Long Live The Newton

Posted on October 6, 2004 by Blake Patterson

The Apple Newton , introduced in 1993, was one of the worlds first PDA’s and is the device that coined the term “PDA,” or, Personal Digital Assistant. And the Newton truly was an assistant. The way in which all data stored on the device was part of the system’s “soup,” as it was known, and could be accessed intelligently by many different applications made possible a level of integration not even approached by today’s handhelds. And despite notoriously bad handwriting recognition early on, the most recent units (NewtonOS 2.x devices) sport recognition unmatched by today’s handhelds and which lives on in Apple’s Mac OS X as Inkwell.

I’ve seen a number of pretty nifty things from the Newton world cross the radar in the past weeks and thought I would present them here for those interested. One such item is the Newtendo Entertainment System, a NES emulator for the Newton—great for revisiting those old classics in stunning 16-level greyscale. Another interesting development comes out of the recent World Wide Newton Conference held in Paris this past Sept. 4-5. There, Paul Guyot presented his Einstein Emulator, a system that will eventually allow the NewtonOS to run on top of a Unix operating system. Compelling.

Some older but still most notable efforts out there are also worth mentioning. Kallisys has developed an ATA driver for the Newton, allowing the use of storage other than hard-to-find, non-linear flash memory. There’s also a webserver. An MP3 player, too. A variety of ethernet cards are now supported. Even WiFi. And VNC. Another great app to emerge is an iTunes plug-in that allows iTunes music to be synced to the Newton as easily as though it were an iPod (currently the product page is off-line, here’s an archive.org link). It seems I could go on and on here, but I will end with a link to a Wired article from a couple of years ago that takes a look at the indefatigable Newton scene.

I never should have let my MessagePad 2000 or eMate 300 go. Arn over at MacRumors and I used to collect Newtons, actually. Our efforts there have sadly waned. I still have a MessagePad 100 and a MessagePad 130, anyway. Lamentably they spend most of their time on the shelf.

Posted in Handhelds | Leave a comment

Retro Gamer Magazine

Posted on October 4, 2004 by Blake Patterson

My wife and I recently carried out one of our standard Friday evening out scenarios: dinner at Big Bowl in Clarendon, VA (right across from the Apple Store) followed by a visit to the adjoining Barnes & Noble bookstore. This night differed from the standard routine in that I discovered one of the finest magazines I have ever seen. Retro Gamer magazine. I saw, on the shelf, issue 6 of Retro Gamer and was spellbound by its vintage computing goodness.

I have expended much effort and funds over recent years in reacquiring many issues of early/mid 80’s computing magazines that I enjoyed as a youth. Creative Computing, A+, AmigaWorld, STart – these were where the songs of praise for the various computers I owned or merely lusted after were sung. Somehow over the years my collection vanished and now I have rebuilt it for the most part with the help of eBay. Retro Gamer is a sort of “best of” the old computing article goodness. I hadn’t been home 20 minutes before I had subscribed on-line and am now eagerly awaiting the first issue to be delivered to my door. I even ordered as many back-orders as they had in stock (I think only three issues, sadly).

Anyone with any sort of retro computing bent should make it priority one to get to know this new and wonderous source of nostalgic goodness. I pray the magazine sees a long and prosperous life. Go buy one on the newsstand or subscribe on-line today.

Posted in Multi-Platform | Leave a comment

“Picasso” Macintosh Logo Poster

Posted on August 22, 2004 by Blake Patterson

I was lucky enough to come across a vintage Macintosh “Picasso” poster at RedLightRunner a couple of weeks back, which I now have framed and happily adorning the wall of my basement computer room. This is one of two vintage Apple posters that I consider to be extraordinary finds, the other being a poster of the transparent Macintosh illustration from the original Macintosh sales brochure (the only one I’ve seen went on eBay for $300 about 4 months ago).

