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

Popular.

[0xB]

Can something be called popular when a story about Quake on the Newton gets 0 comments?

Re:Popular.

[|_uke]

Because it has been posted a couple times before :)

Re:Popular.

[Lars T.]

You are right, Quake isn't popular.

Re:Popular.

[Suppafly]

It probably didn't make the front page.. Things that don't make the front page don't get that many comments.

Re:Popular.

[Aftermac]

Yeah, or how an article about 802.11 support on the Newton only got 63 comments...oh...wait...it must be popular!

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]

I can't tell if this comment is in benign ignorance, or a joke...

The most recent and most capable model, the one which is largely being talked about is the MP2x00 series. It has 162 MHz StrongARM processor, 5 or 8 MB of RAM and a luxurious 480x320 screen (compared to the piddly 320x240 res of so-called modern PDAs). However, the MP120 and MP130 running Newton OS 2.0, with their 20-25 MHz ARM and 2-4 MB of RAM are also still incredibly useful, although not as powerful.

The MP2100 model is still impressive, not only in it's day, but today as well. :)

Re:Impressive for its day

[Tug3]

Impressive for its day - in every aspect.
Still impressive - would it not be for its size.

That's mainly my point. I used to have a Newton 120, and I'm still longing for it. For example the cut&paste -feature with pen was something else. I would just throw the cut (or copied) text to the top corner of the screen. Then at my target application just take the cutted object from the top corner and paste it where I wanted.

Another feature was the ability to have links to other documents. For example in calendar I could link people and documents into a meeting the way I wanted.

These two are just some of the features I miss. I've tried Palms, Psions, even WinCE PDAs and they all lack the same ease of use the Newton had... ...would the Newton only be smaller, I would run straight to my nearest dealer to get one! (Ofcourse there are no dealers left, now that Apple did cancel the Newton years back...)

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...

Re:Impressive for its day

[blamanj]

As far as size, yeah it was kind of a pain.

It's not the size that bothers me, it's the weight. When I picked the Newton 2100 over the Palm five years ago, I wanted the extra screen space. If you use it for taking notes, as I have often done, it's really essential.

What I've come to regret, however, is how heavy thing is. If Steve Jobs hadn't killed Newton, Inc., I'm sure there'd be a much lighter version available today. As it is, I haven't seen a PDA to take its place.

Re:Impressive for its day

[RevAaron]

I agree, taking notes on my iPAQ is a pain in ass. Again, the weight didn't bother me, comapred to the weight of a bookbag. But a modern version would be quite a bit smaller and lighter, yet retaining the big screen.

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...

Got a Newton 130

[PD]

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.

Still amazes me

[d0n quix0te]

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!

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.

Re:What I'd like to see

[Have Blue]

What might be more reasonable is to have every device you mention have a firewire port. The power requirements might be a problem though.

Re:What I'd like to see

[Elwood P Dowd]

Um, how about this: an iPod 150% larger in all dimensions. Color screen. 10GB drive. Firewire. Microphone, low quality no-focus digital camera. Removable Lithium Polymer batteries.

It'd have to be able to record and playback MP3s and MPEGs. You could save VCDs on it. At this point, it doesn't have to be a handheld computer. It could just be the ultimate portable media device. The soul of an iPod. If you wanted it to be a Palm/PPC/Newton replacement, then you would have to change the interface, purpose, processor, etc. It would exactly be an iPod anymore.

Not a bad idea, but...

[fm6]

• Pick another name. It's all very well to honor Alan Kay's original vision, but you need one of your own.
• The first goal of your project should be to write an emulator. FWithout something we can actually play with, your project is just another Big Vision, no matter how carefully you think it through. The emulator should run on a platform that's widely available (probably Java or Linux) so lots of different people can fiddle with it.

Re:Not a bad idea, but...

[Suppafly]

Wasn't Kay's called a DynaBook?

Re:Like the Apple ][ fan club...

[little_fluffy_clouds]

...waning Newton community...

Hmmm - The same waning community as this mailing list of over 1000 subscribers?

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.

Re:This is a serious question

[option8]

i'm sure somebody out there is thinking about it. i found a couple threads like this one that basically say the same thing:

not bloody likely.

for one, the OS is in ROM, so you'd have to bypass it and put linux into RAM, which, even on the highest-end newton 2100 is still only 4 megs. the newton OS normally takes up about 3.5 of this, leaving the rest for user stuff. a very very tight linux implementation might work, but there are a lot of issues to deal with - namely, where to put your OS? in flash? a custom ROM?

Re:This is a serious question

[coolgeek]

thanks for sharing your thoughts/information. i was thinking a CF card in one of the type II slots and an ethernet card in the other, then run ethereal (or nmap, ping, etc) on it...perhaps the zaurus is better suited for this application, but it won't come close to impressing the chicks as much as a newton pocket datascope.