Hi Fellow Newtoneers!
The master version (717260) can be found at:
ftp://ftp.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_Amer
ican/Newton/For_Mac_OS/MessagePad_System_Updates/MP_2000_2.1_717260_US.sea.bin
There was a bug in the patcher (did stupid manipulations with ResCompare),
and it is now fixed. (Thanks Avi)
Avi also asked:
>Also, does 031 incorporate all the other patches from '260?
Sure it does! That's the reason why it is an update to the patch: it does
all the fixes from the 717260 plus the Date/Find bug patch.
Besides, it installs over 246. This means that you'll get a Apple Computer
copyright string instead of the Newton Copyright string. I know how to
change that, but I haven't analyzed '246 deeply enough to find all
differences with '260 (however, it looks like it does the same fixes, with
not the same implementation).
BTW, 260, 246 & 031 use the same number of pages, hence the same amount of
Internal Memory.
Moreover, 260 cannot be installed over 246 and reverse is also true. This
is because 260 and 246 are of version 0x00010005. 031 is 0x00010006, and
installs over both (anyway, changing the code a little bit would allow to
patch to an older version, but I haven't made this change for security
reasons)
Why 710031? Cf the Newton FAQ:
<FAQ>
c) What is the numbering system?
That's a direct quotation from Walter Smith (wrs@pobox.com):
The numbering system originated as a response to customer irrationality.
:-) Because each patch applies to a single ROM image, there are multiple
patches that produce the same end result. The exact numbers may be off, but
let's say the OMP had version 1.0 software, then the MP100 came out with
version 1.1. We released an update for the OMP that brought it up to date,
and gave it version 1.01.
The problem here is that even though 1.01 and 1.1 are functionally
equivalent, people with OMPs were unhappy because their version number was
lower. There was lots of misinformation floating around about "upgrading"
1.01 to 1.1, meaningless though that actually was. It got even worse when
1.1 was patched, so you had 1.03 vs. 1.12.
To address this, we had to distinguish between the actual version number
that tells tech support what software the customer has and the end-user
version number that tells the customer what functionality they have. The
six-digit number is unique to a particular update (software version), and
the x.y number indicates what functionality you get when the update is
applied (end-user version).
Unfortunately, some customers are a little too smart to fall for that, so
there's still all sorts of consternation over the supposedly meaningless
system update numbers.
The actual scheme is some combination of the ROM version the update applies
to and the date the patch was generated. I don't remember the details.
Here there are: (but that's my own interpretation, although I was helped by
Henry Cate's answer to Walter's post (both of them worked in the Newton
department at Apple))
* First two digits is the model code:
+ 34: MP110
+ 41: MP100
+ 44: MP120/1.3 US
+ 46: MP120/1.3 Int'l
+ 51: MP120/2.0
+ 52: MP130
+ 53: MP120/MP130 (German)
+ 71: MP2000/2100
+ 73: eMate 300
+ 74: MP2000/2100 (German)
* Third digit is the last digit of the year.
* Last three digits is the day the package was built.
The question then is: how will we do with years 2000's? Was the
discontinuing of Newton planned from the beginning (at least before the
52nd day of 1994) by Apple?
</FAQ>
The answer is: please choose for next patch (because 031 is just a start).
Regards,
Paul
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