From: DJ Vollkasko (DJ_Vollkasko_at_gmx.net)
Date: Mon Mar 08 2004 - 03:12:52 PST
>From: Jared Bland <jrbm689_at_mac.com>
>Subject: Re: [NTLK] OT: Steve and the Newton (Was: Money Making)
>Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2004 03:54:40 -0500
>
>> Goof idea. Personal mail to SJ is an absolute waste of time, this might
>> (!) be noticed...
>
>Wow, nobody really noticed it was a complete joke?
>
>You guys need to step out of the Newton Distortion Field.
Distortion field or no distortion field, this crack idea offers some
entertainment value. See below.
>Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2004 19:18:04 -0300 (BRT)
>Subject: Re: [NTLK] OT: Steve and the Newton (Was: Money Making)
>From: "Marcus Andree S. Magalhaes" <marcus.magalhaes_at_vlinfo.com.br>
>
>Let me make a suggestion.
>
>Create an online petition. There's a famous site to do just that.
>
>Can't remember the name, but it shouldn't be difficult to find.
>
>That works. Period. A lot of signatues made, recently, Macromedia
>release Shockwave to Solaris/Intel.
[How many signatures did this take? How many Newton users are still out
there, 20.000? How many might be whipped into a frenzy to sign on the
dotted line?]
>Ok, it's not Newton's ressurrection, but it's a start.
>
>I'd be glady to sign it. Heck, I can ever sign a document to show
>I'm willing to buy one. ;-)
>
>After that, send an email to Mr. Jobs and tell him there's a lot
>of people backing your proposal.
>
><snip>
> > Years later, I got a Newton MessagePad 110 and
> > discovered the current PDA makers are disgracing the name of PDA. I
> > think I will e-mail Steve Jobs and tell him to re-release the Newton.
> > I hope you guys appreciate what I'm going to do...
The only question is - what do Newton appreciators actually want and how
likely are these things to happen? How can we bring it off?
- L a u n c h ! Do we want Apple to bring out Newton OS 3.0 devices? Yes!
But it's not very likely that they'd put much effort in getting another OS
crew together (again) and move NOS into the 21st century, if it's really
true that Mr. Jobs hates everything Newton. Even without this it'd be
extremely unlikely to get NOS 2.x-to-NOS 3.0-upgrades, or even
compatibility (though it *would* be brilliant for marketing a brand-new,
trailblazing portable device to have it hit the market complete with 11
years worth of proven commercial and and non-commercial apps!) or reliable
migration paths for data. More likely I'd expect them to go legacy-free and
create something that's to OSX what Opie is to Linux, but proprietary HW-only.
- L i c e n s e ! How about asking Apple to license OS and hardware specs
again? Considering there are trade secrets involved but the whole thing
being considered by the industry as outdated as a Commodore Amiga (hey - my
second one even had a 60 MB HD! Plus PCMCIA! Uh, how about an Amiga
"nAmulator", Brian, Gareth and Eagan? ;=} WordPerfect and Monkey Island on
the Newton, oh boy!), there'd possibly be more thought about non-disclosure
than payment. If a trusty group could be set up to license to, maybe NOS
3.0 could be developed outside of Apple and adapted to current HW
platforms. As I'd posted last year, original Newton-castmembers are on
record stating a high portability of the OS, so I reckon with full
documentation, such things could be done. Also within NTLK there's more NOS
knowhow than is walking around in all of Cupertino. Maybe Apple might lease
back the result... Or market it as "NOS-Inna-Box - the better OS for PDAs,
est. 1993" for contemporary PDA platforms, or allow it to be thus
commercially exploited against some % (either of which might lure former
commercial developers to look at offering their wares again and give them
an upgrade ;=} ).
Downside: Apple frowns upon licensing since the clone Macs. Might conflict
with rumored Apple-PDA plans.
Upside: Could get Apple a proven OS for next to no money (at least compared
to the work of coughing up something from scratch and in-house once
more...) to *really* do a new(ton) Apple PDA and have rumours become reality!
- L i b e r a t e ! Y'all read the excellent Whibley's A Book of Scoundrels
(get it from me), sign the petition, don your finest gear, rent a ride
becoming a true gentle(wo)man/gentlenerd/gentlenerdess, pull up at Apple
HQ, raise yer Newts and wave the petition at them and challenge them with
that ancient and time-proven phrase -
"Stand and Deliver!"
It would be more interesting for the community to have the NOS and all
specs released to the public than another black box created. Maybe they'd
be willing to license everything to the public after all these years and be
rid of it.
Downside: Which large IT company besides Star Division ever voluntarily
liberated something they once paid steep money for without positive
cash-flow in mind - even if it's been written off several generations of
accounting staff ago!?
Upside: Might get *everybody* a brilliant Open Source PDA OS. Apple could
produce the HW for it (they didn't create Unix or mp3, either, but sell HW
for these things anyway).
Launch, License or Liberate - what do you think?
This round of wackoid ideas freshly brought to you by
DJ "I feel Disco good, diggit" Vollkasko
(maybe I should stop playing Disco in my off-off-off-Top 40 radio shows
like last nite again, though listeners love it tongue-in-both-cheeks - but
it's really eroding my meager grip on selfcontrol... Arrrgh... must...
resist... must not... give in... arrgh... not... dance... not... boogie...
;=} )
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