Newton Poetry

I took my suggestion from the iPhone SDK announcement and posed an offer to the Newtontalk mailing list:

So who wants to take up a collection for the $99 developer’s fee, grab a bit of Cocoa, and make a Newton Touch app? I’ve got $5 toward the effort!

One reader, Simon, correctly pointed out that the software developer’s kit was actually free; it’s the right to upload software to, and therefore receive the blessing from, Apple’s App Store that costs $99.

The point is still there. With reports of 100,000 downloads of the iPhone software kit, there has to be someone out there that is thinking, “You know what would be fun? A Newton emulator!”

Is this even possible? Plenty have reported on the limitations imposed on software developers – no app can remain open in the background, no scripting, etc. – so that Apple can keep the platform secure.

Mattias of Robowerk.com says the limitations could cripple the entire thing:

The iPhone SDK has severe limitations in its license that would make an Einstein emulator useless. Apart form having to disable the ability to install packages in order to conform, we would also not be able to run in the background, so no alarm or calender events (it may be
possible to solve the first issue by wrapping Newton packages and have them installed through iTunes which would give the per-application control back to Apple). There is also the lack of pen input and a very high resolution, yet small screen, which makes HWR impossible and hitting a Newton button extremely hard.

But there has to be a way to, say, scribble something on your Newton Notepad app and have it show up in iPhone’s Notes. Or scribble in a contact into Newton’s Names and have it sync to Address Book. Same with Calendar and iCal.

This would solve one of the main dilemmas today’s Newton user faces: the difficulty connecting a MessagePad’s information with OS X. If an iPhone could run a Newton app, syncing would be a breeze.

On their own, the iPhone and iPod Touch are becoming what the Newton always dreamed of: a platform to organize your computing life on the go. So there really is no need for a Newton app other than to just play around with and show to your geeky friends. They’re based on two totally different input philosophies (though there is a stylus available for the iPhone now, as we’ve seen), and I can see why switching from one to the other would be pointless.

Someone on the Newtontalk list brough up Apple’s possible resistance to a Newton app being made available in the first place. All applications have to be certified by Apple before users can download them from the App Store, and Apple probably has no interest in seeing its ten-year-dead OS making any sort of reappearance. There are still jailbroken iPhones and iPod Touches out there, though, that provide a handy bypass system.

The idea of the Newton lives on in the iPhone: novel input mechanism, calendar and contact syncing, e-mail, web surfing, dock-loading applications, etc. And when developer start churning out to-do apps and financial apps and gaming apps, all that will be left untouched will be the Newton’s handwriting recognition. The iPhone will be what the Newton wanted to be when it grew up, in full color.

But when developers program videos like babes washing your iPhone’s screen, or apps that mimic the Nintendo Entertainment System (as Newton developers did with Newtendo), a fun Newton emulator doesn’t seem like such a worthless project.

Forgive the header changes – I’ve been playing around with a custom look for Newton Poetry.

The one above is the one I’m leaning to, but maybe you saw yesterday’s header and liked it better:

Let me know. I’ve also played around with a parchment-style header, to go with the “poetry” part of the site:

I like changing the theme to fit the season, or the holidays, so the current masthead won’t be around forever.  Maybe when I pick a style I can keep it as the default, and switch things up periodically.  One of these days, I’d love to abandon the template design and break out with my own CSS wizardry (something I’m learning, and I do own the “newton poetry” domain.)

Any blog header stylists out there want to take a shot at it, I’d love to see your work.

One of the challenges of owning and using a Newton in the modern computing world is its lack of support for Apple’s OS X.

There’s no easy direct-connect option that offers the stability and goof-proof usability of Newton Connection Kit or Utilities, but there are options (as this Google Answers commentary points out).

The idea is that, using apps like NewTen, Escale or NewtSync, you can sync your iCal and Address Book entries to Newton’s own Calendar and Names databases. It’s a beautiful idea, and a handy route for us Newton die-hards who want a more modern interface than OS 7+ offers. Who needs a Blackberry or Palm when you’ve got Apple’s original PDA?

I will say that I’ve tried a few these solutions, and none have worked for me. I think that it’s a combination of (a) my USB-to-serial adapter isn’t supported by my iBook G4 and (b) these applications require Newton OS 2.0 to run properly. Stuck at OS 1.3, there’s not much I can do but use Newton Connection Kit on my G3 Bondi iMac.

But some Newton users have used both of these programs with varied success rates. There has been plenty of dicussion in the Newtontalk mailing list about both applications, and some support is out there for Newton users having issues.

So let’s dig into these one by one, and see what each have to offer.

More… »

[NOTE: I forgot to add this, but I’m running OS X 10.2.8 – just in case the network stuff doesn’t look familiar.]

