[NTLK] Dear Steve Jobs... (your help is needed)

Our Newtons will die in January 2010 thanks to a wrapping second
counter.

I would like to suggest writing a letter to Steve Jobs and ask him to
help us keeping the Newton alive after 2010.

1: let's write a short and clear letter, stating what we want to
accomplish
2: let's find as many users as possible and have everyone sign a copy
of that letter
3: let's collect all letters and send them as a single package to
Apple Inc.
4: let's get the press involved
5: let's hope to get some help form Apple
6: if we do, have the press inolved again and thank Steve

Here is a rough layout. Since I am not a native English speaker, I
would like to ask you for help to finish the letter (ok, so the last
request is far fetched, but hey). Let me know what you think.

Steve Jobs
Apple Inc.
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino
CA, USA

              ______ your city, country, date_______

*urgent request for support*

Dear Steve Jobs,

as you may be aware there is still a large and faithful community
using the Apple Newton series of PDAs on a regular base. Most of us
own a full line of Apple products, inspired by what was once the first
true PDA on the market from th most innovative computer company in the
world. For us, the Newton is the machine that made the iPod and the
iPhone possible.

Unfortunatly, a bug in the system software will render all Newtons
unusable in January of 2010. The "seconds" counter will wrap around
its 30 bit boundary, creating a desasterous y2k effect for all our
machines.

We certainly do not expect Apple to fix the issue ten years after the
product was stopped. However we respectfully ask for enough
information on the NewtonOS so we can fix this error ourselves in an
otherwise fantastic piece of software.

We would need:
- information on how to write ROM patches (this exists, but under NDA
AFAIK)
- documentation of time and date related "C" and "C++" functions in
NewtonOS
- every crumb of ROM source code WRT time managment

We would like to suggest two additional actions that would not only
make the Newton community happy, but also support the image of Apple
as a company that stands for their products.

First, just like you made the System 6.5(?) available for download and
use in emulators, please consider allowing the use of NewtonOS in
emulators.

Second, the Newton Toolkit (NTK), the only development platform for
the Newton, no longer works on Intel machines. Would it be possible to
make the source code available for us to rewrite an OS X version of NTK?

Sincerely,

    ______ your signature

    ______ your full name

    ______ your full address

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