[NTLK] Newton II: A gentler approach

From: Steven Frank (stevenf_at_panic.com)
Date: Thu Mar 13 2003 - 01:17:43 PST


So, there's been some talk on this list from folks who want to create a
"new Newton".. literally design the hardware, write a new OS, etc.

I think I have a better idea. This is going to get a bit technical,
though. If you don't like jargon, you might want to skip ahead.

Today, for the first time, I discovered two amazing open-source code
libraries: SDL and Lua. SDL is a cross-platform library for handling
graphics display and user input, etc. It's sort of like a
cross-platform DirectX that runs on Mac OS X, Windows, Linux,
what-have-you. You write code for SDL, it takes care of the OS
specific stuff.

Lua is an embeddable scripting language that bears a few remarkable
similarities to NewtonScript. For example, you can have an associative
array with function bytecode for the values (a la NewtonScript's
"slots")

Here's the kicker: SDL has been ported to existing PDA hardware. I
know it runs on Linux-based handhelds, like the Zaurus, and I think
also the PocketPC. That eliminates the need to design new hardware
from scratch.

Soooo... assuming you've got a display, a touchscreen, and a way to
run an SDL application full-screen, you could effectively hijack the
device and make it look like, well, whatever you want. Even a Newton.

If you used SDL just as a simple framebuffer, and wrote a basic
windowing and display system that was suitably Newton-like, and used
Lua as your back-end for user applications, it comes dangerously close
to the realm of plausibility. It's no small task, but it summarily
beats the pants off having to design everything down to the hardware
layer.

Best of all, you can develop the entire system all on the desktop,
since SDL runs there too. Polish, polish, polish, and then all you
have to worry about is finding the right SDL port when you're done so
that it runs on the handheld. No endless burning of EPROMs with the
latest alpha version of your OS, or repeatedly flashing the device,
etc. It's Just An App (tm) that happens to take over the whole PDA
screen, the same way a game would.

Now, if you were REAL savvy, you could even hook into the PDA's native
OS, and share the PIM data. Effectively the Newton-simulator would
just be another view of the same data. That would mean you get desktop
syncing for free too. Yowza.

The biggest missing piece would be the handwriting recognition
component. Assuming you had another method of getting character input
(the Zaurus has a keyboard) you could work around that until the rest
of the system matured. For all I know, there's a great open-source
handwriting recognizer floating around somewhere already.

Any other programmers out there interested? Did all that make sense?
I have kind of a (very small) head-start on this and would definitely
be interested in talking to other parties with programming experience
who are crazy enough to try this...

Steven
http://stevenf.com/

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