After the iPhone SDK was release, I wondered whether it would make sense to throw a Newton emulator in the mix. Shucks, I wondered whether it would even be possible.
Leave it to Newton programmers to actually do the digging.
From Jason on the Newtontalk list:
Well, I started out by ensuring that Einstein would build on the new
SDK. Then tried changing targets to see what would happen. I did this for KLibs as well as Einstein. K Libs seems to build fine as a static library using the new target which was sort of surprising to me but since the BSD subsystem can be installed on the iPhone I thought perhaps it would work. When building Einstein for the new target I run into complications. There are two at the moment that I am facing. One is with missing X11 header files and the other with the K Libs dependency. Not sure why the compiler isn’t finding the X include files since I am certain the X11 SDK is installed and Einstein did build cleanly before. I am sure it’s just a configuration problem in the project that I’ve caused. So far I haven’t had any luck trying to resolve the dependency with K Libs that Einstein has by creating a new target, one that depends upon a new K Libs target for the new target device.
And a reply, from Matthias:
Do not build the target based on X11. X11 is not part of the iPhone
and so it is not part of the iPhone header files (they are different
headers than the system header files). Einstein for iPhone must be built using the special iPhone version of Cocoa, which is quite similar, yet not the same. You have to use UIKit to generate the basic UI and emulator surface.
I don’t know about you, but there’s hope to be found. Newton developers are working on the iNewton as I type this – and that’s a neat feeling. Give them all the support you can!
I, too, am hopeful to have Einstein running on my iPod Touch. I have a 2100 that I love, but it’s just lacking some things that make it less usable. I look forward to seeing where this goes!
Posted by Tom on May 8th, 2009.
Wow, I would love to know about a Newton Emulator on the iPhone.
Posted by PalmSounds on August 11th, 2009.
Any news on this?
Posted by PalmSounds on September 24th, 2009.
Oh, how I’d love to see this!
While a native GUI would be better, an X11 version would make for a fine stop-gap… And there are at least two X servers available for the iPhone:
iX11:
http://www.apptism.com/apps/ix11-x-server
and another available through Cydia on jailbroken phones.
This might make for a good starting point!
Aaron
Posted by RevAaron on September 24th, 2009.
It’s done. The source code is available on GoogleCode. The video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocZcMlz4Unk
Posted by Matthias on September 15th, 2010.
[…] Melcher has done something I’ve only been able to dream about: put the Newton OS Einstein emulator on an […]
Posted by Newton Poetry — Finally: Newton Einstein project on iPhone on September 15th, 2010.