm, WorldCom - I would download text files, convert them to Newton Book files, upload them to my trusty Newton 2100, and read away. I read The Hacker Crackdown while taking lunchtime walks, as well as a few RFCs.

The Newton's form factor would still be great for an ebook reader. There's still a small but rabid base of people still writing software for the Newton, including mp3 players, 802.11 support, and even a web server! Surely someone can be persuaded to come up with a modern book reader / creator package for the Newton.

The only problem with this is the pride of Steve Jobs. One of his first actions upon returning to the Apple helm was the killing of the entire Newton program, ostensibly as it was the baby of John Sculley, the man who had Jobs removed from Apple. Apple still has the rights to the name and the hardware, and the Inkwell software that's included with OS X supposedly came from the Newton handwriting recognition software, so I can't see a reason why this wouldn't be possible.

Then again, I'm a hopeless dreamer about seeing the best PDA platform in existance making a return to the market :)

• Bluetooth support
• HTTP server
• Able to use ATA flash

First off, the handwriting recognition is fabulous. And the assistant is just too cool for words. Write "lunch next Wednesday with Connie" and it'll ask you to pick which Connie is in your address book if there's more than one, then schedule an appointment next Wednesday from noon to 1pm with her. Make a long to-do list of things like "Call Jim". As you're going through your list ticking things off, highlight "Call Jim" and activate the Assistant, which will ask which Jim you want to call from your address book and dial the number through the built-in speaker or PCMCIA modem card, then pull up a call log app with call timer and notepad. Speech synthesis. Audio recording and playback. I've got my Newt MP2100 synced to OS X's iCal and Address Book already. (My wife has her's synced to Outlook at work.) I can connect it into any network (via ethernet or WiFi) and print directly to any networked printer, surf the net, or send an email. I can swap the network card for a modem card and fax or dial in to an ISP. The only problem with the Newton is its size: too big when you're not using it but just right when you are. I have a Palm Vx that I carry with me so I have quick access to phone numbers and (most importantly) my checkbook. But if it wasn't for the checkbook software, I would have ditched the Palm completely in favor of the Newt.

If anyone out there is looking for the best in PDAs, look into getting a MP2100 off eBay... they're only about $100. Once you add a WiFi card, ethernet card, modem card, large-capacity storage card, and a couple pieces of shareware, you'll spend about $250 total, and you'll never regret it. Matter of fact, you'll be wondering why the Newt -- which the last model, the MessagePad 2100, came out in 1997 -- can do so many things that Palms and PocketPCs can't, even today.

FWIW the Newton community is very active and passionate, and there's a lot of support for OS X and iApps, as well as loads of software. Oh, and if you want developer tools, there's plenty to pick from.

True, it's not easy being green. But after using both a Palm Vx and a Newton MessagePad 2100, while it's a bigger thing to cary around, there's no comparison... the Newton rocks.

No kidding. $50 can get you a wavelan off of ebay that works fine with Newtons. I'm also waiting to see the software get out of beta, just so I can use it on a network named something other than "Newton". I really want to take it into work and use it as a streaming mp3 player :)

Actually, the newton is playing mp3s!
See: MAD for the Newton and the corresponding iTunes plugin.

There's an organizer app that runs on the Apple MP3 player?

cool. now all we need is an MP3 player that runs on Apple's last organizer (and one that's GPL, to boot).

oh wow. now how about a new Apple PDA?

this sounds like a really good hack, by my own definition of Good Hack, which is "do something nobody else has done yet, that's really hard and at the same time, almost completely useless to most people"

up there in my book would have to be the MP3 player for Newton MessagePads (which i installed, and it works really well. streaming MP3 on a newton? oh yeah...)

though, along with the ATA flash card driver for Newtons, it almost turns my MessagePad 2100 into my portable MP3 player. saves me $400 for an iPod (though i'm lacking about 4.9G of the storage...)

kudos to the hack, and massive props to apple][ users still out there who can take advantage of this and all the cheap storage of the new CF cards.