From: hellsop_at_ninehells.com
Date: Tue Oct 04 2005 - 12:18:42 PDT
On Tue, Oct 04, 2005 at 02:19:01PM -0400, Jon Glass wrote:
> The interviewee, IIRC, even speculated if
> any of the original source code for the OS was still in existence.
> That's a scary thought, but he didn't think it would help much, also,
> IIRC, as the System would really need a re-write to be useful today. I
> remember reading this article, and wondering if this was the real
> reason that the Newton was abandoned--too cost-prohibitive to move
> forward any further... Again, scary stuff, knowing how well it all
> actually works! ;-)
That is, at least to me, the crux of the issue. I've got a loyalty
to the Newt because of how it behaves, not out of any joy with green
backlights, ARM processors, linear flash, or the genius of the
Interconnect Port design. What makes it happy for me is the HWR (which
is something that's actively worked on in small corners of the universe
and therefore licensable), the logical interaction of data (meetings
reaching into the Names data, etc) which is fairly completely known (and
certainly rebuildable in a useful way[1]), and the user interface which
is documented in available programmer manuals for the Newton. And, to
an extent, the form-factor. I like having a screen that's about the
size of a paperback's text block. None of that stuff is owned by Apple
anymore, even if it was in the first place. Any patents on the UI are
long expired as even the last Newt made is approaching seven years old.
[1] The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose
from; vcal/vcard, ldap, propietary, whatever. The mere existance of
packages like Lotus Notes, iFoo, and Outlook are a testment to the
public's desire for this kind of relatedness of information.
-- If sharing a thing in no way diminishes it, it is not rightly owned if it is not shared. -- St. Augustine -- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/ WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
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