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History of the Apple Newton

Posted by Zonk on from the bonk-ow! dept.

Sabah Arif writes "We've all heard of Apple's Newton, the portable handheld device under John Sculley's rule at Apple that debuted to big media attention and much fanfare but never managed to take a strong footing in the marketplace. The same handhel that went on to be 'Steve'd' when Mr. RDF killed the project after taking control of Apple. That's the extent of knowledge most of us have with regard to Apple's first handheld device. OS Opinion sheds light on the early days of the pocket Apple." From the article: "Apple in the late eighties had become stagnant. The Macintosh had become Apple's cash cow like the Apple II that had preceded it. To protect the Mac, Apple was hesitant to start or pursue any project that might compromise the company's revenues. Several people in the corporation were weary of this approach, and began to look at the future of computing. One of those people was Steve Sakoman."

6 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Beat up Martin by xCepheus · · Score: 3, Informative

    For those of you who are not a fan of the Simpsons or don't have all 350+ episodes memorized by heart this is a reference where the school bullies (Jimbo, Nelson and others) make a note on their Newton to "Beat up Martin" (Martin Prince one of the nerdiest and smartest kids in school) using the Newton Stylus. After writing in the phrase... the Newton interprets the Stylus input as "Eat up Martha." In frustration, the bullies throw the Newton at Martin which hits him in the head.

    God, I'm such a nerd.

  2. Defying Gravity by tsangc · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's a fantastic book called Defying Gravity about the development of Newton. It's worth the read.

    Sure wish I got one while they were around--a local store was giving away a copy free with every Newton 2100 back in the day.

  3. Re:I no know by Mage66 · · Score: 5, Informative

    RDF = "Reality Distortion Field"

  4. Article in full by oscast · · Score: 2, Informative

    "We've all heard of Apple's Newton, the portable handheld device under John Sculley's rule at Apple that debuted to big media attention and much fanfare but never managed to take a strong footing in the marketplace -- only to be "Steve'd" when Mr. RDF killed the project after taking control of Apple. That's the extent of knowledge most of us have with regard to Apple's first handheld device.

    Thomas Hormby submitted the following editorial to osOpinion/osViews, which gives us more in-depth knowledge about the Netwon project during its original development -- such as the fact that it could be said that the Netwon originated from a concept device Sculley called Knowledge Navigator."
    --

    Apple in the late eighties had become stagnant. The Macintosh had become Apple's cash cow like the Apple II that had preceded it. To protect the Mac, Apple was hesitant to start or pursue any project that might compromise the company's revenues. Several people in the corporation were weary of this approach, and began to look at the future of computing. One of those people was Steve Sakoman.

    Steve Sakoman worked at Hewlett Packard before he came to Apple, where he helped develop the first HP notebook. When he joined Apple he was happy that he 'was not going to make DOS clones for the rest of my life.' Steve had joined Apple to work on the MacPhone, a collaboration between Apple and AT&T.

    After the project was canceled, he saw that Apple was not willing to take the same risks it had with the original Macintosh or even the Macintosh II. He went to Apple's director of new products, Jean Louis Gass'e, and threatened to quit unless he was allowed to create the 'future Macintosh', a computer that would be as influential on the computer industry as the original Macintosh was. Gass'e sympathized with him, and gave him permission to begin an independent research group

    While Sakoman was at Hewlett Packard, he saw several 'hand entry computers that did not use keyboards. He was intrigued with the idea of scrapping the keyboard. The fact that most computers used a QWERTY keyboard was a mere fluke, he thought. Steve thought that a more natural method of input would take hold, like handwriting or speech.

    Sakoman set to work immediately, getting his brand new research group off the ground. He recruited developers from around the company, including some original Macintosh developers. Like the original Macintosh and their off-site office, Texaco Tower, the new team moved to a converted warehouse on Bubb Road. Steve named the team 'Newton'. He did so because Sir'Isaac Newton was featured prominently in Apple's original logo and because he had prompted so many changes in the way people viewed the world.

    At the time of the Macintosh II introduction, John Sculley had a video produced featuring his Knowledge Navigator device. He envisioned a tablet style device that would fold out to reveal a large color LCD display. The software would interpret the users commands via a humanoid assistant. The device could recognize voice commands, and interpret handwriting commands. Prescient of the internet, Sculley would have the device be able to communicate fluently with similar devices and servers around the world.

    The Knowledge Navigator never went any further than the video, but John Sculley hoped that the technologies he had envisioned in the device would find life in other Apple projects. He thought that the Newton would be able fulfill his vision, and became one of its most vocal proponents.

    The research group first found out what they wanted in a computer, and created a prototype design. Without any marketing staff, the team came up with a very advanced, very expensive device. The new machine was to be based on two AT&T Hobbit processors (a design that was very easy to program for) and would be about the size as an A4 sheet of paper, and feature a large, LCD, grayscale display. The true star of the new computer would be its software. The engineers wanted full handwriting recognition that

  5. There's Still Active Development! by nathos · · Score: 1, Informative
    There's still some cool new software & drivers being released, including: For lots of other updated Newton info, check out the Newton FAQ or WikiWikiNewt.
  6. Re:Larry Yeager by pilgrim23 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Since no one got it: the above is the embbeded Newton easter egg. Type Rosetta! Rosetta! Rosetta! and the 3rd Rosetta! is replaced by "Hey That's Me!" Incidentally, the same easter egg is there in the current Mac OS X's handwritting component: Inkwell. Understandable; the Newton software was far ahead of its time.

    --
    - Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.