The “Picasso logo,” created by Tom Hughes and John Casado, Apple saw as the embodiment of what the Mactintosh offered consumers: a vision of style, subtlety, and frendliness that was a marked departure from any other computing experience available to users at the time. Apple, unlike any of its peers, felt that the users’ first impression of the machine, which would be formed as he or she eagerly opened up the box and began to look inside, was a critical moment. An imprinting. As such, great care and thought was put into the arrangement and design of the packages within—logo placement, use of color, shape, texture, orientation, etc. The result, the overall packaging of the Macintosh [PDF] really was a collective work of art. This aspect of the user experience is more widely appreciated by manufacturers today, but Apple is still unmatched when it comes to truly delviering on this front, and the fact that they “got it” so long ago—20 years now, is very telling.

The logo for another another of my sites, iPod Hacks (Update: long gone, now), was fully inspired by the Picasso logo.

Posted in Macintosh | 25 Comments

Vintage Apple Software

Posted on August 15, 2004 by Blake Patterson

I’ve recently been on a kick to gather vintage software for my Macintosh Plus and Apple IIgs. I seem to get inspired to do so every few months—finding old apps/games that I remember from 20 years ago and loading them up again, for old time’s sake. I thought I would share two sites that are rather useful in the gathering of such “abandonware”:

  • Macintosh Garden – An excellent site with hundreds of very hard to find programs for both the very early original Macintosh and Macintosh Plus as well as for the later Macintosh II era machines. Reviews, screenshots, forums commentary—it’s all there.
  • Apple IIgs Gaming Memory Fairway – A very well-done site with downloads, commentary, and high-quality scans of box cover art for various Apple IIgs applications. The site has recently been restructured, it seems, and is currently offering no game software that I can find (it used to have hundreds of games). Productivity, development, and utility software is offered in its present form. Worth a look for IIgs users looking to put their machines to good use.

These sites have made the wonderful experience of reliving “the old days” a possibility for anyone with the proper hardware. Even running these apps on modern machines via emulation is a workable route to that good old nostalgic fix. I’ve got to say, though—emulation is no replacement for the real thing. Enjoy!

Posted in Macintosh | 2 Comments

Wall Invaders!

Posted on August 4, 2004 by Blake Patterson

I found the greatest geek toy the other day. Every so often I scan ThinkGeek to see what’s new and clever—this time I found something too good to pass up. Colorful, retro, adhesive Space Invaders characters that can be placed on walls, ceilings, windows, etc. The cellar computer room was just waiting for these.

Have a look at the end result in all its glory.

Posted in Just Rambling | Leave a comment

Mac LC Found

Posted on June 26, 2004 by Blake Patterson

I was back home, visiting family, last weekend when I found a few rolls of film that were rather old and had not been developed. One 35mm roll and one disc film roll. I took the 35mm to a local DC photo development house and with some effort (rather poor image quality on the film) I was able to get a few of the 12-13 year old exposures off the roll. The disc film will soon be mailed off to one of the only places left that can develop it. I was able to date the 35mm film by a picture of my computer at the time, a Mac LC. Have a look at it right here and here.

2378337799_76c5976aea_o

The Mac LC was a rather weak machine, sporting a 32-bit 68020 @ 16MHz that was hampered by being placed on a 16-bit bus. I had this machine when the notable System 7 was released. I started out with System 6.0.8 and moved to 7, I recall. I replaced the 40MB SCSI HD that came in the unit with a 100MB Conner which made things much more spacious. I enjoyed it at the time but eventually sold it to my girlfriend to get an Amiga 1200, I recall.

Thought I’d share that little story and pic. It will be interesting to see what’s on the disc film. I am hoping it holds a pic or two of either my old Atari 520ST or Apple IIgs.

Posted in Macintosh | 1 Comment

Apple’s Pascal “Syntax” Poster

Posted on June 15, 2004 by Blake Patterson

I ran across an interesting page [archive] recently. It gives the history behind the, well, not-so-famous Apple Pascal poster, put together by Jef Raskin, father of the Macintosh, to serve as a reference (and a bit of an advertisement) for Apple Pascal developers. There is interesting drama to be found in the rather odd coloration of the poster and Steve Jobs’ hand in helping color it away from practical usability. In the end, Raskin didn’t even get credited with it (Jobs had his name removed).

