Re: Newton dead, killed by Apple

Lloyd Wood (L.Wood@surrey.ac.uk)
Fri, 27 Feb 1998 18:10:04 +0000 (GMT)


On Fri, 27 Feb 1998, CobraBoy wrote:

> At 6:26 AM -0800 2/27/98, Lloyd Wood came up with the following:
>
> > The Apple Newton is now officially dead. It will be replaced by MacOS
> > machines in the same Emate form factor. People will then no doubt buy
> > Windows CE machines instead, since you go with the desktop operating
> > system everyone else goes with.
>
> Here is another in the series of just how stoopid Apple is. My buddy bought
> a original Newton. He's on the usenet bitching about there is no developer
> kit for the infared gizmo. The product manager for Newton infared gizmo's
> sends him an email saying if he'll shut up he'll send him an internal Apple
> developer kit. So he agrees.

If that was when the Newton first came out, the Apple Newton developer
kit cost around $1000, no IR stuff included. They'd have done better
building in a modem.

The PalmPilot developer kit is free. The Psion's isn't; the PalmPilot
will whup the Psion.

> I go over to his house. He's standing on the walkway with his Newton. I ask
> him what he is doing. He's seeing how many feet back he can be from his TV
> and still change channels on it with his Newton. Seems the power out is
> pretty strong. I think we figured it was something like 35 feet.

This is why the IR emitter was such a drain on the newton's batteries.
It's _way_ overspecified for communication with a newton held by
someone next to you. The not-very-good IR receiver is a gradual drain,
and is best turned off. My OMP batteries didn't last long when playing
with the IR.

> So you could of have your Newton handle all you Audio/Video needs. He had
> his set up to turn on his VCR, select tracks on his CD Player etc.

All his kit was by Sony, I take it?

There are quite a few standard IR frequency sets and coding and keying
methods for remotes, but the Newton emitter and chipset isn't able to
support anywhere near all of them. Sony equipment generally works;
with other manufacturers it's hit-and-miss.

You'd do better with a special-purpose learn-your-remote digital watch
from Radio Shack.

L.

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