January 7, 2012 – I don’t know why the Newton came up in conversation the other day, but it did. And it still lives in the bottom of a drawer, and with some fresh batteries…It is ALIVE!
Everyone thought the iTouch was revolutionary, but most people never knew about this little wonder.
The Apple Newton.
Fabulous handwriting recognition that still outperforms anything on the iPad or iPhone today. Word processing, spreadsheets, email, fax capabilities, PCMCIA flash card expansion, useful apps, voice recording capabilities, a backlit screen, the ability to beam notes to another RF device, RF printing capabilities, an external complementary mini-keyboard…
My graduate supervisor and I each had one, and like a pair of geeks, on at least one occasion we were guilty of beaming notes to each other during a lab meeting.
And all that in the early-mid 1990’s. Almost 20 years ago! The first Apple Newton Message Pad came out in 1993. I started with the Message Pad 100 in 1995 when I finished my Master’s Degree, then upgraded to the Message Pad 2000 in 1998. Pre Palm-Pilot. Smaller than an iPad.
Apple has always been way ahead of its time.
7 comments
Hmmm, I wonder if I could find my old Palm Pilot. It came after the Newton, but owed a lot to the screen and pen and early use of gestures on a communication device.
Sigh, it’s still a thing of beauty.
Hmmm, I wonder if I could find my old Palm Pilot. It came after the Newton, but owed a lot to the screen and pen and early use of gestures on a communication device.
Sigh, it’s still a thing of beauty.
Comments are closed.