Submitted by “I’m pleased to announce the release of Einstein Platform 2006.6 for MacOS X (PPC & Intel) and for arm-linux.” And what exactly is it? “Einstein Platform is a way to transform a computer in a Newton device. It’s NewtonOS taking over existing architectures.” Basically, a Newton emulator.
>>Einstein Platform is a way to transform a computer in a Newton device.
🙂 To apple? Or to apple-tree? Or to follen apple? Maybe into Newton’s head?
I must say that the newtonOS still one of my most cherished memories. I loved using the newton and also developing for the newton was fun too.
Einstein is a wonderful step, congrats to Paul Guyot and the others.
It would be nice to see Apple revive the Newton. It seems to me they are only one step away from it with the Apple iPod/iPhone anyway.
The nice thing with paul guyot’s work is that he does not want to create “just” an emulator; he wrote Relativity, a bridge between Einstein and the host operating system, so you can call/use directly the host functionalities from NewtonOS. Which means that a lot of things (network, etc.) can be delegated to the host; basically you could have a device such as the Nokia770 as a host, and you’d run Einstein on top of it. You’d take advantage of the niceties of the Nokia hardware, yet run a much better environment than Maemo (which is not bad, though.. but NewtonOS is better, frankly!).
The end goal would be to slowly replace NewtonOS bit by bit to create a new OS freed from Apple… (thanks to NewtonScript and its dynamic nature, you can easily replace code).
It’s rather uncomprehensible that Apple decided to stop the Newton — frankly, its software architecture is really neat (not without faults, obviously, but still, so many good things in it..), and the UI is incredible, particularly the excellent use of the pen and the tight collaboration between applications…
Things like open databases, persistence, beeing really document oriented, the assistant, etc.
It’s _still_ a much better user experience than all the other PDA in my opinion. Which is kinda sad, don’t you think ?
I actually believe that the NewtonOS approach is even the proper approach that we should have on our day-to-day desktop operating system… but hey…
No, it is incredibly unlikely that Apple will do anything at all with Newton OS (aside from taking its best parts and integrating them with Mac OS X, which they are doing and which makes sense).
But in a real way, Paul Guyot has “revived” the Newton. I went to his presentation yesterday at Apple Store Ginza, and saw Newton OS running, fast and apparently flawless, on his modern Japanese Zaurus hardware… Hell yeah!
Sure, I would like to see a real successor come around to claim the throne, but like previous posters have said, in day-to-day usability terms, Newton OS is BLEEMS (technical term indicating either megatons, light years, or generations of evolutionary development, depending on context) ahead of anything that has come out since (WinCE, WinMobile, Palm, Linux, etc.).
So Einstein is actually very cool.
Newton was an useless, overhyped and expensive device that went down because it couldnt survice on the market. Hanhelds where first made right by 3Com/Palm – these are the heroes of the handheld market. Before Newton existed Sharp had devices on the market – this in mid to late 80’s. Why emulate dead and useless devices? What a waste.
Because people loved and still love the OPERATING SYSTEM part of the newton. The newtonOS.
oh, I’m sorry. You were trolling…
*wanders back off*
Some maybe don’t recall why the newton never took off:
http://www.digitalfields.com/miscimages/simpsons-newton.mov
Some maybe don’t recall why the newton never took off:
Well, you obviously _never_ tried NewtonOS 2. It provides the best handwriting engine I ever used (I had palm, pocketpc, etc). All that with a UI that actually _take advantage_ of the pen ! — everything you draw is vectorial, etc.
So well… if you only know the newton by the simpson.. good for you.. but don’t come and say how well it worked
(note that the first newton device was indeed faulty on the HWR engine, hence the “reputation”… but the latter devices were fixed)
They may have fixed the 1st-gen Newton’s lousy handwriting support, but it took them long enough to do that the damage was done. By the time that all the kinks were worked out of the system, the Palm Pilot had come out and taken away any market the newton might have had.
Handwritting on the newton cannot be compared to the palm. You cannot compare natural handwriting to learned graffiti letter-by-letter compotision.
You also cannot compare features of the hardware (PC memory cards, heavy duty applications, available keyboard, communications, etc)
The falacy of the newton was canibalizations across product lines. When I was a teen and wanted a newton, it cost over $1000 – it competed with the powerbook line, and it never REALLY differentiated.
It would be sort of like comparing a UMPC to a laptop – you have the option to spend $1500 on a UMPC, why not buy a laptop instead?
… is its OS, not the Hardware.
(Something similar to what Jobs had said, eh?)
I have a Newton 2100 – love it, but a bit too big for my day to day work. With these new developments though, you can get a PPC PDA, install linux on it, then run the Einstein Platform.
Once drivers are written for compatible WiFI, BT, IR, GPS, we can finaly see some more apps being developed – albeit byt hobbyists, but it is a start