Re: [NTLK] Carpman has left the Arena.

From: John Johnson (kamikazebear_at_excite.com)
Date: Fri Aug 24 2001 - 18:10:44 EDT


On Fri, 24 Aug 2001 10:32:33 -0500, newtontalk_at_newtontalk.net wrote:

>
> > Well, I'm out. Newtontracker sounded like a good idea on paper,
> > and I thought that the Newton would be as cool as it was 3 years
> > ago, but the Newton truly is dead. The efforts of Paul's ATA
> > driver, while excelent work, are not going to bring the Newton
> > back. If the Newton is to survive, it MUST have a period of new
> > software development.
>
> Sorry to see you go. Personally, I feel the Newton is cooler
> now than it was 3 years ago, but with it no longer supported
> by it's own manufacturer and many of it's software developers...
> realistically, the platform will never be 'alive'. There's
> really nothing we can do to 'bring it back'.
>
..AND MANY OF ITS 'DEVELOPERS', INDEED! xcuse the shouting but really!
I wonder if there was some 'wish-list' out there with potential projects for
the developer-to-be, just to stretch the accepted notions of the machines
supposed limitations and show how much we can do without the bells and
whistles of many of the later portables/handhelds: maybe we potential
programmers should get together rather than let fellow users abandon the
platform for "lack' of good stuff!
Trouble is memory, unless you have the privilege of a good card-supplier so
everything I have is in system memory which was ample for loads of works
documents, or at least until I found and installed NIE 2.0, and now, even
though I have only a few docs in the machine alongside NIE and Eudora (which
I haven't managed to get to work yet (keeps returning a -48809 error message
whether attached to a phoneline or not!), leaves me with only 468kbytes: I
had heard somewhere of a low-mem version of a Newt TCP-equivalent but all
searches seem to lead to dead links.
The Carp suggests a Psion Revo as some kind of alternative but (I've seen
it: looks cool-ish but not as cool as an eMate and loses out by comparison
in the keyboard department) but Psion in general seems to have been another
casualty of the "mainstream" market where, if it isn't Micro$oft or Intel it
doesn't exist, and WinDoze compatibility is treated as a key definition of
whether a device counts as a computer. If the Psion folk are able to follow
on their promises, well, good for them but Apple seems as pathetic as usual,
strimming down their support to whatever is still hot off the production
line though the Bayliss(Clockwork Radio)/Apple(South Africa) connection
looked promising but the Newton has become ours by default and it needs only
our imagination to take it further.
There's still no xcuse to let Apple off the hook for its behaviour to the
technology and the environment.
John J.
> However, even though we should never 'worship' the technology
> (c'mon folks, it's a tool, not a god), it in my opinion is still
> the best thing out there for my needs. I don't see anything coming
> out any time soon that is going to do what I can do with it.
>
> Paul's ATA driver will cerainly help in a big way though (go Paul!!).
>
> Best wishes Carpman.
>
> John
>
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