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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!
Newtendo has hit the big times! However, earthlink just let me know that if I get much more traffic this month, I'm gonna be shut down until next month.
Well, it was nice knowing you.
...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!
Most Slashdotters are too young to remember the NES
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!
http://hnsg.net/~cpace/ninendo/ I'm only on a 512 line, but this should hold for a while, lets keep earthlink off his back!
Bored? Why not join a decent mess
Why doesn't Slashdot link to Google cached versions of pages instead of slamming webmasters using little Earthlink accounts with ~10 MB of bandwidth? Oh well. There's the google version.
If you've never actually seen the latest version of Newton handwring recognition in action, take a look here under Newton Usability. "Eat up Martha", my ass. Makes Graffiti look like the kludgy hack it is.
And did you know you can sync your Newton with iTunes wirelessly? Even the latest iPod can't do that.
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.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
Pocket PC and Windows CE devices have been emulating PS1, GBA / GB, NES, Genesis, MAME, and many other consoles for a number of years now. Even PS1 runs incredibly fast due to the coding talent and dedication put in by various developers.
While this may be news for this specific platform and OS, emulating NES is very old hat when it comes to the world of PDAs in general.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
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.
Sorry, I have a MP2100 and the famous Simpson's reference was not far from the truth at all. You had to be exceptionally careful with your handwriting, and still often had to correct it. It would misinterpret taps, and it was impossible to correct letters out of order(say, you forgot to cross your t- out of order scribbling got me 90% of the time).
Graffiti is not a "kludgy hack", its a system that is designed to quickly and accurately enter data, which is what a PDA needs; my Handspring was much better for most of the typical PDA usage- entering phone numbers or appointment times. Sure the Newton's natural system is faster for writing large amounts of text(assuming you have perfect handwriting) but people just didn't(and still don't) use PDAs for that sort of thing. They use- gasp- notebooks(and I don't mean the electronic kind)
Please help metamoderate.
I can't play Legend Zelda, Final Fantasy, or Dragon Warrior on my Palm V.
Um, actually you can. Gambit Studios has had a gameboy emulator out for the palm os for quite some time. Some of the older palms are a little sluggish, but it works.
Progress isn't guaranteed. Innovation, once it hits the marketplace, is not destined to take root. The Newton was the first PDA platform, and going on six years after its demise, it's still the best. It had, essentially, one deficiency, and that was in its size. This was easily rectifiable, especially with the technology of the day. It's death was the result of ego rather than sound business, and perhaps the largest mistake Jobs made in turning Apple around.
Now, even though we have machines who's hardware is more than equal to the old newton, none have its ease of use, utility or ease of development enjoyed by the Newton. It's utility as an everyday computer in the modern age is a testament to Apple's software engineers, who Got It Right the first time out, and a condemnation of Palm, Microsoft, Symbian and Sharp, who still can't approach it so many years after its demise.
SoupIsGood Food
Here you go. PalmOS up to version 5.x is basically the equivalent of MacOS 6 before the Multi-Finder. It's no accident...the people who wrote the PalmOS were former MacOS developers. A Palm, to me, feels like a Compact Mac shrunk down to a handheld size and weight.
Now if only I could make my m125 chime when I turn it on and make the generic Mac system beep when it encounters an error...
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
The Apple Newton was discontinued in 1998.
h tm
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The Newton browses the internet wirelessly via Airport (a.k.a. Wi-Fi or 802.11);
http://www.ff.iij4u.or.jp/~ngc/eng/newtwave.htm
syncs with nSync (OS X)
http://www.everchanging.com/newton/
syncs your MP3 collection with iTunes
http://www.pixell.net/newton/
runs a Java Virtual Machine (waba)
http://cs.gmu.edu/~sean/projects/newton/waba/
there's been a VNC client since... ever
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/saweyer/newton/vnc.
A processor accelerator is available
http://shop.pixsolution.com/catalog/product_info.
Apple was one of the original investors in the ARM technology, from way back before Intel ever dreamt of buying it. The Newton runs a RISC StrongARM at 162 Mhz (compare to a 2003/Tungsten T2 running OMAP/ARM at 140 Mhz !!!)
If anything, the major weakness of the system is its limited memory heap, but we are talking about a 1997 design here.
Can you say... Apple ahead of its time?
The next pasture is always greener
If you want to emulate nintendo games, there are native emulators for the iPaq and other PocketPC platforms. Just check out pocketNES for example. It runs at full speed, no frame skip, and even COLOR, something that the newton does not have.
...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
If you buy a GBA with the intention of playing NES games on it, you are wasting money (and probably need to be smacked in the head). I'd say it's still a good deal if you want to play GBA games, though. ;-)
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
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...
What apple needs to do is bring the newton back. It was way ahead of its time ( well, and expensive ) but now the public has caught up.. The time is right for the return of the only true PDA ever.. ( bastardized versions of windows or the clunky 'palm-OS' don't really count.. )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I've heard this before, and it just doesn't ring true for me. Graffiti requires you to be much more "exceptionally careful" with your handwriting. If you can make Graffiti work for you, you can certainly make the Newt's much more flexible handwriting recognition engine work with much less effort.
I think it's a conceptual problem, really. The Newton attempted to recognize all handwriting, and thus many users blamed the Newton when it couldn't decipher their illegible script. It was Apple's fault, not theirs.
But the Palms didn't even pretend that they'd recognize your handwriting. They simply forced users to learn a new way to write. If Graffiti failed to recognize what you wrote, well, then you must not be doing it right. So people blamed themselves instead of the device.
my Handspring was much better for most of the typical PDA usage- entering phone numbers or appointment times
I think entering phone numbers and appointment times became "typical PDA usage" because that's all you could conveniently do with Graffiti. That's my experience anyway, YMMV.
Sure the Newton's natural system is faster for writing large amounts of text(assuming you have perfect handwriting) but people just didn't(and still don't) use PDAs for that sort of thing.
I'd say that there's an amount of text between the size of a phone number and a "large amount of text" which is what the Newton was really designed for. Short notes, quick e-mails, reminders, that sort of thing. And lots of people have been very successful using it for just that.
Again, whatever works for you, works for you. But I personally really liked what the Newton did, and would've loved to see what a 2004 Newton OS and handheld would be like.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.