A Piece of Computing History - Apple Newton

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This weekend I picked up my latest retro computing gadget, an Apple Newton.

For those who don't remember, it was the pre-precursor to the iPad and iPod Touch etc.

At the time the hardware was pretty advanced, 640KB RAM, 4MB ROM, and 20 MHz Acorn RISC processor - Apple have come full circle today, developing their own RISC silicon.

Back in the day there was a boom in "productivity devices" and personal organizers. An attempt to digitize the "filofax", and bring about a new mode of computing.

Here are my Palm Pilot and HP Jornada Windows CE devices, the main alternatives people think of when they look for competing products.

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Education especially were interested in how a small, portable device could enable more educational opportunities. Could it replace text books and notebooks?

Funnily enough, the iPad has only just recently achieved the same level of handwriting recognition the Newton had in the 1990s.

Newton even had its own scripting language:

On August 3, 1993, Apple unveiled Apple Newton MessagePad. The device had 640 KB RAM and 4 MB ROM, running on 20 MHz Acorn RISC machine.

The main intention behind Newton project, was to develop a device capable of replacing a computer while being portable. With limited battery and memory, the developers were looking for programming language capable of meeting these challenges.

The developers looked at C++ language but realized that it lacked flexibility. They started focusing on prototype based languages and were impressed with Smalltalk and Self.[3] Concurrently Apple was developing another dynamic programming language called Dylan, which was a strong candidate for Newton platform.[4]

However, both Self and Dylan were dropped out of consideration, as they were both in nascent stage for proper integration.

Instead, a team headed by Walter R Smith, developed a new language called as NewtonScript. it was influenced by dynamic language like Smalltalk and prototype model based like Self.

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