Slashdot Mirror
Hack Turns iPod into PDA
Liquidape writes "Provue Development has released a personal info and contact manager app called iPod Organizer. The program enables use of iPod for storing and retrieving phone numbers, email addresses, flight numbers, appointment times and other data. It also comes with a sync feature. " Obviously it is fairly limited just
because of the input for this device, but its quite a clever hack.
Close your web browser, shut down your fucking linux "b0x" and go outside for once in your life.
I think the fact that a site like slashdot, which caters to you fucking nerds out there, can't even survive without having to charge you for reading it, says alot about how much you fucks are worth to the rest of the world: ZERO.
This should serve as a wakeup call to all you nerds out there who think that working on your b0x in your one bedroom apartment, posting useless shit to a useless web site like slashdot and reading about the newest version of OpenBSD that can run on your fucking Dreamcast console is a good way to go through life.
So wake the fuck up and DO something productive, something that makes money. Stop wasting your time talking about open source fucking garbage that will never amount to anything useful.
Slashdot, come for the goatse, stay for the trolls.
In a surprising announcement, Richard Stallman and #2 Kernel hacker Alan Cox have decided to get married.
"I love him, he is so sweet"cooed the stout Stallman. "He holds me and tells me I'm beautiful."The GNU guru has even said he will take a shower for his bride-to-be. "I will put aside my irrational fears of water, a special treat for my wedding night. I will even clean the cobwebs and dingleberrys from my backside so that Alan can give me the rim job he has always wanted."
The power duo promised to continue their lifelong dream of free software for everyone. "Me and Richie just fit,"Cox said while munching on 3 day old pizza and clearing out the cock-roaches from his hair. "I love him and he loves me and we are just going to be sooo happy! He promised to buy me a puppy in the fall." Cox said he plans to wear a buckskin shorts and a camoflauge T-Shirt to his wedding while Stallman will appear in the priestly robes that he has become known for. He even promised to get the large poo stain near the rear cleaned for the big event. Good luck guys!
Troll 32 of 131 from the annals of the Troll Library .
w00t!
"Contrary to popular belief, UNIX is user friendly. It just happens to be selective on who it makes friendship with"
Just go into CompUSA and download your favorite PIM into your iPod and take it home.
Now all we need to go with this is a firewire enabled stylus that reads what I write in the air and translates it to incorrectly spelled text and mislabled ToDo lists.
Find out about my new childrens book: SS Death Camp Criminal Batallion Go To Monte Carlo For The Massacre
So first we hear lots of news because the
:D
software erased harddrives, and now we hear
people are coming up with cute little hacks.
It would seem your opinions of late have been
rediculous.
next thing you know we'll start seeing people
booting linux on an xbox, in a beowulf cluster,
and used to heat cowboyneil's dinner.
Link
Hopefully, this hack won't wipe out your hard drive! But seriously, the iPod is one sweet piece of ass, and now that you can make it a PDA, just makes it that much more enticing.
I hate sigs.
Apple isn't going to be too happy about this after they've spent millions developing the iWalk. Look for the DMCA Police to come knocking.
SM MBL-VIR looking 4 SIG 4 LTR. must be DDF, no 420, SD ok.
Does the music change depending on what data your retrieving? Like SMB, the music starts to speed up as your appointment approaches.
I for one, think its great that Slashdot is using what I consider to be a well-thought-out ad program. I applaud the efforts of the fine people running this site, and in spite of what a lot of negative people have to say about it, I actually think it improves the site, giving it a professional look and feel that it sorely needed.
Thank you.
I might have read the article wrong, but this looks like all it does is use the iPods built-in menu system and just makes a bunch of mp3's based on what you input into your "PIM", kind of like "$ touch meeting-at-12:00-mc_donalds.mp3" ...
I bet there's a bunch of MP3 players you could do this with.
Free Mac Mini
Talk about a redundant title!
=======
P.S. Bite! You've been bitten by the Original AIDS Monkey! You have AIDS now!
