Back to the Newton...
This thread hit me at about the right time.
I got into the Newton in '97 when I purchased a
MessagePad 2000. I had been using a Palm Pilot Personal and then a Philips Velo prior. Arn (who runs this site) had a 2000 and I was quite taken with it, so I laid down the $1100. While I had it, Arn gave me
an MP100 in perfect condition. I had various other odd PDA's I was collecting. Some pics and specs of them are
here on an OLD page of mine as well as pics of the combined PDA collections of Arn and myself, in all their
piled up glory.
Well, I
sold the MP2000 (by then upgraded to a 2100) for a Psion Series 5, amazingly. Hard to comprehend. (The Psion is long gone, now.) And that was it for a few years.
Then in about 2000 I was playing with my MP110 and it got me all Newton-happy, so I found and grabbed, on eBay, a new-in-box MP130. It has basically the same, excellent HWR as the MP2x00. I tried to use it day to day, but what I was doing at work then did not really require such a device, and so my interest waned. Put it on
the shelf. Shortly thereafter I picked up a a
new-in-box eMate 300, but sold it (as you can guess by that clearly-eBay-ready pic) soon after as I did not put it to much use and wanted the $$ to build an Amiga 1200 tower. Heh - all over the place.
So...I posted a story about the Newton, just a few weeks ago, on one of my sites,
ByteCellar, and was pleased to help spread the legend. Well doing the research for all the links there, it got me all nostalgic for my Newtons. So I batteried up my MP130 and messed with it for a few hours. Then I hit eBay. It was an MP2100 I was after. And I found one. But as I was scanning eBay a few hours before auction end on the 2100 I spotted
a new-in-box eMate 300 again. Too good to pass up! Auction ended in like 30 mins, so I waited and pounced. After having gotten it, I threw down the winning bid, at 3am, on
the MP2100 auction.
The eMate, as expected, was in perfect mind condition. The MP2100 was
in excellent condition as well - no scratches. I've opened the eMate's flip up screen once and am waiting for time to do
the hinge fix before closing it. (Though Arn was over here last weekend and annoyingly opened it and closed it a few times...) So now I've got an MP110, MP130, MP2100, and eMate 300. A pic of the lot is
here.
I've become inspired by it all and
have setup with the Newton Toolkit for Mac and have written a few "hello world" apps using NewtonScript and am midway through my first "real" app with a second, actually useful app waiting to be written. It's good fun, and as Arn had always indicated to me, it's quite an amazingly easy language, NewtonScript. (Arn has written quite a few apps for the Newton back in the day.)
So there it is. I carry the MP2100 all over the place now. Will add WiFi soon, but holding out to try and find a card w/ a retractible antenna that will work with the Newt - might not have luck there... I mean to attend an upcoming
DC area Newton user group meeting to see what other folks are doing with them. It's interesting - I went to a lecture at the Smithsonian 3 years ago and the presentor gave the whole, long, color presentation from his MP2100, using
the color PCMCIA video card linked from the Newton Lust page. The guy was so charged up - saying he was writing apps for it, etc. I guess now I've got the bug again, and can relate.
My ultimate plans? I am searching out a new-in-box MP2100. It will certainly be costly, but to relive the exprience of unpacking a virgin MP2100. Well, I've only done it once, and it's pretty hard to convey.
blakespot
