>And Apple didn't invent the category of "devices that make use of
>electricity," nor did Apple invent the computer. Apple didn't even
>invent the portable computer. Or the computer that you could hold in
>your hand (was the Sinclair the first PDA? Hmmm...)
You mean the Cambridge Computer Z88, which was also designed by Sir Clive Sinclair? No, it wasn't a PDA, it was a laptop computer, but it did have some PDA-style apps that were more similar to the Spartan PIM apps on the Palm Pilot rather than the luxury ones on Newtons.
>No matter how many times in 1997 I compared my MP130 with my
>colleagues' PalmPilots and got on my soapbox about how the Pilot was
>too small to get any real work done on and how the operating system
>was too rudimentary to even be called an OS, and how I could do all
>these wonderful things with my Newton, they always looked at me and
>said, "yeah, you're right about all that, but what I had before was
>this," and they would hold up a pencil and a 3"x5" spiral notepad,
>"and you want me to start carrying *that* around?"*
The Palm Pilot wasn't a PDA. It was a big step backwards. It was just an information container like those early Psions, but with a touchscreen.
For me, the OMP is the first PDA (and the MP130 is the last one, the OS 2.1 based Newtons are really more like ultraportable computers), and, in my opinion, no other device (or any technology for that matter) has the right to be called a PDA, except Newton and all devices based on it. (I really love it how Frank Gründel chose his site to be called PDA-Soft, and not anything else.) At least not until you can write "schedule a meeting with John tomorrow at 4 pm" (without the "please" :P), tap Assist, and have it interpret its own way.
-Matej Horvat
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Received on Sat Jun 13 09:00:51 2009
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