[NTLK] Clear developer's Newton 110 pops up on eBay | MacNN

[James Fraser]

Hello,

--- On Tue, 1/22/13, Tony Morrow <gizmo1482 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I saw that pop up on ebay last week
> and was a bit shocked by the asking
> price. Does the clear case really make it that valuable?

Someone apparently thought it did: the listing ended little more than an hour ago and the item now comes up as "sold":

http://tinyurl.com/aaao56a

It's worth noting that it was up there for 2-3 weeks that I know of (and may have been listed for even longer.  Anyone?).  Correlation is not causality, but it sure looks like the MacNN story prompted someone (someone with a whole lot of dough, obviously) to buy it.

I assume they bought it solely for the looks.  Ironically, I was reading Mickey Sattler's website last night (he has one):

http://www.sattlers.org/mickey/tech/hardware/apple/newton/index.html

...and was impressed with the HWR.  The other kind of impressed, that is:

>I had to deal with poor handwriting recognition (which I overcome with >Grafitti), but all in all things went pretty well.

As I say, no doubt it was purchased solely for the neat-o looks.  I just hope whoever purchased it was fully aware that it runs NOS 1.3 and not the game-changing NOS 2.0 before they pulled the trigger.

(Of course, if they can afford to drop $1,350.00 on a MessagePad, I suspect they already have a "voice recognition data retention device" in the form of a servant who follows them around with paper and pen, ready to jot down their passing fancies.) @_@

That said, regardless of the utility, I would /love/ to have one of those clear case units myself.  I just need the seller to move the decimal point on the $1,350.00 price tag one place to left and that will (probably) help move it into the realm of possibility, as opposed to the realm of fantasy that the $1,350.00 unit existed in (for me, at least).

Incidentally, the best bit of that auction was the fact that the seller couldn't be arsed to throw in the shipping.  I mean, $1,350.00 for the unit -and- another $15.00 for shipping, too?  Really?  :D

I guess the seller doesn't believe in cutting the buyer even the tiniest bit of slack.  Like, wow. ¬_¬


Best,

James Fraser