... was an Apple Newton Messagepad 100. I'm pretty sure nobody that hangs out here has heard of these, but they were pretty popular for a while, and were a big hit in the medical community.
Introduced by Apple in 1993, it featured a ~5" monochrome LCD touch-screen, and was powered by four AAA batteries (or optional NiCad rechargeable battery pack). It was powered by a unique operating system (called Newton) with handwriting recognition, and was revolutionary for the day. It had most of the standard apps we take for granted today: calendar, contact manager, voice memos, email client, notes manager, word processor, internet browser. The OS was in some ways more advanced than we have today. One of the things I liked about it was the ability to tap on the Assist button, enter "lunch with Harold next Friday" and it would pop up a window with the list of people named Harold that were in the contacts list for you to choose from and a default lunch time of 12PM to 1PM (editable, of course) on next Friday's date, allow you to choose others from your contacts list to invite, and you could press OK, then it would put the event in your schedule. Brilliant!
You could either use the stylus or a pop-up keyboard to enter information. There was a hinged cover to protect the display on later models.
One of the things the Newton OS had that was unique was the way information was stored. It was all thrown into a "soup", as opposed to a formal filing system. All the apps had access to all the information in the system. A general search could turn up matches in notes, email, word processor, contacts, calendar.. all of the apps. You could choose to search only in categories, of course.
It went through several model changes in the next four years: the OMG (Original MessagePad), the 100, 110, 120, 130, and finally the 2000/2100 series in 1997:
This was a brilliant device. In this iteration of the series, it was powered by four AA batteries that could last
two weeks under normal usage. It had gained an infrared transmitter/receiver port, a dual serial connector to which you could attach accessories, more memory, a ~6" screen that was a bit less readable than the earlier models, improved handwriting recognition, a microphone, and most importantly, two slots for PC cards to be inserted. The available cards were external memory and modem/fax/ethernet cards. Motorola sold the 2000 with a plug-in card with an antenna that allowed the use of the 2000 as a cell phone! The folding cover could be used as a stand, and there was a wiring slot hidden along the hinge area that was for future use allowing a never-produced cover with a keyboard to be used.
The 2100 was pretty much identical to the 2000 except for having more built-in memory, and a recessed area for the company logo to be glued into. The 2000/2100 was designed by Apple, but built by Sharp, who also sold a version under their name (it was not a success).
The Newton division of Apple was literally days away from being spun off into an independent company (there was already new management staff in place and offices set up in another city) when Steve Jobs re-assumed control of the Apple and almost immediately stopped the spinoff and killed the product (
). There is only speculation as to why, but one reason may be that the Newton was entirely a product of previous management, which had been instrumental in getting Jobs ousted from Apple. I'm sure he felt no ownership of the product. And Jobs allegedly hated the whole idea of a stylus-based interface.
The MessagePad was a hit with the medical offices, it allowed doctors to carry around a device to take notes and keep info in a database. I bought a 2100 from eBay to replace my 2000 back around 2002/2003, and it has a sticker on the back that says BBC with a bar code. It still had a database installed with all the patient information intact (identified by patient number, no names). There were privacy slip-ups even then!
One of the more interesting usages of the 2100 was as a web server. There were several people in the Newton community that wrote software that allowed the Newton to be used quite successfully as a web server. They my still be running. Several wrote drivers that allowed the use of WiFi cards, something that post-dates the Newton system. As might be expected, there is still a hard-core group of Newton enthusiasts who write unofficial patches to keep the systems going. One wrote a patch to fix the Y2K problem. Another wrote a patch to fix a similar date-oriented problem that occurred in 2010, but I couldn't quite get that one to work. So alas, my 2100 got retired in 2010.
I had a collection of ebooks on my 2000/2100, but due to the quality of early LCD screens, it's not a great reading experience. I had a relational database installed on mine that kept track of my 3000+ (at the time). It went with me almost everywhere, especially book-hunting.
Several years ago, I took it to a lunch with friends. The wife of one of the fellows looked at it and was horrified. "It's so huge! Who would want something like that?" Next year the iPad came out, and it didn't seem so huge any more.
Long story, but it's close to the 20th anniversary of the introduction of a ground-breaking device that has pretty much been forgotten and I thought it deserved mention. With a modern screen and updated SDcard support, I believe it would still be competitive. Some people have ported the OS to the Android platform. A nice project, but I'm afraid the Newton ship has sailed.
Too bad. RIP, Newton.
Mike
Edit: This probably should have gone in the Apple devices section. Oh, well. Moderators feel free to move or not as you see fit.
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