[NTLK] NewtonOS ROM Source Code

[Larry Yaeger]

At 10:51 PM -0500 2/13/11, Charles Mangin wrote:
>most (hell, all) of this thread is over my head, but is the implication that one could recreate the Newton ROM sources, and thus create a new ROM?
>
>aside from Apple objecting to reverse-engineering a device they abandoned 14 years ago, what's stopping you doing just that?

The problem would be cross-compiling to a different chip, which is what would be needed to run the code on anything other than the original ARM chips.  But, then, assembly languages tend to have a lot in common from one CPU to another.  I could imagine a cross-compilation being successfully attempted, but it would be a pretty monumental effort.  One of the hardest parts would be driver issues, but I think the Einstein team has largely dealt with those.  It could never be distributed legally, but usenet and torrents exist...  And it would run at native speed on modern processors.  It would be awesome, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

- larryy