envision Newton with a color screen, a voice input mic, and Firewire support? WOW
Who would suspect that a personal data assistant orphaned by its manufacturer in 1998 would still be in use by some rather vocal enthusiasts -- and that it would synchronize with Apple's latest music player iTunes!
This week's Bay Area "Mercury News" carried an interesting story on Apple's Newton, and the faithful following that seems to hang on to the innovative device. What's more interesting is that Newton is keeping up with the digital life!
First released in 1993, the Newton is still prized by users as "better than Palm" and certainly with good reason. The Mercury article referenced "newfangled tasks like playing MP3 music files" as one growing areas of the revival. So, this old mouse decided to do a bit of snooping around.
Searching Google for "Newton MessagePad" and "MP3" brought us to the Newton support site, (one of many) where a huge collection of links take you to just about any kind of add-on or updater you'd like for your Newton. There too, you'll find a remarkable collection of software from freeware to shareware -- and even commercial!
One such site features Eckhart Koppen's creations MADNewton and MADMax that turns your Newton MessagePads 2000 and 2100 into an up-topdate MP3 player and decoder. The decoder not only lets Newton play MP3 files but pulls in Icecast or Shoutcast MP3 streams as well!
Synchronizing MP3 files to your Newton couldn't be easier thanks to Brooklyn programmer Eric Schneck's, iTunes plugin running under Mac OS 9 or Classic.
Reading the articles and looking at several dozen photos turned up in my search makes me almost yearn to get a Newton! The big screen appears more inviting than those little hand-helds, and the style and design still seems to be very much in step with today's technologies. Since the later models were built with standard card slots that accept memory cards and a variety of accessories, it's easy enough to just plug up the Ethernet and plug in to the "digital" world.
Perhaps Jobs couldn't see the writing on the wall when he returned to Apple in '98 and axed the product from production. As you remember just a few years earlier they felt the online world offered no future for apple and they sold their popular ALPE to Quantum Computer -- who later changed the product's name to America Online.
But can you envision Newton with a color screen, a voice input mic, and Firewire support? WOW... what a hit that would be!
As for this old mouse, I think I'll just wait a little longer to get one of those pocket gizmos... 'cause when I buy one, I don't want to have to do anything but talk to it!
Be sure to see reader responses to this article.
Until next time, happy mousing.
Fred Showker, Editor/Publisher UG Net News
Fred Showker is co-editor of "MUG Info Manager," the User Group Network News service, and a founding Apple User Group Advisory Board (UGAB) member. He was an original founder of the User Group Forum on AppleLink Personal Edition which became America Online in 1988 ... read more
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