Newton Poetry

Low end Mac users are masochists. There’s no easy way to take a classic Macintosh and do modern, enjoyable work without some pain or effort involved. Everything is a project.

Now, for most of us that’s not a bad thing. In fact, it’s why we work with classic Macs. Either that, or we know low end Macs so well that using anything prior to OS X comes as second nature. Also, it’s a hobby.

With this in mind, and as I shared on The hello Show this week, I’m undertaking a bit of an experiment: spending an entire week with nothing but my low end Macs. Specifically, I’ll be using:

• My rev. B Bondi Blue iMac G3, 233 Mhz running OS 9
• The Blue and White PowerMac G3, 350 Mhz, sporting OS 8
• The new-to-me Macintosh LC520 running OS 7.6
• Possibly the Mac SE running System 6, just for fun (and HyperCard!)

…as my main computing machines.

I’m leaving my new 21.5″ iMac switched off, using my iPhone 3G for phone calls only, and relying only on Apple products that were released in the 1990s.

I’ll call it Seven Days of System 7.

That’s not totally accurate. I’ll also be using OS 8 (on the PowerMac) and OS 9 (on the iMac). For portability, contact management, and calendar duties, I’ll use my Newton MessagePad 110 and eMate. And I might pull out my iBook G3 and boot into OS 9 for some portable Macintosh.

The experiment, inspired by Morgan Aldridge’s and Riccardo Mori’s experiences, will be me attempting to get by – or even be productive – on non-Mac OS X machines. This includes any writing, web browsing, scheduling, graphic design, and web development. For the week, I’m setting up a special page here at Newton Poetry that will be a sort of proto-blog – where I can post updates through the week. The entire thing will be made on my PowerMac G3 sporting Adobe’s classic HTML editor, PageMill.

Right now, I’m collecting other applications that I might need through the week, including:

• Claris Organizer for my to-dos, contact management, and calendar, synced to my Newton
• Corel Graphics 8 for design work
• PhotoShop LE for image manipulation
• Panic’s Audion and iTunes 2 for music
• AppleWorks 6 for spreadsheets or heavy-duty word processing
• BBEdit Lite for text editing
• The latest build of Classilla
• Adobe PageMill for web stuff
• Panic’s free version of Transmit for FTP’ing
• A bunch of games for recreation, including SimCity 2000, WarCraft II, and (for the first time) Marathon

Because it’s only a week-long experiment, I won’t need much more than that. I’m not going to do any heavy graphic design lifting, or attempt to do a whole lot. It’ll simply be a week to see how easy it is to be productive and live day-to-day on low end Macs.

There are a bunch of sources I have to credit for the help, including my podcasting pal David Kendal (for the links to Panic’s free offerings), System 7 Today for some game ideas, UNNA for Claris Organizer, and eBay for PageMill and WarCraft II.

The experiment will take place in the next week or two. In the meantime, if you have any ideas or software to try out, let me know.

Most of all, wish me luck.

Bryan Lunduke at Lunduke.com:

The Newton was, for those who can remember back that far, revolutionary. It was a huge deal. The company had some serious problems with it (marketing being one of the big ones), but the devices (and the Newton OS that powered them) were many years ahead of their time. Case in point: it still holds up strangely well against a current iPhone (Newton’s had multi-tasking, etc. way back in the old days). And, of course, there was the eMate 300 (which was a Newton-powered laptop that featured a rechargeable battery that, I kid you not, lasted through 28 hours of continuous usage).

This after rebutting whether Apple would’ve done fine without Steve Jobs’ return in 1997.

Lunduke probably assumes that the Newton platform could have, somehow, become profitable for Apple somewhere down the road. It’s an interesting thought experiment, but one fraught with unknowns.

If Steve Jobs hadn’t returned, would Apple still have avoided a buyout/bankruptcy/total meltdown? Would we be using bMates and cMates?

About two years ago, I took a dive into the Apple stock pool – with no idea what I was doing. It didn’t take long to learn how over my head I was, but I’ve stuck with it and it’s finally starting to pay off.

My original idea was to invest in a company I care about just when it was about to really break open. The previous year, Apple announced the first-ever iPhone, and I had a good feeling that after Macworld an investment in AAPL stock was a decent idea. What’s the worst that could happen?

Then the worst happened, and for two long years I’ve agonized over the stock market like never before.

But now AAPL is cruising at its highest selling price ever, thanks to stellar quarterly numbers, and I could knock out my goal in the next few weeks.

The goal? To make enough off the AAPL stock I own to keep one share and sell off the rest and still make a profit.

In January 2008, I bought AAPL at $189 – just a smidgen under it’s then-high of $200 or so. I bought five shares, meaning I paid $945.

Now, to keep one (currently at $250 or so) and still make money, I need to sell off the remaining four so that I get back something north of $945. If I were to sell four shares today, I would earn more than $1,000. That’s a $55 profit, and I still get to keep a share of AAPL stock.

See how that works?

Why keep one measly share? To have a sense of ownership in a company I respect. It’s not about the money (although it’s fun to make some). It’s about investing in my favorite West Coast computer maker – a vote of confidence.

And confidence is the word lately. AAPL has been on a tear, especially considering the low point it was at a year ago:

The little burgeoning investor voice in my told me to buy, and buy a lot, because it can only go up. But my experience after the January 2008 crash spooked me a bit, so I left well enough alone. Now, it’s paying off.

