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Emulate Nintendo on Your MessagePad
Green and Geeky writes "That Marvel of a PDA, the Newton MessagePad, has always been a good product. It does a lot of things: plays MP3s, connects to the Internet wirelessly, can be used to bludgeon someone, fits in your pocket (if you're a giant), etc. Now, it plays Nintendo games. Strange, yes, but still pretty cool. I can't play Legend Zelda, Final Fantasy, or Dragon Warrior on my Palm V." And I don't need to waste money on a Game Boy Advance!
...install Newton OS on an iPaq?
The iPaq's with ARM chips are basically a Newton with a color screen and more memory. Then we really wouldn't need a GBA.
I smell a cease and desist letter on it's way, $5 bucks says the term DMCA will be used ATLEAST once!
I actually quite like the Newton, though I think it was a bit ahead of its time and tried to do too much. It's a cool hack to get it playing Nintendo games, but would you really walk around with a bag to hold the 'pad, to play games on ?
:-) so whatever floats your boat - the phone's easier to carry though :-)
It's useful when allied with a briefcase. I can't see it really as a games platform (on the other hand, my phone plays Doom quite well, (Nokia 9000
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
I used a MP2000 as my primary computer for almost two years. I was "commuting" between the US & UK and used it - along with a Ricochet (R.I.P.) in the US and Nokia cell PCMCIA card in the UK - for browsing, email, telnet (with PT100, killer app!), etc. So I was wireless when mobile, and on Ethernet when at a desk... All pre-802.11. This was circa 1997 BTW.
It was nice to carry virtually all my computing needs in a "daytimer" sized case. People bitch about the Newt's size, but compared to a circa-97 brick of a 7lb laptop? Is was VERY small.
To date the NewtOS was pobably the most elegant OS ever created... and I've run them all. The only thing it didn't do well, at least until now, was gaming. I played a lot of NewTRIS, and I seem to recall a snood, or snood-like game too but Newtgaming was limited to puzzles or very simple action games (like a sub depth-charging thing that I can't recall the name of)
I might have to charge it back up now and play some old NES game. =) Nice to see the Newt still breathing.
Yeah but the Newton predates these systems and that's what's extra cool about this story.
I disagree, most of us were raised on that damned thing. Let me say a few things that will trigger some huge memories for a lot of people. Karnov, Ikari Warriors, Captain Skyhawk, Spy Hunter, R.C.Pro AM, and many many more. Anyone between 21-30 right now most likely spent a reasonable amount of time playing this system. I was born in 1979, so I did get to play on the Atari beifly, but this was really my original, the first system I was hard-core on. In my opinion the best consoles ever, in no order are, The NES, the Genesis, the Dreamcast, and the Xbox. Yes I know you hate MS, but the Xbox rules, and it did a lot for online gaming.
Are there really PocketPC devices out there with enough memory to waste with a CD image for a Playstation Emulator? I fould what seems to be the site for the main PSX emulator, but there's no mention of the process required to rip a gaime. I assume you have to manually remove all sound and video, but it still sounds like these games would be huge in comparison to say, SNES.
Bork Bork Bork!!
...I swear this thing has the most loyal cult following ever. For a product that didn't sell well (or as well as it should have), I'm still amazed that people are still modding these things up. Great works folks!
-Valiss
Erm I have a 1989 ARM 2 Acorn A3000 Amiga-box-style computer downstairs. And a 1994 ARM610 desktop, the Acorn RiscPC 600. Mind you, ARM _was_ Acorn RISC Machines before others decided to invest in it.
;-).
So Apple was a bit ahead of its time investing in Acorn's ARM, like it was a bit ahead of Microsoft's time investing in Xerox's GUI... good, but not pioneering
Actually, Zelda DX(Otherwise known as The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX) is a colorized version of the Gameboy game Link's Awakening from 1994, with a bit of extra stuff added.
Maybe you should watch a little closer the next time she plays it.
You wouldn't beleive the looks I get when I pull it out in public (my newton) but I still love it, and the NES emulator makes it so I can waste even more time in class.
I have been following the NES emulator and have been using it since version 0.12. Right now several people are working on getting a NES controler working on the newton so we can play with a contoler.
I wonder how many people are going to be storming the J&K Sales store to buy a newton now...
"...of Apple products having a longer life. "
That's more a testament to the fans than to the engineering of the product. No doubt Apple is an innovative company, but when you choose the underdog, you fight harder for it.
"Derp de derp."
Apple got everything right with the Newton except the size. What a foolish mistake they made cancelling it as a product instead of redesigning it in a slightly smaller form factor.
True story - I was a Newton developer back in the day, and while on a business trip to the west coast, I damaged my Newt (cracked the screen by dropping it against the corner of a marble table) just before a client presentation. I called the folks in Cupertino and they very graciously agreed to take a look at it. I drove down right away, and was met by someone from developer relations who swore me to secrecy because there was a huge "NEWTON INC." banner hanging in the lobby - yes, this happened just a day before Apple announced the rollout of Newton into its own subsidiary.
Anyway, she took me down to the repair lab, where a couple of very interesting fellows proceeded to open my machine and replace the screen while I waited. As they worked, I looked casually around and in addition to the regular zoo of MPs and eMates, I spied several devices that made me drool - at least two different tablet devices (one roughly letter-sized and one even larger) and a large wristwatch sized device with a screen and a Newton logo.
I was very excited because as a developer, I knew that the NewtonOS was designed in such a way that it could support displays of almost arbitrarily large or small sizes (I think that when figured at ~80dpi the largest display can be almost a couple hundred meters on a side). The layout of screen elements in a Newton app is done using relative coordinates, so the same sw will run full-screen on an MP130 or a 2x00 even though one has a display half again as large. A well-written app can even make decisions about which elements to display, if there is too little screen real estate to show all the controls at once. God, I loved NewtonScript!
Anyway, none of the Newton folks would answer any questions - they were in serious info-lockdown mode, and I didn't press, figuring that I'd hear about it soon. Alas, it was not to be, for Jobs had just returned to power and shut down the Newton Inc. experiment before it ever got off the ground.
Wouldn't it have been great if they had been allowed to try? Contrary to popular belief, the Newton division was starting to generate substantial positive revenue and Sandy Bennet, head of the Newton Group, gave a presentation to the board showing that all R&D costs would be paid off in less than 5 years - pretty good in the consumer electronics industry for a completely new platform. Alas, Jobs had just returned to power and saw Newton as part of his now-enemy Scully's legacy. Like the new alpha lion of a pride, he felt he had to kill all his predecessors offspring.