From: Martin Joseph (NT_at_stillnewt.org)
Date: Sun Jan 15 2006 - 23:39:50 PST
As Grant said, you guys need to slow down a bit. Paul has definitely
blown us all away with this incredible achievements and demonstrations,
but it clearly isn't anywhere near ready for prime time...
The Zaurus is NOT ready to take over for your Newton running NewtonOS
just yet.
The performance is currently a small fraction of what it needs to be,
it's unusably slow by any standard ( ie too slow for handwriting
recognition). Paul seems very optimistic that there is plenty of room
for optimization and I do not doubt him. As grant pointed out, the
Relativity framework, which should eventually allow for native host
networking (and other native host interface), isn't finished. This
also has massive potential to accelerate some aspects of Newton's
function.
Paul is a very busy fellow, so there could be a significant delay
before a usable version emerges. Also, one never knows, but Paul
could lose interest and that would be the end of it. I don't think
that's likely based on his track record, but it's a possibility that
must be faced.
As Paul pointed out today, there are areas where someone (software
developers) MUST help to move Newton forward. Improving and fixing DCL
and/or Newtsync is one area that is available now, and will be
necessary in the future as NCU becomes increasingly a museum piece.
This will help now, and if/when we do get whizzy new hardware in the
future...
On an upbeat note, Paul clearly stated that Einstein should work on ANY
device with adequate RAM (64M?) and X11 (and a good modern compiler).
This means there should be lots of great hardware candidates coming
down the pike.
As Ronnie pointed out, the sweet spot for us is probably coming soon
(6 months-1year?) when newer faster linux handhelds and more optimized
and complete versions of einstein are both available.
Pretty incredible to imagine a full color newton with linux network
underpinnings and the potential for newton software developers to
exploit all available software interfaces on the underlying host (this
means SSL, etc.)
Very exciting!
Marty
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