Re: [NTLK] Using NewtonMail software for modern electronic mail

~~~ On 2008/07/23 00:23, Frank Gruendel at newtontalk@pda-soft.de wrote ~~~

> This mail answers serveral recent posts to save bandwidth.
> ...
> Hacking requires intimate knowledge of what you are planning to hack.
> Unfortunately, Apple never disclosed this kind of information. Things would be
> about ten million times easier if Apple disclosed the source code of the
> Newton OSes.
> ...
> Hey, relax. There are more important things in life. A family, for example. Or
> having enough to eat every day. Or a tiny daughter that looks up at you with
> bright eyes and says "I love you, Daddy" because she means it and not because
> she wants something from you. Or being able to take a walk without constantly
> being afraid of some stupid sniper soldier shooting your head off before you
> reach the next block :-)
> ...
> So, in a nutshell, I'm afraid $30 are not going to do the trick. Neither are
> $300 or $3000 if the programmer has to do this in the time required for coding
> software that pays the rent and feeds the family. Even if it WERE possible to
> overcome all hardware and software limitiations he'd constantly be fighting
> against, which it isn't.
>
> Frank
>
> -- Newton software and hardware at http://www.pda-soft.de
>
>

Frank,

Just saw this. Thanks for posting it. Although I have a little technical
knowledge about other computer platforms I didn't fully appreciate the
situation with Newtons. I came to the Newton and to NewtonTalk very late.
I never realized Apple withheld the source code; because of the catalogue of
things created by people here including yourself to keep the Newton current
and add functions, I just assumed they must have let the Newton community
have source, apart from the HWR which I knew they'd kept for themselves. So
now...

First, if I've ever posted anything cranky, possibly along the lines of "why
doesn't somebody here do _____?" I'm sorry. I didn't understand.

Second, I'm filled with a new level of appreciation for all the goodies that
people here have managed to create "blind", as it were, to equip our Newts
with abilities Apple didn't give it, including abilities to do some things
that didn't even exist when His Steveness terminated the Newton. Thanks to
everyone involved. I knew that if it weren't for NewtonTalk and the people
with individual hardware and software projects, the Newton wouldn't have
stayed round long enough for me to start using it; but now I see that
underlying all this was a lot of "doing it the hard way", creating
enhancements for a black box technology. The fact that these enhancements
work so well is quite an achievement.

Wow! Thanks to you all.

 
Shalom.
Christian

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

³Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from a Newton.²
            -- what Arthur C. Clarke meant

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1ZzpdPJ7Zr4
(With thanks to Chod Lang)
http://tinyurl.com/29y2dl
http://www.diyplanner.com/node/3942

~~~ ~~~ ~~~
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Received on Wed Jul 23 17:43:15 2008