That is what people were expecting when Apple announced that it would introduce a device that would revolutionize the world. And that is what people have done without waiting for Apple to keep us waiting for the next big thing. So I've been tired of waiting for Apple to respond to the need of their customers and I just got this. And I just love using it. It's funny that the developer web site shows only Mac OS 9 screenshots though... Stupid Steve! Go Steve! ;-)
PPA, the girl next door
-- I feel better now. Thanks for asking.
Well we already know there is an Office port for the iPod. or was that porting Office via your iPod?
Did you like Slashdot better without all the out-of-place ads, or perhaps with no ads at all? Now you can get it for free and save yourself $5 a month. This is truly a great testament to the spirit of hacking! Check this out!
http://a464.g.akamai.net/7/464/51/8cd86fa6056a77/w ww.apple.com/ipod/pdf/iPod_FAQ-b.pdf
I would like a phone apple
not hard dont worry about mic and speaker on the thing use a handsfree one
just use the OMAP from TI that has a DSP for MP3 and link that up with the firewire HD and away you go
please please I want to jog to mates phone number (-;
regards
john jones
On whether you think the warm-n-fuzzy jog dial or the jot language is more the bane of mankind.
It may be cold, but at least it's clear.
Now all the iPod needs is wireless ethernet. Then someone could hack up some software that will automatically discover and sync music collections with near-by iPods.
What would be a nice addition is to have the program automatically generate a short MP3 of the touchtones for the contact telephone number.
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I use adsubtract, I didn't even know there were new ads, let alone any ads at all, I plain forgot they existed =]
What?
I guess you could write a small program to enter the telephone numbers and names save as an mp3 with ID3 tags as contact name and a small MP3 file with the DTMF tones to dial the contact. To bad redboxes don't work any more or the ipod would make a nice phreaking tool.
And just when is 3:00PM EST?
And no, I will not look it up from Google, because it should have been announced for several key time zones including the European time.
The owls are not what they seem
I love the new Aqua style put in this story...But just out of curiosity, have you been sued by Apple yet, Taco?
no matter how small. I'm sure there are many people out there listing to thier IPod wishing there was a way to jot down a simple note. Now they have it ... pretty cool in my book.
off topic posts suck. The new ads aren't up yet.
to keep this on topic, iPod is neat. Although I wouldn't attempt to use it as a pda considering it's tiny lcd.
Cowboy Neal is officially FUCKING FAT.
Can someone please explain exactly what the FUCK that thing is at the top of this page (the thing that looks suspiciously like an advert)?
/. has sold out . I see they're now using that fucking Mac 'interlaced' white background behind the subject logos and lovely 'aquaesque' graphics as well (in the 'post comment' arrea at present, but sure to spread), how fucking original!
I do not believe it !!!
This is the last straw. I've had enough of all the crapflooders and, so-called, 'trolls' (they haven't got a fucking clue what a real troll is, they think that posting a goatse.cx link qualifies them as a troll - gimme a break!). And now I have to look at fucking adverts as well??? Well, fuck that, I'm logging out for the last time...
---------------------
%46%55%43%4B !
For anyone that has an iPod or is just interested in hacking them, goto iPodHacks.com. It can give you some ideas of what the iPod is capable of.
--Metrollica
Why the hell is everyone so harsh on Katz?! C'Mon guys!
LIIIIIIINUX!
HAHAHHA Cowboy Neal!! Cowboy Neal!!
POOP
(8)-|-L /
They've been up since yesterday morning, retard.
-- everyone else on slashdot
I ran across this link at www.macnn.com apparently it's a free (for prersonal user) program that is basically exactuly the same. http://www.kohlenbach.de/prod_ipoadress_engl.htm
Bye!
Score:-1 redundant
---------------------
%46%55%43%4B !
For those of you who don't want to pay the $20 to try the iPod organizer hack, try some free ones that do a similar job.
Mp3 phone list
Address organizer
iPDA study
--Metrollica
and ask the government to ban 802.11 or, more likely, ALL wireless transmissions (Better safe than sorry). After all, all those people with cell-phnores are really just pirates in the making.
But wait... When I play music sound travels through the air to other peoples' ears! Better get a bill mandating encryption on air, or at least locking down people's ears so they don't participate. Sure we'd all be unable to communicate and, for that matter, breathe but we must preserve Intellectual Property!
It would be nice to make some use of the fact that
:(
the ipod can play music: encode the phone number
as DTMF (or DMTF, whatever it's called) and save it
in the mp3 file. So when you want to call someone
you just play the mp3.
I'm still missing that feature for my iPaq
FUnded by SLashdot. Wonder no longer why they're charging now...
Here.
"Eat up Martha"?!!!
(Dammit mods, that's ontopic!)
is n't there a secert project apple is developing called the IWALK which is a pda?
Yeah Taco, we know. It doesn't have a three-button mouse.
Yeah right.
Hack of ID3 tag... hmmm
Kinda like burning your own CD-TEXT CDs so that suddenly your CDTEXT player becomes a PDA
Come on
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
at the details (id3 tags used as appointments) this has about as much relevance as the guy who makes a swimming pool by placing a hose in the back of a pickup truck.... This could be done with any MP3 player that supports id3 tags and subfolders. Why not step back 2 years and look at the mp3 players that had (semi)-REAL pims built into them. The second generation mpman (MP-F30) comes to mind, I owned one and it worked great in linux, and also let me store phone numbers, contacts, etc....Not much of a threat to the PDA market...
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
I have shiny white vibrator I like to use, but usually my hello kitty one gets me off fastest, wetting my cotton panties the most.
I wish someone had done such a thing for the gameboy
it might have been clever when this guy did it a couple of months ago, but it's not clever anymore.
> Obviously it is fairly limited just because of the input for this device, but its quite a clever hack.
Typical Apple -- it lacks three mouse buttons!
I have a Samsung Yepp E64 and it has this "phone number feature". Its kind of gimicky, but then again - so is this hack. I found myself just for the novalty of it entering in a few phone #s but I never use them and have deleted them to give me more room on my meesly 96 megs of space.
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
"shaw, LAMEST Hack in history" jess, im surprised it took these guys that long to make this piece a poo software, ALL IT DOES IS MAKE MP3's with "organizer" data in their ID3 tags. im SOOOOOOOOO NOT impressed. Is this even a hack?
i mean technicaly speaking, did they actualy DO anything SPECIAL to make this work? it seems like they just set up their own musci genre or whatever (called "ipoddata") and then split off "albums" as contacts, work or whatever, sheesh, youd think these guys were gonna get an award for cleverness, they didnt DO anything special except make a ID3 tag editor that LOOKS like a organizer.
Next week im gonna intro the first text based trivia game for the ipod.... Will i get slashdot notice? lol
whats worst is the ipod IS fully capable of PDA functions, that extra special little port on top (not the firewire one) canplug in a good load of extra special little things like remotes or PDA style pens, hmmmm, i think these guys arent gona be to happy when apple starts releasing their "iUpgrades"
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
your asshole hurts!!!!!
lick my balls
Some of you may not be old enough to remember, but way back in the day, last summer, Slashdot suffered a 4 or 5 day service outage, leaving trolls and bots everywhere disgruntled and causing such traumatic experiences as venturing outside the basement. But what really happened? Roblimo posted an alleged "blow-by-blow" account (homo-speak for "bukkake party"). But can he really be trusted? Was there the possibility of a massive OSDN coverup, spanning all their major sites? This intrepid reporter dug a little deeper and came up with glimpse at what really transpired to bring down the mighty Slashdot that fateful Saturday...
The day started as most of the days started, namely with CowboyNeal waking up in a pool of his own vomit with a very sore asshole. As the rhythm of his alarm clock on his desk matched the rhythm of the pounding in his head, he realized that he hated his job. He hated reading the incessant blathering of open sores gasbags like ESR, who sent him pile upon piles of gay porn via email.
"FUCK HIM," he thought, "Fuck him and his hundreds of dollars worth of VA stock. That drunk better not keep complaining about Slashdot rejecting his homoerotic fiction articles, or I'll fucking eat him next time I see him at the All Night Buffet at that truckstop in Frazer, PA!"
He scrolled down through the gay bondage porn that ESR had bought him a daily subscription to. This was new to him, it hadn't come in his mail yesterday, but a quick check on his credit card bill told him that he was charged sometime late last night. And frankly, nothing short of a surveillance video would be able to help him reconstruct exactly what he did last night. He just had a sinking feeling that CmdrTaco had recruited him to play "hide the bratwurst." Jesus, what was it that Taco had given him last night? It couldn't have been a roofie, Taco didn't often venture outside his "geek compound", much less venture to the part of town where they sell roofies, except perhaps to pick up the occasional boy-twink.
Well, there was the alcohol, for starters. It looked like some special kind of tequila, but Taco had called it "green assleak juice." God only knows why, but that's what he called it. He said something about bending ACs over the server racks and harvesting it from their unwilling anuses, but that didn't make too much sense either, although it did fit in with Malda's sick fascination with homosexual male domination fantasies.
As it dawned on Jonathan Pater exactly what must have transpired last night, he desperately tried to block it out of his mind. Anything would be better than trying to remember last night, he decided.
"I need some coffee," he thought.
CowboyNeal, being the principal network engineer behind Slashdot, had some special job requirements. Namely, he had to live, work and sleep in the server room, next to the humming Beowulf cluster that was Slashdot. If any of the Slashbot cocksuckers who sent him floods of complaint mail ever even came close to this room, they'd be driven into a lust-fueled frenzy. Although the machines that powered Slashdot did not have orifices of any size to satisfy the lust of a normal man, we're talking about Slashdot posters. They would viciously hump the machines even after the fans stopped screaming in protest and the coolant leaked out, further lubricating their thrusts...
He continued scrolling through his email, taking special care to note the bulk amounts of FreeBASE that they had ordered for the moderators on Slashdot. Although masked in the innocent pretense of discussing a free, Berkeley Unix-based operating system, all Slashdot articles with the keyword "FreeBSD" actually contained code phrases for moderators, listing the dead drops for the day's shipments. FreeBSD was just a convenient cover for this communication, as the editors had agreed that even the most coked out moderator would recognize the similarity between "FreeBSD" and "FreeBASE," not to mention the association between Berkeley and massive drug use. In the darker days, they couldn't even get their hands on enough shipments. The riots were vicious. He remembered bowling over one of Malda's boy-twinks before he crushed him to death under his massive girth. What followed after was the best sex he'd ever had.
As he shifted in his chair, he noticed a squishy, suspicious feeling in his underpants. CowboyNeal prayed that Malda had been kind enough to use an under-sized buttplug last night. He could only hope that he didn't end up like the goatse.cx man. Maybe the chemical goodness of a Twinkie would calm him down.
He pulled out his desk drawer and reached down, squarely placing his hand in something gooey and scalding hot.
"WHAT THE FUCK!!! OH MY GOD, THAT'S HOT!" Hot grits. How they had appeared in his desk was probably another mystery of the previous night that was best left unsolved. Although that WOULD explain the burn marks on his ass and the squishy feeling in his trousers. As he reached around further with his other, undamaged hand, he found something in plastic wrap, and assumed that it was what he was looking for. As he put it up to his face, he realized that it was not, indeed, a twinkie, like he had expected it to be. Instead, it was some kind of fucking fruit bar. A FUCKING FRUIT BAR!
"Leave it to Malda to make subliminal suggestions with my food," he grumbled.
He desperately dug through the rest of his desk, but to no avail. No twinkies for CowboyNeal.
"I can't take it ANYMORE!" he bellowed. "I've FUCKING had it!"
As his face turned purple, he unwedged himself from his poor, abused office chair and flung his full mass at the desk, hitting the wall and making a dull thud that smashed the desk to pieces.
"GRAAAAAAAGH!!"
Suddenly, as he looked over what he had done, he noticed a gigantic, shit-encrusted 46" dildo sitting in the wreckage of his desk. It had the lettering "COWBOYNEAL" on the side, and it was still slick with fresh blood.
Picking it up, he used it as a bludgeon, smashing it into the first server rack in the room and bringing it over with a resounding crash. He moved on to the rest of the eqipment...
* * *
"Security! We have a situation in cage 47E! Some fatass is smashing the shit out of Slashdot's servers with some kind of sausage!"
"Yeah, we'll check it out. As soon as VA turns a profit."
Laughter ensued on both ends of the line.
"No, seriously, this guy is going to fuck shit up. You'd better visit the gun rack on your way down there."
"All right! Time to try out those taser rifles that came in last week!"
As they arrived on the scene, they spotted the bloated lunatic smashing the massive AssRammer6000 against the database's server rack, taking out a flatscreen console with it.
"My first post!" screamed the security guard in horror.
Obviously, this fatass was playing for keeps.
With a slight hand signal from the first guard, the second guard brought the taser to bear on the bloated lunatic and fired.
"GRRAAAAGGGGGH! YOU DON'T UNDERSTAAAANND DUH DUH DUH DUH!"
"Shit! He's still conscious! Get the other one!"
They fired off the other rifle, striking CowboyNeal square in the chest and finally taking the bear of a man down.
Just before losing consciousness, he pushed over the equipment rack next to him as his final act of vengeance against the man he knew as Taco. Funny, it had the label "Network Equipment" plastered all over it. The last thing he remembered was the router crashing down next to him and something circular striking his head.
"Shit, Mike! This place is trashed!"
"Yeah, man. The network admins are going to shit a brick when they see this."
"I'd better call the OSDN programmer down here to reconfig the router. Hey, what smashed up his head?"
"Looks like a CD."
"Yeah, an Open Source CD."
"Well, imagine that..."
*whips out red M^2 pen*
PGP enters deep-freeze
"John Ashcroft has been drumming the beat recently, reminding the tech industry that a "lucrative surveillance state" (in our Tom's words) can be built from the ashes of the September 11 attacks. This obviously doesn't extend to personal privacy software. Are we the only people who find the neglect of PGP somewhat fishy?"
(-1,offtopic)
Sorry. The industry has made me cynical.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
"shaw, LAMEST Hack in history" jess, im surprised it took these guys that long to make this piece a poo software, ALL IT DOES IS MAKE MP3's with "organizer" data in their ID3 tags. im SOOOOOOOOO NOT impressed. Is this even a hack?
Maybe it's not a new or original hack. But it is an interesting course that ventures into doing more with MP3, which I'm certain that Microsoft is just thrilled with.
:)
/*drunk.. fix later*/
I wonder if this hack will be enough to give Steve ideas for a new PIM product based on the iPod hardware and software. Given that the technology has been in place for a while (going back as far as the Newton), I believe that the most difficult task will be to come up with an appropriate name.
My suggestion: iMan (iPIMp is too obvious, IMO).
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
I bet the Newton is rolling in it's ...uh... dumpster.
Seriously, what about a program that also encodes further information about contacts and appointments and such as mp3's using speech synthesis. That would be neat. The filename/tags or whatever would have a basic description and the mp3's would have more information as audio.
As we speak, I'm recording my mp3's to my VoiceStream voice mail.
I'll be able to listen to mp3's using my phone!
Whoo Hoo!
Palm m515: 16mb, no MP3... iPod: 5gb, MP3 till your ears stop working... hmmm... It seens that palm need some serious upgrades on their handhelds...
Fabio - Sumare/Sao Paulo/Brazil/South America/Earth/Solar System/Milky Way/Universe
http://www.morroida.com.br
Does it cause problems when the iPod tries to play one of these non-existant songs? Does it have extra long pauses?
Now what happens if Apple offers an iPod II, with Palmpilot-like software, if this innovation turns out to be a hit? So much for Windows CE, eh? Unless Microsoft wants to start fighting them based on the grounds of "We got here first!"
Just because you're classified as paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T out to get you.
