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."

Comments

Impressive for its day

[vonsneerderhooten]

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

Re:Impressive for its day

[RevAaron]

Indeed. On slashdot, most of the kids here have no idea of what the Newton was, other than "it sux0r3d d00d!" But the sad fact, is on this iPAQ, everything is so relatively inconsistent and pain-in-the-ass. You don't really notice appreciate the Newton until it's gone, or until you start to try to use WinCE/PocketPC or PalmOS. :P There's nothing that a Newton can do that a Palm OS/PPC device can't, just like you can do everything in assembly that you can in Common Lisp. It'll just take a lot more time and be a lot less elegant.

As far as size, yeah it was kind of a pain. Until recently, I carried around a MP2100u to my classes and generally most places I went. The size didn't much bother me, because it was better to carry the Newton than a book bag with a bunch of notes and books and/or my iBook- I had it all in the Newton. So, if you want a PDA just for an overpriced, status-symbol daybook, the Newton is definately not what you need. But, if you're like me, and want to be able to carry a huge amount of information around, take all of your college lecture notes, play games, read books, and hack on genetic algorithms all in one place, the Newton definately beats out the other options.

What a shame!

Re:Impressive for its day

[benwaggoner]

Actually, the 480x320 might have been where they went wrong with the Newton. The older versions were powerful enough, but too big. Instead of using new technologies to make the Newton more powerful yet, they should have made it smaller.

Instead of doubling the screen resolution by increasing pixel density, they should have kept the resolution 320x240, and cut the size of the unit in half. Instead of going to the full 162 MHz processor, they should have used a slower, more power efficient one, so fewer batteries were needed.

It still would have been somewhat bigger than a Palm, but with all that Newton software to use...

Something to put up on the virtual "what could have been" shelf with my dual processor PowerPC NeXT system...

Newton Replacement

[RevAaron]

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...

Re:Still amazes me

[Alan Partridge]

amen - PERSONAL DIGITAL ASSISTANT - it really was exactly that. pretty amazing that Jobs couldn't see just how much potential that machine had. I wonder if Apple is secretly doing ANYTHING with Newton technology - if Sharp can get an embedded Linux onto a PDA, couldn't Apple get an embedded OSX going on one? The little Newtonesque touches in OSX (like the puff of smoke delete) really give me hope - and there have been various HWR-on-OSX stories bandied about from time to time.

Newton in Ricochet network

[AaronBaker2000]

You can even use your newton on the almost dead ricochet network.

Check this out.

What I'd like to see

[Dark Paladin]

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.

This is a serious question

[coolgeek]

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.