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Newton MessagePads

M

Mr. 680x0

Member
Joined
May 3, 2007
Messages
17
Location
New Hampshire
I hope I'm not the only person here who has one. :p I have a MessagePad 120 with an official leather case and the manual. I got it without a stylus though, so I hacksawed a mechanical pencil to length, and it works great. It's not very useful to me though, more of a curiosity. The handwriting recognition isn't that good in Newton OS 1.3, but I've heard it was improved greatly in 2.0, but I would need a ROM swap from a later 120 for that. My Sony Clie is better for daily use, it's much smaller and lighter. :p
 
I have recently aquired a 120 as well, and it very quickly became my weapon-of-choice for carrying around everywhere for daily use. It is much smaller, lighter, & more convenient than the WinCE-based tablet that it replaced (it runs on off-the-shelf AA batteries, so you never run out of power). Smaller, pocket-sized handhelds are a little too small for me to write on, as my writing tends to be pretty expansive at times.
Mine does have the 2.0 upgrade, and the handwriting recognition is much better than any of my WinTel handhelds, all of which run some flavor of CIC software or another. The Hitachi tablet, under WinCE is almost as good as the Newt, running a program from CIC called 'Jot', but all my others use CIC Handwriter software.

--T
 
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It's just a question of whether a larger screen area or greater portability is your priority. Of course, I think the battery situation is important too, because, although the Hitachi boasts excellent battery life (about 7 hours), the damn thing has a bad habit of always going dead on me at the worst possible times.

--T
 
When I went on my recent journey to Lotusland, BC I stupidly left my hard-copy of addresses and phone-numbers behind and took my cassopia E-11 as a handheld. Unfortunately a spilled liquid in my backpack wiped it out. I was for a time in a quandary as to how to contact my supportive friends.

It shouldn't have been a big deal. I'v wandered this continent many times with only a back-pack and never felt as much as lost before. Eventually with my own memory I was able to contact friends and establish my whereabouts.

One of the things I always relied on was that little black book. I know the failings of computers (or handhelds) and will henceforth always use that backup even tho memories fail.

L
 
I have the first model of the Newton OMP, and it's fun, but I'm not about to give up my Treo 700p anytime soon...
 
I dunno - I'm kinda' partial to my BlackBerry from work.
It's directly tied (in real-time, or near) to our exchange servers at work, using Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES).

It works so dang well, that if I'm at my desk with outlook open and someone emails me, it hits the bb first!!!

Full OTA syncing of contacts, emails, tasks, notes, etc..

I really don't know what the heck i would do without it. And with the GSM cell towers we have on the ships now, it even works 1500miles in the middle of the ocean!

What else could you ask for?

T
 
What was the original model of Newton? (I didn't realize there were several because some seem quite a bit smaller than the beast my friend found which I though was the "original"). *original being original public release not like a beta model or something. I just found a few 100's although one person said 1000 but I can't see it on the units and they do seem smaller (ebay).

- John
 
John,

There were the following (not including eMate):

Newton MessagePad (OMP) 20 MHz ARM 610
Newton MessagePad 100 20 MHz ARM 610
Newton MessagePad 110 20 MHz ARM 610
Newton MessagePad 120 20 MHz ARM 610
Newton MessagePad 130 20 MHz ARM 610
Newton MessagePad 2000 162 MHz StrongARM 110
Newton MessagePad 2100 162 MHz StrongARM 110

OMP is a nickname given to the Original MessagePad

There were also other differences between them, like factory NewtonOS, ROM sizes, RAM sizes, FlashRam sizes, screens, etc...

I had OMP, 100, 110,120,130 - and they ALL frustrated the heck out of me.
They were huge, heavy, loooong, handwriting recognition shoulda' been left wherever they found it (and fired whoever thought of it).

It was a neat "in" thing for a while, like an iPod nowadays, but other than that.... it was a (really short) fad.


Tony
 
Mr. 680x0 said:
I hope I'm not the only person here who has one. :p I have a MessagePad 120 with an official leather case and the manual. I got it without a stylus though, so I hacksawed a mechanical pencil to length, and it works great. It's not very useful to me though, more of a curiosity. The handwriting recognition isn't that good in Newton OS 1.3, but I've heard it was improved greatly in 2.0, but I would need a ROM swap from a later 120 for that. My Sony Clie is better for daily use, it's much smaller and lighter. :p
Click to expand...

Would you like a real stylus to make the set complete? My brother gave me one that he thought was for my graphics tablet, but it's not. It is an apple stylus though, and almost certainly for a newton.

If you want it PM me.
 
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