Newton
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Eat Up Martha
Of all the snarky Apple references in pop culture, my all time favorite is this brief clip from The Simpsons. During a school assembly, Kearney tells his buddy, "...take a memo on your Newton: Beat up Martin." He scribbles away only to see the Newton's handwriting recognition interpret his memo as "Eat up Martha."A few years ago, a number of plastic Simpsons characters were issued, and the Kearney character actually shipped with a tiny Newton with "Eat up Martha" on the screen. I have one in my office.Update: Here is a picture of the Kearney toy.
Rig of the Day: Great vintage collection
Check this out. Flickr user Henri has got a great set of vintage Apple products in his snapshot. Note the (blueberry?) iMac, the Powerbook, Newton Message Pad, the Apple PowerCD with remote (wow), eMate, Color Classic and a Twentieth Anniversary Mac. I must confess, I had never seen an Apple PowerCD before, and had to write to Henri for an explanation. "MacCollection" posted by Henri Smeets.If you'd like to see your own rig featured here, simply upload photos into our group Flickr pool. We'll select an image every day to highlight.
Rig of the Day: Intel meets StrongARM
With both the Macworld Expo and the Worldwide Newton Conference wrapping up ealier this month, I thought this shot was entirely appropriate. An Intel-powered MacBook Pro and its remote flank a Newton 2100. It's nice to see these distant cousins getting along so well. I've often jokingly said that my own 2100 is "...the size of a baby dolphin," and seeing this one in relation to the Apple remote only confirms its size (hint: get a lot of cargo pants)."Intel & StrongARM" by "Splorp"If you'd like to see your own rig featured here, simply upload photos into our group Flickr pool. We'll select an image every day to highlight.
Newton co-creator buys "Newton Museum"
Recently, John Venzon put his Newton collection up for sale on Ebay. His wasn't any ordinary collection, but an assemblage of every Newton ever made, plus all of the accompanying manuals, CDs, software etc. John's Newts made up the Newton Museum, which he sadly has had to abandon. Earlier this week, his collection sold to none other than Walter Smith, co-creator of the Newton. Walter has also taken over the museum's domain, so it's all in good hands. [Via The Cult of Mac Blog]
Newton OS on a Nokia 770
Following Paul Guyot's release of Einstein, the Newton emulator for Linux-based PDAs, the race has been on to get it running on different devices. At last week's Worldwide Newton Conference, Paul gave a demo using a Sharp Zaurus, and today, Andy Diller has got it working on his Nokia 770. Very cool! The existing Newtons will eventually stop working, so it's great to see this taking shape. Remember, if you have a Linux-based PDA with X11 support, you can (most likely) run the Newton OS.Good work, Andy!Update: Paul has made the Nokia 770 binaries available.
The Newton OS on non-Apple hardware
The big news out of the Worldwide Newton Conference this weekend is that Paul Guyot has successfully gotten the Newton OS up and running on a Sharp Zaurus. This emulation project is called "Einstein," and a beta is available for download today. If you have a Linux-based PDA with X11 support, you can run the Newton OS! You can view the slides from Paul's presentation online [link:PDF]As Steve said, the soul of the Macintosh is not the hardware used to run it, but in the software. The same is true of the Newt. The project is still very much a beta, so don't expect your Sharp to function just as your 2100 does. Still, this is quite a feat. Well done, Paul![Via Tow.com]
Worldwide Newton Conference begins today
The Macworld Expo is coming to a close in San Francisco, but that doesn't mean that the fun is over. The Worldwide Newton Conference begins three days of workshops, information sessions and keynote speeches today. Scheduled activities include a workshop on creating Newton fonts, an update on the Einstein Newton emulator by Paul Guyot and keynote speeches by Larry Yaeger (Technical Lead in the development of the handwriting recognition system behind the Newton PDAs and Mac OS X's Inkwell) and James Joaquin, who will present a brief history of Newton development, among others.If you're attending, drop us a line! We'd love to have your photos and/or reports.
Wall clock from Newton eMate spare parts
What do you do when you have a ton of spare parts from Newton eMates lying around? Make a gutted eMate wall clock of course!Andrew Peleikis of Canada had collected many eMates from eBay for repair purposes. The extra parts--a logic board, a screen, and a battery--were enough to make a working, albeit rather naked Newton wall clock. He then used the BigCountdown app (handily this app only works on eMates and Newton Message Pads) to display a large clock on his eMate's display. Newton geeks rock my strange little hardware hacking world.[via Hack A Day]
Newton Museum going-out-of-business sale
If this large vintage collection of Macs made its way into Dave's basement, I'm sure all the Newton-related items being offered up in this eBay auction will also end up there. The complete collection of The Newton Museum's stock is up for grabs and it's nothing if not a thorough collection. I mean, they even have an eMate. Anyway, everyone else is digging this, so I thought we should too. If you win it, let us know.
CNET editors miss the Newton
I don't know how it happened, but I managed to snooze through the whole Newton craze. Call me a late bloomer. The gang at CNET was wide awake, however, and they have placed the Newton on their list of the 10 technologies they miss most. Joining the Newton are Kozmo.com (oh yeah... my lazy bones really miss them), Napster (the original... when it was cool to steal music), the original Palm Pilot (I started with a Palm III... late to the party again!), manned space exploration and the loved by (those worth) millions... Concorde supersonic jet. Perhaps the CNET editors should take a trip down to Dave's basement for a little Newton lovin'?Yep, them's some fine memories... Then again, they also include "wires" and "vinyl LPs" on that list, which are two things I can't imagine ever missing. Let's get a show of hands. Who here has or once had a Newton? If you have one, what are you currently using it for?(I feel like we've taken an informal poll of this nature before, but I can't locate it right now, so humor me)
