Newton Poetry

I went to the Newtonlist mailing group and got some direction on how to fix my MessagePad 110.

Member Sonny, I presume of Flickr fame, sent me this:

Have you tried having the MP110 without any AA batteries then holding the power switch for about 60 seconds then holding the reset for about another 60 seconds? Leave the MP110 as is for about a day or two then try powering up with a Newton Adapter or a fresh set of Duracell AA batteries…

Sonny also pointed me in this direction, which gives a similar set of instructions. But those definitely didn’t work.

This weekend I’ll pick up a fresh set of batteries. I also have to grab a recharger, but I want to get something quality, like the MAHA I’ve heard so many good things about.

I think that’ll be the lasts straw. If I can’t get the Newton running after Sonny’s advice and the new batteries, I’ll cash it in and spring for a 2×00 series model.

Still no word on my broken MessagePad 110.

I tried replacing the batteries last night, but it still didn’t turn on. Also discovered the “RESET” button on the back, under the battery cover, and that didn’t work either.

Next stop? Newton forums.

As I reported yesterday, the MessagePad 110 is on the fritz. I’m going to check the battery strength and see if my rechargeables are dead – it seems to be the most obvious answer to why my Newton suddenly blinked out yesterday morning.

Meanwhile, some fun stuff from Lifehacker.com, one of my favorite blogs.

Breathe new life into your old gadgets. This is a great article on how to revive your old iPod or computer long after the “usefulness” date has passed. I like stuff like this because, as a Newton user, I use something that’s expiration date came a long time ago. If it weren’t for this recent outage, you’d be reading some Christmas carols from an “obsolete” PDA.

Read Ebooks on your iPod with Ebook to Images. Here’s a way to read eBooks on your iPod. This was one of the great features of MessagePads: the ability to read books as Newton Books.

If push comes to shove, this might be a good time to delve into the Newton mailing list I subscribed to a while back. That, or shop for a 2100 on eBay.

If you have any idea about what happened to my 110, or if something similar happened to yours, be sure to let me know. I’d love any help I can get.

Bad news come early today.

Midway through transcribing “O Holy Night,” right at the “Oh night when Christ was born” part, my Newton completely blipped out.

And first I thought it was just the sleep mode activating.  But I tried turning it back on, and a long, vertical black line flashed on the screen, then nothing.

Again.  Nothing.

Don’t know what’s the deal, but I’ll just let it sit for the day and work itself out.  I don’t need this right now, and frankly the MessagePad doesn’t need it either.  It was going to go through a serious run of Christmas carols before the weekend.  Now it sits, lifeless.

More news as it becomes available.

Here’s further proof, from Cult of Mac.

Turns out the Pogo Stylus is stealing your finger’s thunder, if you’re an iPhone or iPod Touch user. For $25, you too can have a chubby stylus that looks a heckuva lot less elegant than us Newton users enjoy.

Hats off to the Pogo folks for thinking of this: the commentors at Cult of Mac love the idea of a stylus just for those who suffer through winter, like we’re doing right now in Michigan.

Some have already wondered if the iPod Touch, and iPhone, are becoming the Newton replacements (see “Is the iPod Touch the new Newton“), but Cult of Mac gives it their “Pointless Product” alert. I don’t see why; sure, the whole dynamic idea of the iPhone, according to Steve Jobs, is its lack of stylus. But for those with fingers that don’t handle small objects so well, this could be a lifesaver. And I can see those of us in the Midwest needing a stylus just so we wouldn’t have to take our gloves off.

The nice thing about the Newton was the need for just a stylus. Because it recognized handwriting, there was no need for a keyboard (even though they did exist, and were useful).

Then again, we could forget the stylus and just start using an iBlade.

Looking to play around with the Newton – without the MessagePad?

Head over to Einstein.

Einstein ports the Newton’s operating system ROM onto Macs and lets you play around with the OS on your desktop. The whole project has now become open source, called OpenEinstein.

Says Paul Guyot, Einstein’s creator, on the Newton:

What I particularly enjoy is the reactions of other people. Some artificial intelligence researchers were amazed at this even if the handwriting recognition is no rocket science nowadays.

Guyot’s efforts are part of a movement to get Newtons to connect with just about every OS and work on any non-Apple hardware – like this – available.

Bsams.net seems to think so:

The Newton was marketed as a pda. While the Ipod touch is not. The third party apps have opened up the Ipod touch into much more than a pda. Now, with Apple issuing a development kit to make official third party software for the Ipod touch and Iphone, the barrier between media player and pda is much more grey.

To heck with a phone: if all you want to do is organize your life and listen to music, the Touch is the way to go. And no stylus needed, right?