
The Newton Application Architecture (1994) [pdf] - adamnemecek
http://waltersmith.us/newton/COMPCON-Arch.pdf
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wrs
Author here...AMA.

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Ididntdothis
I always wonder what would have happened if Apple had given away the NTK for
free instead of charging a lot of money (I think it was $2000?). I think a lot
of hobbyists would have proceed cool stuff but were deterred by the cost. If I
remember correctly Palm game their SDK away for free when they released.

The 100 version of the Newton was not very good but the 130 version and then
the 2000 were really nice. Also I think Apple should have been more
forthcoming with a C++ SDK so people could write own drivers and implement
stuff that needed more performance. NewtonScript was just damn slow.

I still like playing with my Newtons from time to time. I also have a 2 MB
storage which cost $200.

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wrs
Yeah, I wonder that too. Apple had always charged for the development system
(heck, initially to develop for the Mac you not only had to buy the tools, you
had to buy a Lisa!). I don’t remember it being quite _that_ much, though maybe
in 2020 dollars it was.

There was a C++ dev kit eventually, but only for drivers (though some people
figured out how to use it from NS). I also did a “native NewtonScript”
compiler that under the hood compiled NS to C and encapsulated the native code
into a NS function.

What really freaked people out was the 1% (?) royalty on apps, which I don’t
think lasted long. Now of course Apple gets a 30% royalty and that’s
considered normal! (I should mention that we wanted to have a Newton App
Store, but you would have accessed it by modem, of course!)

The 2000 had the StrongARM processor that ran about 10x as fast as the earlier
models. That was really the first hardware that gave something like the
experience we were trying for.

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Ididntdothis
I don't remember the royalty but I remember really well how the NTK killed the
finances of a friend and me who wanted to get started with Newton dev right
when the MessagePad 100 was released. Plus we had to buy a Mac (Quadra 610?)
which also cost a lot. We talked to Apple Germany and the product manager told
us if the cost is a problem then they didn't want us. They only wanted
"professionals", no amateurs. Big mistake. I guess Apple always had a slightly
arrogant touch :-).

I remember there was a C++ dev kit eventually but at that time the momentum
for Newton was already gone.

It makes me kind of sad thinking about this. I think with today's connectivity
and processing power combined with the ideas of the Newton devs we could have
much better devices than what we have today. The iphone feels a little boring.
Well made but boring.

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soapdog
@wrs thanks a ton for the work on the Newton, it still is my favorite
computing platform. Unfortunately someone sat on my Newton 2000 an broke the
screen argh, if not for that I'd be using it up to this day.

For those that would like to check a bit more about the community that exists
around it, there a really nice documentary at
[https://lovenotestonewton.moosefuel.media/](https://lovenotestonewton.moosefuel.media/)

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hobo_mark
Would there be a market for cheap, lightweight pdas with weeks of battery life
today?

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macintux
I'm unconvinced that battery life is important for something you use all the
time.

Obviously it needs to last a day, but if you're frequently using it, charging
it overnight isn't hard to remember.

If you don't often use it, battery life is critical because it's unlikely
you'll remember to charge it... but if you're not using your PDA regularly,
it's probably not a very good PDA (for your needs, anyway).

I think we all think we want long battery life. I just don't think in practice
it matters.

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Waterluvian
The weeks or months of battery life that my e-reader has is a game changer. It
entirely changes how I think about maintenance of the device (ie. I don't).

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macintux
True, but if it doesn't have power when you need it, what's the real impact?
(Setting aside the inconvenience of, say, going on a flight and not having
something to read.)

If your PDA doesn't have power when you need a critical piece of information,
that's a real problem.

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akhilcacharya
Should be 1994, not 1984

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dang
Whoops, typo. Fixed now. Thanks!

