Re: [NTLK] Breaking the Newton Screen

From: Eric L. Strobel (fyzycyst_at_home.com)
Date: Tue Oct 02 2001 - 09:18:55 EDT


at the temporal coordinates: 10/1/01 11:19 PM, the entity known as Justin
Streufert at justin_at_meatware.com conveyed the following:

>
> My MP120 broke when it fell from a desk onto a low-pile (hardish) carpet.
> It landed on the corner and the screen bezel pushed hard enough on the glass
> to break it. Ow.
>
> I doubt that you can break the screen with the stylus unless you are
> throwing it at the screen like a dart. It would seem that lots of force
> directed at a single point on the glass would cause it to break more easily,
> but more often than not it seems like blunt force trauma cracks the Newton
> screen. I think this is because it is designed for somewhat hard point
> pressure. The touchpad layer must be penetrated by the stylus tip to
> register a tap. These outer layers probably help distribute the force.
>

Well, if anyone out there has a finite-element code they want to play
with...

What happens, in a seemingly random fashion, is that the force of impact,
which *should* be distributed thru the entire structure, will, instead, get
focused. Sharp angles, edges, joints between dissimilar materials, and
fasteners are all things that can serve as stress concentrators. I expect
that the Newt was designed for things like being in a child's backpack when
they toss it down after school to go run and play video games, or for being
in a briefcase and having something heavy placed on it. Things like that.
On a fall from a desk, they probably have to play the odds -- they couldn't
design for every possible landing orientation, so they just did the best
they could. Perhaps you should've had jelly on it so that (by Murphy's Law)
it would've fallen jelly-side down. :-)

- Eric.

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