21–30 of 38 posts
Something that strikes me, using a Newton today, is just how little has changed in the fundamental things people want to do with a mobile device: messaging, contacts, calendars, and notes. For all that modern devices can do, these four essentials seem more or less the same in concept and function between my MessagePad 120 and my iPad Pro, despite 30 years between them.
I still have a Newton (a 2100), and although it ceased to be a daily carry device for me somewhere around 2007, I only finally stopped using it altogether just a few years ago, as it was becoming increasingly difficult to move my notes on and off the thing. The bad handwriting trope has always baffled me. I've never had a problem. I know that the 2000 series Newtons are considerably improved compared to the original…
I’ve always wanted to get one of these old Apple Newtons and trying to upgrade the built in handwriting recognition system with something a bit more modern, within the limitations of having 8mb of ram :). Anyone have any experience hacking them?
I think it would be more interesting to run under emulation. The hardware is getting a bit old and creaky these days. Under emulation it could enjoy a considerable CPU and RAM boost. An iPad with a pencil would be an ideal target. (Given that it uses an ARM processor, maybe you wouldn't need to emulate it, on A and M-chip devices.)
You need to locate the ROM. The Internet Archive has some: https://archive.org/download/AppleNewtonROMs
One of the most fascinating things about the Newton is that its systems and applications were written in Dylan, a LISP-like language, though that seems to have been replaced by NewtonScript. https://opendylan.org/_static/dylanwwdc94brochure.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20160328123939/http://opendylan.... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22398899
Dylan was never on the Newton. The Newton team had two proposed products, Senior and Junior. Senior was gonna run Dylan, but they kept waiting on the Dylan team to produce something usable, and it never happened. So they gave up on Senior, dumped the notion of using Dyan entirely, and finished Junior using NewtonScript to get the product out the door. That became the Newton.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dylan was never on the Newton. The Newton team had two proposed products, Senior and Junior. Senior was gonna run Dylan, but they kept waiting on the Dylan team to produce something usable, and it never happened. So they gave up on Senior, dumped the notion of using Dyan entirely, and finished Junior using NewtonScript to get the product out the door. That became the Newton.
Yeah, that's what Walter Smith says: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22400696
One of the most fascinating things about the Newton is that its systems and applications were written in Dylan, a LISP-like language, though that seems to have been replaced by NewtonScript. https://opendylan.org/_static/dylanwwdc94brochure.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20160328123939/http://opendylan.... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22398899
I'm quite fascinated by pre-1997 Apple's projects. Before Jobs' return, Apple was an unfocused beacon of innovation; in its attempts to find a successor to the classic Mac OS, it explored various paths, but none of these paths led to a successor until Apple bought NeXT. Apple's more radical explorations during this era seem to have a profound Xerox PARC influence. Xerox PARC is probably most famous for Smalltalk and its GUI. However, there are many people who don't know that Xerox developed its own Lisp environment, Interlisp, which was known for its GUI (not all Lisp innovations came from MIT). These explorations ended once Apple committed to NeXT technology for its foundation in 1997, and today Apple has been pursuing its own direction (e.g., the iOS human interface guidelines, Swift, the gradual inclusion of iOS UI/UX elements and practices in macOS) that is distinct from the Xerox PARC, classic Macintosh, and NeXT traditions.
Most first-in-kind technology is usually quite expensive[1] (especially during the 80s/90s era), but Apple has frequently been able to release innovative products (relatively) cheaply, as far as I can tell.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it would be more interesting to run under emulation. The hardware is getting a bit old and creaky these days. Under emulation it could enjoy a considerable CPU and RAM boost. An iPad with a pencil would be an ideal target. (Given that it uses an ARM processor, maybe you wouldn't need to emulate it, on A and M-chip devices.)
Here you go: https://github.com/pguyot/Einstein You need to locate the ROM. The Internet Archive has some: https://archive.org/download/AppleNewtonROMs
I still have a Newton (a 2100), and although it ceased to be a daily carry device for me somewhere around 2007, I only finally stopped using it altogether just a few years ago, as it was becoming increasingly difficult to move my notes on and off the thing. The bad handwriting trope has always baffled me. I've never had a problem. I know that the 2000 series Newtons are considerably improved compared to the original…
I was always amazed by it. Other PDAs used a special alphabet one had to memorize, but Newton learned and recognized natural handwriting. And while Newton didn't last long, the handwriting recognition did, reincarnated as Inkwell. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inkwell_(Macintosh)
Graffiti was so easy to use that you would see people write with it on whiteboards.
I still have a Newton (a 2100), and although it ceased to be a daily carry device for me somewhere around 2007, I only finally stopped using it altogether just a few years ago, as it was becoming increasingly difficult to move my notes on and off the thing. The bad handwriting trope has always baffled me. I've never had a problem. I know that the 2000 series Newtons are considerably improved compared to the original…
I worked at Apple UK at the time, and for a while did Newton Support!
I loved those devices!
They were so capable. They had IR built in, and you could send files to each other. You could also get TV Remote apps! All amazing stuff to me at the time!
And unlike the Palm devices of the time, didn't erase themselves when the batteries ran out!