Newton Poetry

One of the little “to-do” items in life is some working knowledge of programming. I have no experience, besides basic HTML and CSS, and I’d love to be able to learn a real-life computing language.

While searching, I came across this Wikipedia entry on NewtonScript, the governing language of our good green friend.

Developed from a version of SELF, NewtonScript was designed by Walter Smith, who worked at Apple during the Newton’s heyday. He has a site dedicated to NewtonScript’s story.

Says Smith:

During the development effort that brought you the MessagePad, a new language–now called NewtonScript–evolved in parallel with the view system and object store. The language thrash made it possible: all those languages we looked at provided a wealth of ideas that found their way into NewtonScript. SELF was one of the primary influences.

Check out a great PDF of Smith’s findings here.

I didn’t know this, but according to Wikipedia, “the prototype-based object model of Self and NewtonScript was used in JavaScript, the most popular and visible language to use the concept so far.” I’ll be darned.

“The thing we knew about this computer was that it would be pen-based…”

Cool, first-hand account of the early days of Newton development from Walter Smith and James Joaquin. There’s a part 2, too, that you can find in YouTube’s sidebar.

Love the vanilla, hotel-conference-room decorations.