[NTLK] Clear developer's Newton 110 pops up on eBay | MacNN

[James Fraser]

Hello,

--- On Tue, 1/29/13, Mickey Sattler <mickey at sattlers.org> wrote:

> My pleasure. I've been surfing the list since the beginning,
> but rarely have anything to add. 

Same here, but somehow that never seems to stop me from adding it anyway (and at some length, too, I'm afraid). :-[

> Understood. A bit of hindsight is cold, eh? When one
> considers the CPU power behind 1.3 vs the iPhone 5...

You try telling the young kids today that the first home computer lacked a keyboard and was programmed by flipping tiny, finger-shredding switches on the front of the unit:

http://www.vintage-computer.com/altair8800.shtml

...and they won't believe you. ;)

All kidding aside, though, you don't have to be that old for the advances in computing that have taken place in the last 15 years (let alone the last 35 since the Altair) to make you *feel* old.  : /

(A bit of hindsight, as you say, can be chilling.)

> It's going to be way more useful to someone in a bunch.
> There's everything from programming manuals to modems to
> everything. My time has to be more than parting it out,
> keeping track of things, having some unsold, etc.

Agreed.  And, who knows, including all the programming manuals along with the MessagePads themselves may help to inspire a new Newton programmer (you never can tell). :)
   
> I thought so too. GO was an interesting petri dish of
> experiences. If an infrastructure like WiFi had been there,
> and if management had actually used the product, we might
> have been in a different world...

From what little I understand, GO seems to have had a lot of potential.  Of course, some of the might-have-beens of the Newton can be pretty heartbreaking, too, if you dwell on them too much:
 
> Also omitted is the story of how Alan Kay tried to convince the Newton > Group under Sakoman to make the Newton a wireless accessory to a 
> desktop computer, automatically synchronizing data when it approached > its host. This was basically the PalmPilot concept, three years before > Palm Computing was founded. When I took over the Newton Group, I 
> invited Kay several times to return and sell the concept to the group. > He declined on the grounds their opinions were rigid and they would 
> never listen. 

http://www.nomodes.com/LinzmayerBook.html (Larry Tesler's site)

> I can't recall, but I don't think I created anything. I was
> trying to archive a moment as it was slipping away.
> Obviously it worked :-)

It did.  I think I know a guy who will try to work that "button" variation on the Newton Roger into something every chance he gets from now on. ;)


Best,

James Fraser