My last step is to set a limit price at $290, meaning if the stock hits that number I sell four shares automatically. Also, I’ve set a loss price at $250, meaning if it hits that mark my four shares are sold automatically, too. It’s a sweet spot, that range in between. I don’t want to get greedy, but I also want to ensure I make enough to keep that one share, plus some extra dough on the side.

minimalmac:

simpledesks:

Nouveau (by mαxsmith)

There are several things I love about this. The old “Luxo” iMac. The tin cans for office supply holders. The 10 dollar task lamp. But something about the composition and lighting are so full of win that I am forced to reblog.

Indeed. I’d get another G4 just to do this. Or do the eMate version.

Tony Kan at My Apple Newton:

In summary, a $502.5m outlay resulted in a return of $842.5m or a profit of $340m. This analysis doesn’t include the portfolio of patents and other intellectual property that the Newton project generated and from which Apple continues to benefit to this day.

Depending on your perspective, the Newton was hardly a failure.

The perspective part is key, right? Because Kan is right, at least when it comes to financials and intellectual property.

But how about success in terms of business sense or popularity? Or even enjoyability?

I’ve heard it argued in a few places that, had Steve Jobs not killed off the platform, new Newtons like the eMate could have taken off. So maybe later it would have made business sense, with some tweaks and modifications here and there. A smaller size, perhaps, or a color screen. More support. Or, good lord, a lower price. That’s where I think the “failure” term gets thrown around a lot: the Newton wasn’t all that popular. It didn’t take over Apple’s business in a transformative way like, say, the Macintosh did. Or the iPod. It wasn’t a smash hit (I almost wrote “success” there).

There’s no question that people who used the Newton enjoyed it. They still enjoy it today, even if it’s not an every day machine. For current Newton users, the MessagePad was anything but a failure. Some see other devices’ handwriting recognition and interface and scoff. Those are the failures.

But when John Gruber postulated that the iPad has all ready outsold the entire Newton product line, he was probably right. The closest numbers anyone, including Grant Hutchinson, can come up with is about 200,000.

The iPad sold more than that on its first day.

Forrest Buffenmyer created his new site, Newton Phoenix, as a way to contribute to the Newton community.

“I created Newton Phoenix because I wanted to give back some of the support I’ve received on the NewtonTalk list and various websites in the past,” he says. “Or – perhaps I should say – continue or pass along that support.”

Buffenmyer’s post on overclocking your Newton, say, helps him add to the sum of Newton knowledge.

“The only rule as to content that I’ll be following is not to completely duplicate material found at other websites, but try to incorporate my own experiences,” he says.

Newton Phoenix joins a small cadre of MessagePad-devoted sites that keep the thing alive. What I like about Buffenmyer’s site is that he’s undertaking fun projects to keep his Newton going strong. These days he’s using an upgraded MP2000 (modded to an MP2100 by Apple) as his every day Newton for scheduling, contact management, and note taking.

“If I had a way to better sync the Newt with my Mac then I’d use it even more,” Buffenmyer says. “NCX doesn’t offer ‘true’ synchronization, and NewtSync gives me an error when it tries to sync my calendar.”

(These are problems I’ve seen myself.)

Buffenmyer is a gadget geek in general:

I have a Data General One (early laptop), two Data General One Model 2Ts (one with working 30 MB hard drive!–rare for the early 80s), which are both early PC architecture. I have several older PC laptops (Packard Bell, Toshiba, HP OmniBook and IBM ThinkPad), and a newer Dell Inspiron 8600 that I use when I need XP…but I am definitely a Mac guy–or, maybe I should say, Apple in general. A short list: Apple IIgs, Apple IIc…Macs: a Classic, a couple 7600s (one was my first Mac!), a couple Beige G3s, an iMac Indigo, a PowerBook 3400c, a Titanium PowerBook G4 (15″ 500MHz)…and my main Mac, an Aluminum PowerBook G4 (15″ 1.67GHz). I also have an Apple QuickTake 250 digital camera, an HP iPAQ rx3715 PDA and a Sharp Zaurus ZR-5800 (very similar to the Newton).

A stellar list, to be sure, and he cut his teeth on a Timex-Sinclair 1000 writing BASIC and Star Trek games.

I wish Buffenmyer a lot of luck with Newton Phoenix, and I hope he keeps the Newton DIY projects coming.

“Back in 1998, Apple killed the floppy drive with one fell swoop. Killing the PC desktop won’t be as quick and easy, but Apple will do it over time. It started with the iPhone, and in a few years we won’t even remember the Finder.”

– Sachin’s Posterous, in a very thought-provoking post. I often wonder what OS X+1 will look like. Not OS X 10.7 or 10.8, but after the tens are done. What does the next-generation, non-OS X-based operating system look like?

[Via Sir Kendal.]

Riccardo Mori over at System Folder (which gets better with every post) tried a fun experiment: installing a 2 GB PCMCIA Toshiba hard drive in his MP2100:

I don’t think I’ll ever need 2 gigabytes with my Newtons — my biggest flash card is 32 MB, and it’s more than enough for my needs — nevertheless I wanted to try a little experiment to see to what extent such PCMCIA hard drive is actually usable.

A few ATA drivers and a fresh set of batteries, and what do you know – it worked. Mori is experiencing some battery drain and slower read/write speeds.

“The only way to make good use of this PCMCIA hard drive, I guess, is by putting a rechargeable battery pack and leaving the Newton connected to the AC adapter,” Mori says.

Besides reinforcing tons of fun stereotypes about French dudes, this is a neat little intro video for the Newton.

I haven’t spoken Français since college, so I didn’t catch a lot of it – but the gist is there.

Ne problème pas!

[Par l’intermédiaire de Wired Re-Read.]

As seen during the iPhone OS 4 keynote.

Two words: Hail, hail.