[NTLK] NOOB Questions

[NewtonTalk]

Hi, and welcome to the list.

> I?m getting a decent-condition Emate shortly.

Congratulations. You should be aware, though, that your new green friend
will stop cooperating out of the blue unless you take care of the infamous
hinge spring problem, or have it done for you. See

    http://www.pda-soft.de/emate_disassemble.html

if you don't know what I am talking about here. Do not hope your eMate might
be the exception to the rule. There are no exceptions.

A description of the battery rebuilt is here:

    http://www.pda-soft.de/emate_battery_pack.html


There are people on this list, myself included, who can both fix the hinges
and do a battery rebuild for you if you do not dare to tackle this yourself.

> 1. I don?t know if it has the memory expansion. Is PCBMan still around?

He is still around, but he does not sell Newton or eMate hardware anymore. I
recently bought all of what he had left. The box arrived weeks ago and I
haven't even found the time to open it yet. My hope is that I will find a
PCB data file in this box that I can change in a way that would allow using
state-of-the-art chips. It is, however, unlikely that I will find the time
to do this before about mid-March.
 
> 2. Connectivity: would bluetooth sharing be the best way to go? Someone in
Germany is selling new Pico Bluetooth cards on eBay for a decent price.

I never had a problem connecting my eMates to a modern PC using a virtual
machine running Windows XP and NCU. You need to use the Windows control
panel to tinker with the processor speed of the host computer, but that
works hunky dory in my case.

> does anything sync to desktop contacts/calendar/notes/Works on modern PC
or Mac OS?

Decent two-way synchronization used to work flawlessly with the old software
that came with the MP100 and the OMP (NCK). Once Apple published NCU, this
did stop. Unfortunately, NCK does not work with OS 2.x Newton.

> 3. Does anyone know a ?definitive? list of ethernet and wifi cards that
are supported with Lantern patch/More Wifi Cards?

This has already been answered. I would recommend, though, not to install
More Wifi. At least not before you are sure your card will not work without
it. In my experience it often stops cards from working that will work just
fine without it.

> 4. Is there a marketplace here for hardware?

Well, not really a marketplace. There's NewtonSales, who I do not buy from
for a variety of reasons. There's eBay. Many list members do occasionally
sell Newton hardware. Myself included. I have lots and lots of Newton stuff.
Since the Newton part of my life must finance itself (I stopped taking money
from my regular income when my daughter was born), I can often be talked
into selling some of what I have.

> 5. Who is still selling apps for Newton? I will support developers if I
can.

To the best of my knowledge, no one. But I also have a lot of original
software that I might be able to live without. This most likely applies to
many list members here.

> 6. Thinking about the overclock instructions from Stephanie Maks. Anyone
have comments on the long-term usefulness/reliability of this?

I doubt that it will all that useful. I dimly remember that it also changes
the sound pitch and makes serial communication impossible, but I am not
sure.
However, eMates are pretty sturdy. So why not give it a try. If the result
gives you trouble, simply undo the change.

Cheers

Frank

-- Newton software and hardware at http://www.pda-soft.de