From: Ed Kummel (tech_ed_at_yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Sep 29 2004 - 20:54:27 PDT
Well...many, many years ago when I was activly
involved with the PDA market (The MP2100 just came
during this trial) I was working with a company (I can
nolonger remember the name...but it was a big U.S.
military contractor) was working on a location system
using wireless Newtons. We did a test run with about
half a dozen MP2000s. What this was was a
phone/employee locator/wireless net system.
The trial consisted of a special desk phone that had a
cradle where the Newt would rest. The Newt contained
the brains and intelligence for the phone (there was a
connection on the base unit for a digital camera to be
added later). All employees carried a Newt (we later
increased the trial to over a hundred Newts when the
2100s came out) When the employee arrived at work,
they picked a work location (this was in the mid-late
'90s where the big thing was an office with no
walls....you just came to work and sat down at any
workstation) Popped your Newton in the phone base
station which was connected to the terminal (one of
the first of the thin client distros) and
authenticated with your Newt! From there you had
access to the phone via your Newt (the Newt address
book being the dialer) and the company network via
your authenticated workstation/thin client. When you
left your workstation, you removed your Newt from the
cradle which locked, or logged you out of your
workstation and the Newt went wireless. There were a
bunch of wireless access points placed everywhere on
the floor so you were always within range no matter
were you went. They had a custom addition to the names
app so the action button had an additional choice
called "locate". Based on the wireless base station
you were connected to, the central system would send
that to anyone who inquired your where-abouts. Even to
the point of popping up a floor-plan of the floor and
allowing you to zoom in and even identify others that
were in the area!
If I remember correctly, the company had contracted
with the phone manufacturer (Siemens? Or Samsung? I
can't remember...) and with my company to acquire over
a hundred thousand Newts with phone cradles...When we
went to Apple with the order, Apple refused to sell us
the Newts saying that only authorized Apple stores and
Newton stores could sell the Newtons...This was
frustrating...we contacted the newton stores but found
that most stores received only about 20 Newts per
shipment...even if we were to grab every newt, it
would take years to fill the order. We even got a PO
and sent a copy to Apple but they refused to even
consider such a sale...
Needless to say, soon after this, Apple scrapped the
Newt and the company scrapped any plans to continue.
All technology associated with the Newt was forgotten
and the world of "what might have been" ended...Oh
well...
Wait! I remember the company name...it was Mitre
Corp...in Reston VA.
The details are fuzzy, and a quick search of the
archives will pull up this story I wrote in an earlier
posting that may be more accurate, but the gist of the
issue is still there.
Ed
web/gadget guru
http://newton.tek-ed.com (download Newton packages)
--- Raj Patel <phigmov_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> > Bring it with you to any other NeXT machine and
> off you go.... didn't work too well due
> > to speed issues...
>
> Ah I was wondering what the thinking behind that was
> - I hear the
> drives/disks were also notoriously unreliable which
> probably severly
> impacted upon peoples trust in these devices.
>
> I guess if Newton technology were successful or more
> pervasive the
> ability to carry your personality around on a memory
> card and plug it
> into any compatible device would be pretty cool. I
> guess you'd need
> serious encryption and safegaurds for this to work
> though.
>
> Reminds me a little of the 3Com Audrey which was
> meant to act as the
> 'house-hub' allowing up to 3 Palms to sync with it
> and coordinate
> household activities.
>
> Raj.
=====
"A democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding on what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the results of the decision."
- Benjamin Franklin
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