On Thu, 24 Aug 2000, Laurent Daudelin wrote:
> Let me guess. I think #1 is already fulfilled by Paul with the ATA
> driver. Then, I think that the next thing high on the list, that many
> people would kill for, is a seamless synchronizing solution. I've
> constantly heard people complaining about that, saying how easy it was
> with the Palm, and how difficult and flakey it is with the Newton.
Merely kill? Some people might wage all-out war for it :)
> However, writing this kind of tool is no easy task. Even Apple didn't
> try to do it themselves. They gave it to somebody else, and the result,
> as we all know, was less than, let's say, stellar?
IMO, Palms only manage to synchronize so easily because their data formats
are set in stone. Now think about all of the different things you can do
with, say, Cards, on a Newton. The mind boggles.
> I've thought many times about that kind of synchronizing tool. What I'm
> afraid is the amount of work ahead and the lack of documentation/support
> from Apple. I don't want to start another mailing list-based poll, but I
> don't really know how many people would be interesting in this tool, and
> how much they're be willing to pay. And it's hard to come up with a
> price when you don't really know what problem you'll be facing. With the
> total lack of any support, it's very hard to define the roadmap of the
> project, determine how long it will take and when it would be ready.
Getting the data out of the Newton isn't that hard; deciding how to process
it and merge it with proprietary, binary data formats on a PC or Mac is.
> Unless someone has some insights I don't have...
Have you looked at Apple's DILs? They're on Planet Newton:
http://download.planetnewton.com/download/programming/appledils.htm
The documentation is a little strange, not to mention scary.
--
Victor Rehorst - victor@eddie.cis.uoguelph.ca | chuma@chuma.org
Secretary, CASU & CPES College Governments, University of Guelph, Canada
Newton Resources: Ethernet, Mailing List Archive, Newton Cage File Archive,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FAQ, Documentation, Books, Projects and fun, too!
http://www.chuma.org/newton/
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