On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 8:58 AM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote: Well, because I had to work on them at the shop. Their big deal was supposed to be handwriting recognition, and that just didn't work very well. The whole thing seemed a bit clunky and slow and not very useful to me. I think they did coin the acronym PDA... and it did lead on to bigger and better things. (like the Ipad). I wouldn't say no to one if someone gave me one for my collection. (; -- Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow" Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net -------- Doctor: You know when grownups tell you, "Everything's going to be fine" and you think they're probably lying to make you feel better? Amelia: Yeah. Doctor: Everything's going to be fine.

I have a 2100 and an eMate. I think they are beautiful machines. But I use my AlphaSmart Dana (PalmOS 4 in an eMate-like form factor) because it runs all my PalmOS software, I can write apps on it with Plua, and it even has WiFi, SD card slots and USB. And AlphaSmart has never skimped on keyboards, even though the eMate has a very good keyboard. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- The optimum committee has no members. -- Norman Augustine ------------------

I think the AlphaSmart Dana is the best Palm device I've ever owned. Even though the classic Palm Pilots are much more portable -- I got a lot of wear out of my Zire 72 and did not completely replace it until I finally got an iPhone 3GS (now I'm all Android) -- the Dana is still very easy to tote and just does everything I need out of a small laptop. EudoraWeb suffices for basic browsing, you can find the Dana web browser circulating on some sites that gives you a big wide full-screen browser, I have my own Gopher client written in Plua, and then of course all those Palm games and the outstanding AlphaSmart word processor. Just plug it into the G5 over USB and the Dana emulates a keyboard, spewing the document into whatever program on the Mac I want to use. Add a backlight and an easily serviced rechargeable battery (ahem, Apple) that has a bay for alkaline AAs in a pinch, and it is indeed the best Palm device I have ever owned. My mother was so impressed by this I got her one also, and it has nearly totally replaced her old laptop. She plugs it into her iMac after church and dumps the notes into Microsoft Word. I can't imagine they are difficult to work on. Every AlphaSmart I've met was so well-designed and refreshingly open and serviceable that I would find it hard to believe they could not be hacked and reprogrammed easily too. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Si des purgamentum, purgamentum accipietis. --------------------------------

On Thu, 5 Jul 2012, John Many Jars wrote: Why was the Palm Pilot more successful than the newton? Fossil/Abacus sold a wristwatch with PalmOS (4.x) Not as nice as the never-imported Epson RC20 (Z80 based), but more readily usable

On 5 Jul 2012, at 19:34, Al Kossow wrote: ... and USB docking support. Most Windows users resented having to fit a special PCI card just for their MP3 player :) -- Mark Benson http://DECtec.info Twitter: @DECtecInfo HECnet: STAR69::MARK Online Resource & Mailing List for DEC Enthusiasts.

Others have pointed out the ease of syncing, but writing apps for the PalmOS was much more straightforward than the Newton. ARM was a less familiar architecture those days, NewtonOS was a bit esoteric in some respects, and above all else the Palm Pilot *was smaller* so more people were likely to have it with them. PalmOS was a lot like MacOS, had the familiar 68K processor backing it, and didn't try to do "too much." As is usual, worse is better. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Denial: it's not just a river in Egypt anymore, is it? -- "True Lies" ------

uninteresting -- which is, from a machine code perspective, exactly what you want. :) However, I was an early adopter of Plua, which is a port of Lua 5.0 to PalmOS. It runs merrily on 68K and ARM Palms, has a "cross-compiler" (disclaimer: I was the port maintainer for the Mac OS X Pluac) and even supports network access and other neat tricks. Its chief disadvantages are that it is slow compared to native code, more so than you would expect for a lightweight interpreter, and it does not transcend some of the limitations of PalmOS well (for example, individual variables cannot consume more than 24K or so of memory, leading to inelegant "paging strategies" for long strings and complex tables). -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- I think, therefore I'm dangerous. ------------------------------------------

On 5 Jul 2012, at 09:02, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote: The handwriting recognition was... inadequate (the cost of being a pioneering technology), they never sold in much volume (they were expensive and didn't have many applications), they were too heavy (a limitation of the technology available) and the screen was hard to read in some light or the backlight drained the battery (another tech limitation). The idea was sound, the execution not so much. It was a common problem at Apple back then. As a technology it was a good first stab, as a product it tanked. -- Mark Benson http://markbenson.org/blog http://twitter.com/MDBenson