Jeff K. is light years ahead of you! :)
The versatility in the iPOD that allows for this is the sign of a well designed product. It takes more time and thought to design a product that both serves its original purpose and allows for upgrades and changes to be made succesffully. I suspect apple will use the iPOD platform for other purposes as time goes on as there is really no other motivation for engineering this amount of flexibility.
Now I won't be happy until someone hacks a Revo to play MP3's.
Yes, I have a Revo, and I love it...
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
You could set up the MP3 file to play the touchtones. If you do, you should probably add a few seconds' pause at the beginning, since you'll need to get the iPod headset to the phone headset after playing with the buttons.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
the previous post was on topic. can't you lousy moderators see this? "to keep this on topic, iPod is neat. Although I wouldn't attempt to use it as a pda considering it's tiny lcd."
I would say that applies to this conversation.
the software is neat, but the screen is too small to make it an effective pda.
moderators, can you see that?
Yeah you stupid mother flurcking piece of poo face moderators, don't you know how to read a whole flurcking comment before you moderate it? Come on. What a joke. I wish I was a moderator all the time so I could mod all the good posts -1 offtopic of -1 overrated, and all the funny posts +9999 funny, cuz funny stuff is all that matters.
What?
why would a person waste their moderation points moderating down borderline off topic posts. Use your moderation points more effectively. Have you meta moderated today?
Whatever happened to focusing on the positive? Using moderation points to mod up the good posts. After all, reading the good stuff is more important than filtering out the crap. I do that on my own by browsing at +3.
What?
Check out this mirror: http://web.archive.org/web/20020306130830/http://w ww.ipodorganizer.com/
Orange
Use the iPOD for storage on a digital video camera. Just add a lens, a ccd, and a little processing to the firewire input. Sure beats tape and the component nature of the resulting device would make it easier to upgrade.
to err is human, to forgive is divine, to forget is... umm...
and people wonder why there are trolls on /.. It's the moderation abuse that turns perfectly able and willing content contributors into disgruntled, bitter trolls.
Yeah no kidding. I'm considering becoming a troll myself. I've posted 400+ comments on /., I've been a member for a long time (user # 14792), and frankly, in the past year or so, I have had very few meaningful dialogues, or seen very few meaningful dialogues here on /.. It's going down the tubes. The comments used to contain more useful information than the article. Now all the comments are "it's a hoax, that's stupid, this is stupid, I'm too dumb to read the article, etc." What happened to intelligent conversation on /.? Someone posts something asking a simple question, they get flamed into the great beyond for not being l33t enough to know everything about everything. Bah. /. is no longer the nice friendly community it used to be.
What?
undoubtedly. Unfortunately, there is not a forum to respond to this type of degradation, other than to post a comment. Which is then perceived as "off topic" and get's modded down, which ends up being a cyclical mess
There was a forum somewhere on /. for this once, but it wasn't really publicized.
What?
Oh, Jeeze. I'm so very, very sorry...
You know what?
Considering? Becoming? My friend, you are already 99% of the way there. Come over to the dark side!
What I'd like to see is an update to the firmware with some real apps. I wouldn't mind giving up breakout if it could be replaced by, say, a text file reader. Apple or any decent embedded systems hacker should be able to do it. It's likely not been done just based on time-to-market and strategy reasons, not technical ones.
Admittedly, the iPod is not a heavy-hitter in the RAM department, but if you can play breakout, you obviously have the system calls to do some cool stuff.
Of course, anyone other than Apple hacking the firmware is illegal under the DMCA. Far be it from me to incite illegal activity.
Wes
QWxsIHlvdXIgQmFzZTY0IGFyZSBiZWxvbmcgdG8gdXMh
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?
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
The bigger piece of the pie, the one that Apple never game us with the Newton (and still hasn't) is a complete description of how to use the iPods Pixo embedded operating system to program other functions which are more familiar to PDA-people like: sorting, searching data enry via FW keyboard, or FW stylus if you could figure out how to make the display touch-sensative, being able to tell the machine "Make me an appointment with Carol at 5:00 next Tuesday for 2 hours, to ring 45 minues before", and it would auomatically look up Carol in the adressbook modules, check you calendar app to make sure there are no conflicts (and alearting you in that case), then placing the datbook entry, changing the ring parameter to "45 minues before meething" I dont' know if Newton Intelligence (built into the final MP2100) could do quit all that, but it might.
