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Long live The King of PDAs
x136 writes "Despite being cancelled over four years ago, the Newton Messagepad is still getting better. You can now connect to an 802.11b network, install packages from OS X, and play the MP3s that you transferred from iTunes to your Compact Flash cards. It's pretty hard to imagine how great the Newton could have become had it not been abandoned."
Though this shows the obvious love and admiration of Newton owners towards their devices, it also reveals a quiet helplessness of Apple users. Pathetic,with no ill-meaning implied, perhaps, is the correct word to describe the Newton user community.
Can something be called popular when a story about Quake on the Newton gets 0 comments?
0xB
With a 20 MHz RISC processor and 4 MB ram, this baby was well designed, and the software genuises at apple and at large were able to keep it useful.
That is remarkable.
-D
Frankly, I'm disapointed by the other options in the PDA market today. It's sad, really. So, to try to recreate a little of the Newton spirit, I'm working on Dynapad, which isn't a Newton clone per se, but a PDA environment that will embody many of the core ideas and goals of the Newton, as a truly personal communicator, a computer, and an information device.
shameless plug out...
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
A friend brought me this messagepad 120 some months ;-)
ago. I tried some tricks i found on newton fan pages but it's still not getting any better.
Unable to give URL, probably it even was a paper interview. Anyway it was in russian - you see, pen input interface was developed by Russians. The interview was after the second version is out and it is clear that PDA have selling problems. Public opinion was that PDA is selling bad because of the pen input problems.
Developers told that the product software (and probably hardware too) was build in extreme hurry: people worked 24 hours a day to meet deadline because such was the company policy. Consequently not everything was perfect in the first release. This was fixed later but generally good product already got a bad fame.
Also all magazines repeatedly told the PDA is selling bad without naming any sources or reasons. No doubt it started to sell bad - who would buy such a product? I see a hand of Evil Empire here because WinCE 1.0 was already ready to start.
Particulary concerning pen interface developers said they were often blamed for a bad quality of input though it was caused not by a bug in their program but by lack of resources and bad resource management. You see, if the thing starts garbage collection or something right while you are writing no doubt you'll get bad results. Hovewer user had no means to say one from another.
Developers had not time to negotiate this problem and was forced to release 'as is'. And, probably, Apple had not tested it throughoutly before first release because of the deadlines. Knowing how IBM is working inside I well believe it though it's pity there's so little difference because Apple always claimed to be 'Not IBM'.
What happened to the iWalk?
:>
Simply a fake or is it a prototype?
Hey, i can keep dreaming can't I?
hoping to get one soon..
and it will rock.
soap, shampoo and conditioner clean it.. ah mean it..
And I still use it. What a great machine it is. I'll probably replace it someday with something that can run a Python interpreter, but for now it's what I need.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Two years later Apple released version 2.0 of NewtonOS, with a far FAR FAR improved handwriting system (Rosetta) developed in-house at Apple. To this day, Rosetta is still basically the best handwriting system out there. Too bad it's only available on Newtons.
I bought a MP 2100 from an ebay auction a year ago. Still amazes the heck out of me. Full featured e-mail access over Ethernet (POP3/IMAP/SMTP), browsing the internet, playing MP3s , text to speech (Macintalk) support are quite amazing.
The incredibly well done data soup architecture, fantastic hand writing recognition, the intuitive interface are still unparalleled/unmatched. Hats off to the Newton visionaries!
Check this out.
My Blog Sucks.
Newton... "EAT UP MARTHA"... ha ha. Yeah real cutting edge techonlogy there boys.
What I'd like to see will never happen, but I think it's a cool idea.
I'd like for either Apple to bring back the Newton (I've never used one, so that explains my next comments) with an iPod storage enhancement, or to contract with Palm to use the iPod.
Imagine a world like this. You have your PDA (Newton/Palm/otherwise), and there's a slot where you can slid your iPod inside. Now your iPod is supplying the power/disk space for your PDA. When you slid it out and plug it back into your Mac, now you can just pull whatever files you edited/autoupdate your calender software/send emails composed/etc, etc, etc. Leave your iPod inside the device, and you can still play MP3's while editing a document/spreadsheet with your little PDA. Or read e-books. Or do your calender thing. Or...you get the point.
Or with digital cameras. Why worry about uploading/downloading, if you had a digital camera that used the iPod as the storage device? (Probably would need extra battery power, but you get the idea.) Plug it back into the Mac, and there's the image files, ready to be edited/copied. When they're good, copy them back to the iPod, and plug it back intot the camera, and "preview" the pictures with other folks.
With Apple's whole "digital hub" idea, using the iPod as a major piece of that as a PDA enhancement/camera system/digital video (maybe not high quality - "good enough") would be an interesting move on their part.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
i have 2 Newton 120s and would love nothing more then for apple to release a PDA, though a wearable would be wicked cool, and right up Apple's ally where all the cool toys hang out.
_______
Death wish, n.:
The only wish that always comes true, whether or not one wishes it t
...it's pretty hard to imagine one of the Slashdot "editors" actually "editing" anything. And they want to charge for this?:
It's pretty hard to imagine how great the Newton could have become had it not been abandoned."
Although double-negatives are always a good sign that editing might be called for, because the article has a pro-Newton slant I bet you mean:
It's pretty hard not to imagine how great the Newton could have become had it not been abandoned."
~jeff
I still use mine for keeping a journal- when people see what it does for the first time, they're typically fascinated. When I tell them it's 5 years old and no longer available, they're shocked.
Why are all Macintosh users homosexual? Interesting question, not one of them is smart enough to install Linux on an intel box, much less a gay PPC gumdrop.
Is there a project porting Linux to the Newton? I googled for it a bit and didn't find anything... It just seems like a cool inexpensive platform.
cat
I'm sure that most, if not all of you that bash the Newton never touched one because it had an Apple logo on it. It was a gorgeous machine. My friend still has his 2100 and brought it over a month ago. I have an iPaq, but using the 2100 reminded me of how great the Newton OS was. I agree...it's hard to imagine what the Newton would have been like if it wasn't abandoned. I think it would have given the other PDAs a run for their money. In fact, they already had Windows connectivity built in, so it wasn't a Mac-only system by any means. Mike
A guy I worked with had the local Newton user group's web site run off his Newton 2100 (had an ethernet card installed obviously). Kinda cuts down on the mobility (drum hit). I saw it in action and put out the info (all text) at a decent speed. Point is that it was kinda neat.
... it's spelled "emasculated". Tell us again how hip and smart you are? I've got an owie on one of my fingers too! Can you see it? I'm showing it to you right now!
... you weenies are worthless!
The other guy was right
It's so big, and no longer in production, maybe it should be
"Long Live the Dinosaur of PDAs"
or
"Long Live the Neanderthal of PDAs"