I love my G3 iBook. I bought it right before my Route 66 trip because (a) I was nervous about taking my then-new G4 and (b) the thing is built for road-warriors and students. It’s the toughest laptop I’ve ever seen, and I knew if I took it all the way across the country, it would survive in a pinch.

And it did, both on the Route trip and the Seattle trip. But one drawback was its lack of wireless connectivity. I underestimated the number of hotels – even run-down ones – that have wireless internet these days. One night, in Needles, California, I drove to three different hotels looking for an ethernet connection, never finding one (which is one reason why the Route updates didn’t come as often as I wanted).

Now that’s all over with. I grabbed an AirPort card off eBay for a reasonable price, and took today to actually install the thing. More… »

How much fun can faxing yourself be? Try doing it with a Newton!

I tested the Newton’s faxing capabilities last week, to great success. It’s doggone easy. Here’s how.

First, get yourself a Newton external fax. I grabbed mine off eBay for about $1, plus shipping, which was very affordable. With the 100 series Newtons, there’s no fax card or extra software required. Everything you need is right there.

The Newton fax takes two AA batteries (in the slot pictured above), or it has an AC input for 7 voltz. I had two spare AAs around, so I used those. Next, I unplugged my phone from the cord and plugged the end into the fax. That’s all you need to do to set up the fax part. More… »

That’s right: you can now make your own “world’s thinnest notebook” – a MacBook Paper.

See the apcommunity for video and complete instructions, including a print-yourself PDF to make your own MacBook Paper.  I did their version with some scrap paper, a pair of scissors, a glue stick, and a toothpick for the tricky parts.  Also, I went ahead and made my own iPhone Paper (print out courtesy of Gizmodo), aka iPaper.

Fun stuff, and a great stand-by project until (like me) you can save up for your own. It’s up to you, though, to attach pieces of string to make the iPaper fully functional.

I’m just excited about that MacBook Paper/envelope trick Steve Jobs demonstrated at Macworld 2008.

Want to install a package on your MessagePad – like, say, an update to the Newton’s OS – but wondering how to get started?

I noticed that my Newton 110’s OS was still stuck at version 1.2. I knew Apple.com kept a comprehensive list of old software and driver downloads, so I started there first. This is a good starting page for Newton inquiries; it breaks down your MessagePad model, and leads you to its listing of Newton OS software. Here you’ll find updates, connection software (like the Newton Connection Kit and Utilities), modem drivers, and much more. Browsing through the listing, I found my OS 1.3 listing here:

I clicked on the “read me” file just to see what I was getting into. Then I clicked on the “MP_110_1.3_345333.sea.bin” file and the download started right away. More… »

Got to play around with an Apple II for the first time last night, in all its green-and-black glory.

Went to Curtis’s house to see if the darned thing even ran anymore. I picked it up during one of our e-waste drives, took it home, fired it up, and got a bunch of clinking sounds.

In a former life, I swear I was an IT professional, but even after taking the CPU apart I couldn’t figure it out.

Turns out, I just had the wrong floppy disks. Curtis popped a ProDOS disk in and it fired right up.

So we played with Logo and an old Jeopardy! game, and I relived my old BASIC and DOS days: all command line, all the time. Good fun.

Part of being a Newton MessagePad fan is appreciating low-end Macs and Apples. After all, if you’re using a Newton, you’re using a low-end PDA.

I took a PowerBook 5300cs over to Curtis’s to try and find an AC adapter, too, but he didn’t have anything that provided the 24 volts needed to start the thing up. Oh well – AC adapters are pretty easy to come by.

And when I do get one, I’ll be able to install that copy of Newton Quicken I’ve been wanting to play around with.

My past Newton problems? Solved.

All it took was a fresh set of batteries. I grabbed a pack of AA Duracells, popped them into the MessagePad, hit the “Reset” button on the back, pressed the on/off switch, and *Bling!* It’s running again.

I restored the Newton’s settings via NCK on the iMac, and now all my stuff is back. The only thing that didn’t get restored was the date – and there really has to be a better way to set the date than cycling through all the months since 1995. But oh well.

What a dummy I am. I’m almost scared to report this back to the Newtonlist – but that will teach me, right?

The exciting thing is, I can get right back to Newton-izing poetry. Starting Monday.

There’s no telling what people will use a Newton for.

For instance, while checking Low End Mac yesterday, I discovered someone had found a way to make a MessagePad…

…a phone.

Over at the Unofficial Apple Weblog, a guy name Marcus turned a MessagePad 210 – with a little help from a SIM card – into a workable phone.

More opportunities – like, say, scribbling poetry into a Newton to see what comes spilling out – abound, which we’ll discover later.

But still. Need a weekend project that costs about $50?

Lots of luck.