Right no, people trying to extend the iPod past "just an MP3 player" are stuck with the system the iPod has now - basicall a file browser. If Apple would release the lower-lvel APIs to access the hardware and compile C programs down to assembly (for porting Sphinx and Festival, as well a WICKED fast BrickOut game)
Apple did, after some pressure from the Newton community, release the in-house plug-ins and header/libray files for their MPW compilation system (God, what a beast) From the released stuff, people are starting to do some really cook stuff with it, as the recent beta test of an ATA card driver for the Newton by >a href="www.kallisys.com">Paul Guyou has shown, as well as the port of Waba for the Newton by Sean Luke. One person figured out how to do assembly language code programming for the StrongARM chip in Newton, and used this as the basis for a MOD file music player. Another project is aimed at porting an MP3 player to the Newton (I don't know if this is in working beta state yet, but I believe it it)
But many if not all of these endevours "going behind NewtonScript" would be much easier (and faster) if Apple could be persuaded to release all the appropriate headers, memory maps, memory proctection schema in public view (with a licence that says you can't use this in a competing product - althought that would have to be clarified as Apple to my knowledge has never definitively said yea or nea on ever producing a PDA again.
If the QuickDraw hooks were available (the Newton uses a stripped down SE-vintage quickdraw), then program like Waba, instead of using NewtonScript bytecode to do the drawing, which is slow, it could draw directly do the screen. Having the interface to the "Inker Port" which runs the pen input device, would make getting taps and drags to activate the applet faster, as you would have to go though NewtonScript to get them as is done now. If the full specs relating all the communications claases in the "below-Newtonscipt" layer were known, it would be easier to access the serial port, eternet cards from down there.
Some people call for the entire source code to be released, but from what I've heard it was an enourmous mess of speghetti code. But the headers and glue files for the current machines (100,120,130,2000,2100 I believe) could help access these lower level features, which seem to be becoming more an more important as the few Newton users left push their machines to their limits and face compatibility problem with desktop systems.
I don't know about Apple releaseing the entire source code. On one hand, if they released the whole thing, we'd have it but no roadmap; on the other hand, if they cleaned in up, took out the headers and glue, wrote some more comments, it would be VERY expensivive for them (especially as most of the original Newton people are gone from apple) However, in the case that they released EVERYTHING, a community of developers would quickly develop I'm sure to try to figure out what the code does, what should be thrown away in a new implementation of a PDA, and what would be of use to current Newton developers.
Persuading Apple to release the source to the connectivity applications (Newton Book Maker, Newton Tool Kit, and Newton Connection Utilities) would also help, as these apps are the ONLY apps that can interface with the Dock application built into the Newton's ROM. The authentication protocol used includes a DES-encrypted challenge-respononse. This is a BIT of a hitch to making new connectvity apps that can work with the native Dock (as you'd have to after you'd wiped the Newton clean)
It's scary to think you could be sued for violating the copyright on such song titles as "get milk at store" and "Dental appointment Tuesday."
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Ogg-Vorbis support.
The middle mind speaks!
Why would Apple *care*? They sell more iPods, and Apple is hardly a media company. They couldn't care less about the DMCA.
Apple is not one of the bad guys.
Works. You have to make sure that FireWire drive mode is enabled. /Volumes/<iPOD name here>/iPod_Control/Music/
Then go to:
In there you'll find a lot of folders named Fxx
Containing all of your mp3's
As for shooting all the OS9 (l)users. What if they have old hardware?
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
...into a full PDA"
Except the person that posted the story.
I just did my migration. File system is still a pain, but just due to behavioral psychology (i just have to train myself). Reward is: all these optical fancies, things mentioned above, everything seems more logical, and much more small apps, i just realized - thanks to all those unix geeks that now port their software AND experience to X. Big THANKS!