From: DJ Vollkasko (DJ_Vollkasko_at_gmx.net)
Date: Fri Mar 19 2004 - 05:41:44 PST
>From: Jared Bland <jrbm689_at_mac.com>
>Subject: [NTLK] IMPORTANT: Newton Revival Imminent
>Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 07:21:39 -0500
>
>Quoted Text:
>
> According to statements from Stone Multimedia, while Apple is not
>interested in relaunching the Newton, a 3rd party is reportedly in
>negotiations with Apple to acquire and relaunch the Newton platform.
>
> At the time of the Newton's demise, Apple had already spun the Newton
>division into a subsidiary, but after Jobs' return, the entire division
>was reabsorbed into Apple and discontinued.
>
>-MacRumors
One of the most entertaining things this month was watching who picked up
this story - just google Apple Newton and Stone Multimedia, you'd be
surprised. Would be a great reasearch topic for any mass communications
student. ;=}
Anyhow, didn't somebody early in the Stone Multimedia discussion actually
call them and report back it's just a paper done for a class at Ryerson
University/Toronto? I read it ON THIS BOARD even before Don Vico checked
the headers... Wish that MacRumours and the other guys would show such
sense for detail in their work.
'T has indeed been very impressive response for a mere paper tiger. I don't
see why any scholastic researcher would have to make up stories about a
third party intending to take up development again. The truth sometimes
actually - and again: most surprisingly - *is* enough. But then, maybe
there is a company (seems they told this to some people who called/mailed
them?) behind them, and they wanted to hide behind a "gee, we're, like,
students and would, like, appreciate your help..."-smokescreen. One of
these two stories don't compile, dear Stone Multimedia/students of Ryerson U.
Q: I'd like to know what's going on here - some academic practical joke to
vintage hardware appreciators, so they rig a nice grade in class, or an
actual-if-clumsy research deal for a company. Any knowledgeable folks pls.
advise me off-list.
That said, it's interesting what has been posted recently regarding the
Voyager chipset. Some things speak against a "MessagePad Classic"-Revival
of the Newton as we know it ("PD: Is Cirrus offering these chips to the
merchant market? - Culbert: No. The Voyager is available only to Newton
licensees.", "PD: The unit has a unique subminiature connector. What is it
and what does it do? - Culbert: It`s called the Newton interconnect. [...]
JAE customized it for us.", "PD: Did you work similarly with other
suppliers for customized parts? - Culbert: We worked closely with Maxim
Integrated Products (Sunnyvale, Calif.) to enhance its standard products."
- from
http://pd.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=Archives&Subsection=Display&ARTICLE_ID=52439
). So at least the hardware would have to be completely 21st century
off-the-rack, zero-proprietary, but that was pretty obvious from the start.
OS, HWR: There's so much stuff Apple licensed themselves, that anybody
getting a grip onto Apple's code grail may not be able to put it to much
use, courtesy of lacking licenses. But then, if you could come to an
agreement with a hardware/OS company, you'd much easier come to an
agreement with any r&d/license-peddling outfit.
>"I won't be fooled again!"
>(I don't know who it's by, but it's the title track of "CSI Miami")
It's "I won't get fooled again" by the Who. Recently, a lot of their work
resurfaces ("Behind blue eyes", sung by Freddy Durst), must be a lot of the
oldtimers pulled their Who stuff out again after the Ox died a short while
ago, and some transferred this to their media jobs (like the 'Kasko did
when Joey, Dee Dee, Joe and Johnny died... and Screamin' Jay, too... and
Rainer and Epic Soundtracks...).
>Any idea if this new Newton will support the new Amiga OS?
Amiga Inc. sold the OS a year ago (only disclosed recently:
http://www.amiga.com/corporate/150304-amigaos_sale.shtml ). Now anything
may happen. Or not. Pick your choice. But there's some interesting statements:
"Amiga, Inc. announced today that it has sold the Amiga Operating System
to KMOS, Inc, allowing Amiga, Inc to focus on the growing mobile market.
[...] Amiga continues to lead the way in multimedia development by
providing developers with hardware-independent technologies for writing and
porting applications to a new hardware-agnostic, multimedia platform.
AmigaDE and Amiga Anywhere powered with intent from the Tao Group, enables
applications to run unchanged on a broad range of processors including ARM,
StrongARM, Intel X-Scale, OMAP, MIPS, Intel x86, Motorola 68K, and Hitachi
SH. It can run hosted on a wide variety of operating systems including
Windows CE .NET, Windows 9x, 2000, and XP."
- What's the buyer going to do with AmigaOS? And Amiga Inc - so they do
stuff that's pretty platform independent and focus on the mobile market,
uh? And they do this with a software layer between CPU and OS or app? Where
have I heard this before (besides Java)...
...ah please most cordially be invited to read this:
"PD: Were there technical aspirins to lessen the headaches? - Culbert:
Sure. We were very careful to make all the code dynamic. For the most part,
the software engineers on the team didn`t have to know what processor they
were writing code for. Low-level software was implemented so that either
one of the existing prototypes would function with it."
- So they implemented some kind of middle-ware between CPU and OS, which
would have enabled them to put basically any CPU underneath the OS,
provided they'd just adapt their "low level software" (read: "virtual
machine" ;=} )...
This matches nicely with repeated statements in offical Newton
documentation about NOS being highly portable - which they exploited e.g.
when porting parts to MacOS and Windows: "Most of the implementation is
highly portable. We have re-used parts of the architecture to construct a
set of tools that run on computers using the Microsoft Windows and
Macintosh operating environments. These tools are used by end users,
programmers, and content developers."
(http://newton.vyx.net/documentation/COMPCON-Arch.pdf).
I also like this paragraph a lot: "the system has been designed to be
extremely flexible and portable. The applications development environment
generates byte code interpreted NewtonScript™. This processor independent
environment allows Newton licensees and Apple to choose the most
appropriate processor platform at any point in time and with a minimal
effort get the entire Newton OS and all applications running."
(http://newton.vyx.net/documentation/COMPCON-HW.pdf)
Warm and fuzzy felings to all fellow Newtonians,
DJV.
-- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/ WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
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