Newton Poetry

This week marks the tenth anniversary of the Apple iMac.

I’m lucky enough to own one of the Bondi Blue beauties; it’s mostly my finance and gaming (WarCraft II) machine. I like to mess around with Photoshop on it, and I also got a copy of Adobe’s proto-web WYSIWYG editor PageMill to play with.

I’ve got mine running OS 9, but they originally shipped with OS 8, I think. It’s my truly “classic” machine, and also my Newton MessagePad hub. It still runs like a dream, humming along at 233 MHz with 160k of RAM.

So thanks, Steve Jobs, and thanks, Jon Ive, for bringing such a wonderful machine into being.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard it (Ars Technica has it too), but it seems the beta of the new iPhone firmware offers some sort of handwriting recognition, at least for Chinese characters.

iPodHacks says many “consider Rosetta / Inkwell to be the most advanced handwriting recognition technology yet developed.” And I’ve heard that elsewhere too, since it’s – in part – derived from Newton’s own HWR engine.

I just bought a spare copy of OS X 10.2 Jaguar, and it reminded me that OS X ships with Inkwell. Could my suggestion of a Newton emulator on the iPhone be any easier now? Maybe it’s already done. But how would writing with your pinkie turn out?

What did I tell you?

Apple investors and those they associate with are bat-shit insane. That includes me.

All this after reading the news from CNNMoney.com today. More specifically, it’s that Shaw Wu of American Technology Research that’s driving the crazy bus to Looneyville. Turns out, AAPL stock may be worth purchasing after all. To wit:

In a research note, Wu said he may have jumped the gun in cutting his rating on Apple’s (AAPL) stock just one day before it delivered its second-quarter earnings results…Wu added that Apple’s stock is likely to remain “extremely volatile despite being universally loved,” by investors.

Universally loved by those that actually buy from and use Apple’s product line; extremely volatile by one-man bullhorns like Wu.

“May have” jumped the gun? These people have way too much power. When has this stuff been remotely predictable? Okay, maybe sometimes. But still.

While I’m glad to see AAPL sitting at $180+ after this winter’s skydive, all the stress that comes with these peaks and valleys is enough to make one consider a drinking habit. There’s no sense or order to this business news racket. Jesus, even Fox has a business network now. What does that tell yoU?

This experiment has its consequences. I’ve got to come to grips with that fact. Even Einstein said, “Uh, maybe The Bomb wasn’t such a good idea.”

Too late. Poobah Wu says a product “vacuum” in Apple’s lineup could still suck us all under its collective madness. He even adopts his prognosticator garb to mention “a radical redesign” of Macbooks and Macbook Pros since, you know, we’re due any day now.

Maybe this is a lesson in the fallacy of objectivity; for me, it’s been like riding piggy-back on a manic-depressive yet excitable hunchback. I’m holding on, but I’m wondering about the wisdom of the prospect. My goal is to make it to WWDC in June.

After that, all bets are off.

Kudos to Grant on the Newtontalk.net facelift. Very clean and bloggy-looking (is that a word?).

I especially like the “Updates” bar on the right, like the post from April 20: “Ooh, look. Some changes to the site design are afoot.”

Check it out, and join the list for a daily discussion on all things Newt.

by Matthew Arnold

Is it so small a thing
To have enjoyed the Suz,
TV have lived light in ht esviug,
To have twoel, to have thought, to have done?

[Read the original.]

Original Newton MessagePad rechargeable battery packs don’t last long. This is a fact of life. No battery can last 15 or more years.

And try as I have to breathe new life into my old Newton rechargeable battery pack, it’s just not working (though there are ways to refurbish them). After going through a few sets of plain old AA batteries, I’ve finally landed on a workable solution: Sanyo Eneloop NiMH rechargeables.

Eneloops are rechargeable batteries that come pre-charged. You can pop them into your Newton or digital camera or whatever right when you free them from their recycled packaging. It’s great.

The benefits of rechargeable batteries are obvious: they cut down on waste, they’re cost effective, and – if properly maintained – they can last for years.

The properly-maintained part is important, because not all battery rechargers are created equal. Fast “15-minute” or cheap rechargers actually kill your batteries over time. By getting a quality recharger, you’ll pay for the device as time goes on by not throwing out rechargeables after a few uses.

I learned this lesson in college by buying a cheap-o Energizer rechargeable all-in-one pack (batteries and recharger). By the fifth or sixth recharge session, my batteries didn’t hold a charge and started leaking all over the recharger. Lesson learned.

The Maha MH-C124S recharger I found on eBay was relatively cheap, and Maha offers many more varieties that will fit your needs. I’ve also heard good things about LaCrosse smart chargers.

The Newton’s battery life is one of the benefits of owning and using one. I can go longer than a month on a set of plain AA batteries, and just about as long on a set of rechargeables. Get yourself a set of Eneloops and a good quality recharger and you’ll be in battery heaven.

How do you keep your Newton powered?

Doug Parker in Orlando, FL just e-mailed the Newtontalk group announcing that he’s taking orders for Newtways.

What’s a Newtway? It’s a adapter that helps the Palm Stowaway keyboard connect to your MessagePad. “Using Daniel Padilla’s Stowaway driver, you can type on a quiet keyboard that folds to a fraction of the size of the original Newton keyboard,” says the Newtway site. Says Doug in his e-mail:

They’re $13USD each, shipping for one is $2USD, and shipping for 2 is $5USD, domestically and internationally. If you’re paying with PayPal, there’s an additional 5% fee. You can email us to confirm the receipt of your order, or simply PayPal us at newtway [at] ispinn [.] com and include the shipping address.

Doug asks that you put “Newtway order (your name or initials)” for the subject line of your e-mail.

The idea is that the Stowaway keyboard was much more portable than Apple’s own for-Newton model. With the Newtway, you can combine the two.

[Image courtesy ispinn.com]

Some MessagePad users worry about scratches and scuffs from their stylus, or from everyday life.

The Newtontalkers threw in a recommendation for Invisible Shield, a screen protection maker from Salt Lake City, Utah. They make shields for everything from iPods to MacBook Airs and iPhones. Their customization option also allow you to create a Newton screen protector for your specific model (Apple gives the 2100 screen dimensions as 4.9 in. by 3.3 in., but that may be just the visual size. Some have measured it as a little bigger).

Their company FAQ answers a lot of questions, like taking the protector off and any guarantees Invisible Shield offers.

Some Newton users swear by other screen protector manufacturers, like WriteRight or NuShield. NuShield gets bonus points for still having a Newton page. Although at $19 for a four-pack, they had better cater to everyone.

Check out a review of all the screen protectors over at Brighthand.

Personally, I can do without the shields. I like the sliding feel of the stylus over my 110’s screen just fine, and I’m not worried about scratches. Maybe when I upgrade to a 2×00 model I’ll start worrying about that sort of thing.

Can you testify to one shield maker over another? Let me know in the comments.

by Carl Sandburg

Sand of the sea run red
Where flu sunsef reaches and quivers.
Smal of the sea runs yellow
Where the moon slants ncl wavers.

[Read the original. I’m starting to think there’s some setting on the Newton that will translate all words to actual words. “Sunsef?” That’s not even a real word. I’ll have to look into this…]

Funny. I like how the Newton talks in the old Mac OS’s Mr. Roboto voice.

Nice dig at the Zune, too.