On 5 Jul 2012, at 19:02, Dave McGuire wrote: No by 'tanked' I mean it really failed to sell (outside your particular clique) as far as I remember Apple sold way fewer Newtons year-over than they did Macs... when their market share was miniscule. Yeah, but it was a *very* small crowd, doubly so at that time. 1996 was before every company had an IT manager, remember. Geeks like us, and I was still very much a game playing PFY at the time but I still fitted in the bracket, I think I was on my second self (with the help of my dad) built PC, still made up a pretty minor part of the population. Back then there were no more than a dozen folks in a school year of over 70 where I was that played PC games or even knew what a 'hard drive' was. Professionally speaking yes I suppose big companies were well into multiple generations of IT infrastructure but outside that widespread PC tech was only just hitting the ground. They didn't sell a shit-load, that was the problem. They were too expensive for all but the most dedicated tech gurus and hot-shot young execs to want to afford and simply weren't useful enough to force marginal maybes to buy into them. The reason they keep popping up is thus: They are as hard as all hell (very sturdy design!). My MP130 was third hand to me 6 years ago and still rocking, it had taken some knocks but they were cosmetic and it had been *used* a lot, you could tell from the finger-polish on on the case plastics. They are rare enough and good enough that they still fetch good money, especially the Strong-ARM powered MP2000 and MP2100 models. A lot of Apple enthusiasts will pay you half a limb for a good condition MP2100, they aren't that easy to find. The early ones are more numerous and not that great so people aren't so willing to pay. There are very few on eBay in the UK or US (comparative to the populations). I think your opinion of how well they sold may be coloured by the population you hung around in. -- Mark Benson http://DECtec.info Twitter: @DECtecInfo HECnet: STAR69::MARK Online Resource & Mailing List for DEC Enthusiasts.

On 5 Jul 2012, at 21:10, Cameron Kaiser wrote: I'm guessing that wasn't last week though. There's a similarly used but all original packaging, disks, cables etc MP2100 on eBay UK at the moment.. 109.99 GBP Popular in education, I got to play with one when they were new. Kooky little thing, very direct precursor to the iBook (similar style, price and target market). -- Mark Benson http://DECtec.info Twitter: @DECtecInfo HECnet: STAR69::MARK Online Resource & Mailing List for DEC Enthusiasts.

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 4:10 PM, Cameron Kaiser <spectre at floodgap.com> wrote: Anyone know how to repair the eMate flex cable that gets damaged when the hinge spring lets loose? I've bent the spring ends over and added the washer to keep the spring from slipping again (the standard field repair), but I've got one or two eMates with the common symptom of "touch screen doesn't work" from spring damage and no replacement cables. Can one scrape back the insulation and solder another flex cable across the damage? Thanks, -ethan

On 07/05/2012 04:39 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: The trouble here is, on this list there are a lot of people who Simply Weren't There and are either guessing or making claims of the success or failure of a given product based purely on whether or not they LIKE the product. NOTE WELL, Mark: I am *NOT* suggesting that you are guilty of this. I know full well that you know what you are talking about. There are plenty of people here, though, who really weren't there and had no way to know what was really going on. The only reason I (in particular) know anything at all about the Newton is because I bought one when they were new (an MP120) and later picked up a used MP2000. Most everyone in the non-suitly side of my company bought one, and most everybody I knew in the area bought one, spanning several companies and several social groups. This is the very definition of a "common" and "successful" device in my book. FROM MY POINT OF VIEW. (which is, of course, the ONLY point of view from which ANY of us can ever write!) -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

On Thu, 5 Jul 2012, Derrik Walker wrote: Sadly, that is close to true. It does not change the fact that people's personal surroundings tend to affect their perceptions of larger social demographics, disunirregardless of whether you consider yourself to be an exception. (typed on a hotel lobby Windoze XP HPaq)

On Thu, 5 Jul 2012, Mark Benson wrote: Yes, but watch out for using the word "first" - you know how we obsess over THAT! Fujitsu's Poqet tablet?

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 9:32 AM, Mark Benson <md.benson at gmail.com> wrote: They could always try another video-game system. Well, based on what my wife uses her Galaxy Note for, they already have. (; I love the way folks are kind of accusing Microsoft of copying the Ipad when Microsoft did tablets first (and they didn't sell). I guess Gates/Balmer just aren't cool the way Steve was. (; -- Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow" Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net -------- Doctor: You know when grownups tell you, "Everything's going to be fine" and you think they're probably lying to make you feel better? Amelia: Yeah. Doctor: Everything's going to be fine.

On 7/5/12 1:46 AM, "John Many Jars" <john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net> wrote: I was an early adopter of the Tablet PC, first an Acer convertible, then a Fujitsu slate (that did yeoman's work for me in my Master's program). The battery life was OK, it was heavy... but IMHO its biggest liability - and the one that is likely to torpedo (or at least impede) the new device - is that the Windows PC is so embedded in Microsoft's DNA they will ship a substandard product before they will actually break with their flagship product's hegemony. The story of recent months/years is that the tablet is an increasingly successful form factor for an increasingly large segment of the consumer community for computer-based information technology. Many people just don't need a "Personal Computer". The PC form factor isn't going away soon, any more than the mainframe has, because it's the right tool for some people, e.g. the knowledge worker. For folks whose primary use of a "computer" is consumption rather than production, the tablet is becoming the tool of choice. IMHO -- Ian PS: Microsoft really dropped the ball on marketing the Tablet PC. I almost went to work for the person (Alex Loeb) who ultimately became the VP for Tablet PC - and she subsequently dropped completely out of sight, without even an company-internal "have a nice life" memo.

On 07/05/2012 04:07 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: Fortunately, though, modern z/OS machines aren't difficult to find. They pop up on eBay all the time, usually at quite reasonable prices. Just don't get caught running that torrented copy of the OS. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA