newton os
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Apple eMate 300 prototype pops up on eBay, buy it now for $8,500
At this point we kind of just expect vintage Apple machines to surface on eBay: just last month we came across a WALT prototype, followed by a Macintosh 128k a few days ago. Now, the fresh face at eBay's auction party is Apple's eMate 300, which is said to be in "good working order" and showing no signs of wear. There's no bidding war going on at the moment, but there is a "Buy it now" option that's got the laptop priced at a whopping $8,500. Of course, you're likely to get your money's worth, with a 25MHz ARM 710a RISC processor, a 480 x 320 display and an almighty stylus pen -- all while being powered by Cupertino's Newton OS. Think this is worth adding to your fancy collector's shelf? We'll let you chew on that while you pore over the sell-off page.
Newton releases, development in 2011
The Newton is almost 20 years old now and still has a developer community actively creating new resources for the personal digital assistant. It's a labor of love that's chronicled at the My Apple Newton blog run by Tony Kan, aka Genghis7777. Just like everyone else this time of the year, Kan recently took a look back at 2011 and summarized all the new software, hardware and other resources released for Apple's first tablet device. The list isn't as long as the accomplishments of the iPhone dev team, but it's still impressive for a device released the same year Intel shipped the first Pentium processors. In the past year, the community has worked on a proof of concept version of the Newton OS emulator, Einstein, for iOS and Android, and an iPhone app that lets Newton owners install packages from an iPhone. They've also preserved some Newton apps and archived the Stillnewt website. You can read the rest of the list at the My Apple Newton blog. Even if you're not a Newton owner, it's worth a visit to support this group of fellow Apple fans. [Via 512 Pixels]
Sir Isaac Newton's notes get a digital makeover, coming to a browser near you
It isn't a rarity for the folks at the University of Cambridge to introduce us to some of their digital findings, and on this occasion they are delivering 4,000 of Newton's manuscripts right to your virtual door. These gems are part of an abundant collection of over 12,000 handwritten notes and hardcovers that the University holds under possession -- the plan is to make the entire selection digitally available "over the next few months." Amongst the scanned documents, you'll be able to find a plethora of his genius scribbles stamped on books that were used during his theory process, some of which are: Trinity College Notebook, Waste Book and the famed Principia Mathematica. Who said an OS would be Newton's only way through a mainframe?
Einstein brings Newton OS to the iPhone, handwriting recognition and all
Palm OS on the iPhone? Check. Android on the iPhone? Quasi-check. Newton OS on the iPhone? As of today, that's a trio of affirmations. Developer Matthias Melcher has wisely used a good bit of his free time to port one of the world's forgotten-but-not-forgotten operating systems onto Apple's iOS platform, and while things are understandably sluggish right now, he's currently working on performance optimizations that'll hopefully have it running like a clock before long. He's also made the source code available to anyone willing to tinker with the emulator, and somehow or another, he's even managed to bring over the much-hyped handwriting recognition aspect. Don't believe us? Hop on past the break and hit play.
