[NTLK] NewTNG 3.0

[Matthias Melcher]

On 30.11.2011, at 16:19, Warren Ockrassa wrote:

> Porting NewtonScript can't be that difficult.

It has been ported twice. Newt/0 for example is a very capable compiler and byte code interpreter with extra interfaces for the underlying OS. 

The problem with porting is all the stuff *around* the language.

> The core of Newton, though, was and still is its HWR. That's the true
> value of the platform, and the part really worth keeping more than
> anything else. I don't know how you'd be able to get into it, extract
> it, and use it - certainly not legally, as far as patents are
> concerned, and possibly not usefully at all. I'm operating under the
> assumption that it's present in any Newt ROM, but knowing that and
> being able to actually figure out which part is which is another thing
> entirely.

Yes, exactly. Plus the Soup interface, the GUI interface, the scheduler, etc. etc. .

> It's too bloody bad Apple seemed to permanently spike this one. You
> just know the source code is sitting there somewhere in a server stack
> in Cupertino. Wouldn't it be just delightful of them to release it to
> the open source world? They sort of owe it to the open-sourcers anyway
> - after all, that's where Darwin came from.

Wouldn't that be great? But parts of the code are still used in OS X and even MSWindows 7, like the HWR. For that alone you will never see the source code. 

 - Matthias