Re: [NTLK] My New Newton

From: Brian McEwen (bmcewen_at_cowboy.net)
Date: Sun Jul 01 2001 - 13:52:38 EDT


On Sun, 1 Jul 2001, Stephen Swift (aka Burnum) wrote:
> ...concerning batteries. My manual says to only use a Newton battery pack
> or alkaline, and rechargeables mess it up. Is this quite true or baloney?

well, sort of. You can use non-apple rechargeables if you wrap some tape
around them to depress the little switch in the battery area (usually
depressed by the Apple rechargeable pack) that you have rechargeables
rather than alkalines. You WILL notice a somewhat messed-up battery % but
you will notice that it holds "forever" at 30% or 40% or something if you
use your own hi-capacity NiMH. Avi's backdrop will tell you voltage and
you get a good feel for when it's about to really dropoff. There's more
about this in the Newton FAQ at www.chuma.org (including which specs of
NiCD or NiMH batteries you can use) under the batteries section. Best to
read befor e you buy batteries. But getting good NiMH rechargeables was
one of the best things I did for my MP130.
 
> Also, I've noticed the Netwton's battery gage isn't very reliable.
> Sometimes it goes down to six notches, other times only three. But anyhow,
> what tips are there to conserve battery power.

Don't have beam prefs Set "receive beam automatically". That burns a lot
of power reading the IR port. Some modem cards draw current even if not
avtively in use, IIRC, so you could try leaving your modem card out if not
in use. Keep backlight sleep time short, etc. etc. But the beam prefs
might be the only non-obvious one- it's not in the "sleep" prefs section,
but in "inbox".
 
> ...concerning a word processor. I'd really like a very small word processo=

Availworks is available from www.pelicanware.com. It's the only word
proc. for the 2.0 machines. There is a demo, and the author does seem to
hang around the comp.sys.newton group, or here, although I've not seen a
post for a while. Lots of folks have nice things to say about it.

> ...concerning hand writing recognition. Mostly it works. But sometimes I
> can't get it to recognize T vs. c, C vs, c, Y vs. 4, and 9 vs. g. Is there
> a chart somewhere with the correct letterings. I thought the system used
> some odd letter recognition for some of the letters. Isn't it based on
> Graffiti or something? Any help getting better results is much appreciated=

Well, if you're using Graffiti, yes. However, by default, NOS has its own
HWR engine, and does NOT use graffiti. It learns your writing and does
HWR based on your own char input, without you learning to adapt to the
newt (much). My suggestion would be to head to the writing practice util
and ask it for "hard words". Also, if you highlight the whole word that
has been misinterpreted, and correct the one letter that is wrong
(highlight the word, double tap, then hit the keyboard icon), my
understanding is you help boost the "relearning". You got this used,
right? Some of the previous owner's HWR interpretation may be messing you
up a little. Also try using printed instead of cursive recognition.

If you like Graffiti already, it's available for download from a few
places, if you look. Some newton users jsut use Graffiti, most scoff at
it :)

> ...concerning the call feature of the Newton. In my manual it says that if
> to call the phone number using a series of beeps. Has anyone gotten this t=
> o
> work?

yes, when you have a person's phone entry open, hit the little icon to the
left of the #. A call slip pops up, and you hear DTMF beeps. :) Hold to
the phone and see if it read them OK. (you might hvae to hit "now vs later
to get the call to go; I don't use this, ever). How well it works depends
a bit on how good is the phone you are using.
>
> ...concerning the IR port. I'd really like to be able to transfer data wit=
> h
> my PowerBook using the IR ports. I've tried setting the AppleTalk settings
> to use the IR port, but the Newton never recognizes it.

See the FAQ at Chuma for lots of IR communications info.

HTH.

B

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