Believe it or not, at one point I owned two Apple Newtons. I even had the modem hooked up and could send emails. This was many years ago and I totally forgot about it. So... I'm hunting through my closet for this old stereo receiver and low and behold... there's the dang Newton. All dusty and dirty. Hmmm.... here's the power cable... no way... it won't boot up. The battery acid would have burned a hole through it...

Yes... booted up. Batteries are useless but they didn't leak. It actually booted up INSTANTLY to the screen of notes I was writing the last time I shut it off many years ago. I was writing notes for a job I was working on and just... stopped... and never turned it on again. What the heck was I doing? Why did that happen? It's like Scotty trapped in the transporter in that STTNG episode. So I've been playing around with this thing for a while... and... it isn't that bad. It's pretty fast, you can write stuff on it. It has handwriting recognition, you can draw on it. I bet if I search the web there are people who still use this thing. Maybe there is some "new" software for it. Now if I can just figure out how to hook it up to my router. It's a big as a brick but still useful. It's a bit bigger than an iPhone... but still. It amazes me how technology gets shunted aside.

I will post pictures later. Have to run out for a new battery and a cable for my microphone.

-vern

Pretty amazing, Vern! Yes, it's shocking sometimes to see technology that was "cutting edge" mere MONTHS ago sitting in a pile at the curb. The way things change so fast is only part of it, it's also how much gets discarded.

Holy COW!

Apparently the Newton fans never went away. All kinds of tricks and gizmos to turn your Newton into an mp3 player, internet browser, email, blue tooth, all kinds of cool stuff. Of course... can't hold much tunes... they have to be very low quality, and browsing in B/W bitmap can't be good... but still it's a freaking Newton! People are doing crazy stuff with this thing.

Sadly I bought mine "too soon". Not as powerful as the later versions. I do plan to build a headphone dongle to play music (Newton has no headphone jack, you have to make your own apparently).

The more you look at this thing the more amazing it is how it has stayed "current". It can rival a lot of newer products. Big huge screen, amazing handwriting recognition. In some ways it's better than an iPhone.

-vern

Oh wow! I got to play with one of the prototypes that preceded the actual Newton, working at BellSouth. It was a Newton/cell-phone hybrid. The prototype was substantially bigger--about the size of a CB walkie talkie, but flatter and wider (about 8"x4"x2"). It didn't have any headphone jack, so I had to make a "stethoscope" like acoustic headset (plastic tubes attached to the microphone and speaker--sort of like the headsets used on airline flights) for it just to demostrate how handy a headset would be. It also had an RF meter, so we were able so show how you could use it quite effectively to locate the metal studs in the wall. ;-)

They are cool, but before you start sinking money into one buying a p/s, batteries, etc.. You might want to weight the cost of parts vs just buying something new. I fixed my brothers Newton (also an early version) a few months ago, but if you look at how the batteries are designed, it's more work that worth to try to manually replace them with rechargeable AA batteries and finding parts isn't very easy. PDAs are dirt cheap these days.. I think my brother paid $1,000 for his Newton back in the day. All I ever remember him saying about it, is that it has the best handwriting recognition that was ever created and even todays PDAs suck compared to the Newton, which was made 10 years ago..

Eh.. I don't mind graffiti. graffiti 2 I could do without.

It isn't so much the cost of "parts". Still cheaper than buying something new (spread out over time). It's mainly the fun of updating old tech to use new tech. That's why so many people have hacked old Atari computers to use external hard drives and networking attachments. It's not "easy" it's just fun. And like you say, there isn't anything like a Newton. When I was a kid, I had a bunch of those noisy electronic games. Drove my family nuts. I had to solder in my own headphone jacks and volume controls or no one would let me play them outside of a locked, sound proofed closet.

-vern

Now that you put it like that.. it's kind of sick what some people consider "fun".. Me included.