I’d never seen or heard of this poster prior to stumbling across this story. We’ll see if a copy ends up on my computer cellar wall one day….

Posted in Apple II | 1 Comment

The Soul of a New Machine

Posted on May 11, 2004 by Blake Patterson

A while ago I ran across a book entitled Collectible Microcomputers on eBay. Apparently it is an aid to the computer collector, giving some technical details on quite a large variety of computers (over 700 made between ’71 and ’93). Rather than eBay it used, I put it on order with Amazon…but it’s been a few months now with no sign of shipping—might be time to go back to eBay for this one.

Discovering this book made me wonder if many other books dealing with vintage computing are presently in print. So the next time I was in the bookstore, it occurred to me to see what was in the shelf in this regard. I ended up with a copy of Tracy Kidder’s The Soul of a New Machine in my hand. A scan of the back and a few early pages revealed it to be a chronicle of the building of a minicomputer within the Data General Corporation. Though intriguing, it seemed a little before even my time in computing, so I set it down. It was only two weeks later that, in an unrelated conversation, a co-worker of mine, our DBA down at the office who used these Data General machines years ago, suggested it as an interesting glimpse of computing history. I couldn’t pass after that.

I am mostly through the book and would definitely recommend it to anyone with an interest in the early(ish) days of computing. Though I did not own a computer until ’82, I find the tale thoroughly engrossing and a fascinating account. The book tells the tale of the Eagle project at Data General, which was a crash-effort to revamp their Eclipse minicomputer line, taking it from 16 to 32-bits, in an attempt to out-do DEC and their recently launched VAX “supermini.” Being a computer programmer myself, it is with great envy that I read of these bold, early days where every development could so drastically shape the course of the fledgling industry. One wonders if those involved were aware of just how big a role they were playing in shaping the course of the modern world.

Posted in Other Platform | 3 Comments

1981 Personal Computer Catalog

Posted on May 1, 2004 by Blake Patterson

An interesting article appeard on Slashdot the other day. A user grabbed some of his own vintage goodness and placed it online for all to enjoy….

    “I just fired up my scanner and uploaded the 35-page 1981 (+/- 1 year) personal computer catalog from American Small Business Computers. 16K RAM for $22; 10 megabyte hard drive, 5 meg fixed and 5 removeable, with 14-inch platters; 25-character per second printer. Things have changed a bit since then!”

An interesting piece of computing history. I have many old computer magazines and some fairly rare product brochures from the early 80’s (my Fall/Winter 1980 Apple In Depth catalog, full of Apple II, II+, and III goodness, being the gemstone of the lot). Perhaps I will get around to dusting off my scanner and throwing up similar pieces of yesteryear.

Posted in Multi-Platform | Leave a comment

Ultima IV Redux

Posted on April 26, 2004 by Blake Patterson

I spent a good chunk of my time as a teen playing Ultima IV, a role playing game written by Richard Garriot (aka “Lord British”) at Origin Systems. There were many chapters in the Ultima series, but Ultima IV is widely considered to be the most perfect of the lot. Late nights on my Apple IIe, guiding my guild of characters about, all to the sweet melody of polyphonic music, thanks to my Mockingboard C soundcard. Sadly, I never finished the game.

Well, it seems as thought I might have a chance to do just that, now that the XU4 project is well underway. XU4 is a remake of Ultima IV for modern operating systems. The game currently runs on Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows. XU4 contains the graphics of both the PC EGA version of the game, which was the most colorful at original release, and also the 256-color VGA graphics update patch for the best possible rendition of the game world (either graphics set can be used). MIDI-style music from the PC version of the game is also included, and sounds even better than it did back on my Apple IIe.

It would be satisfying, I think, to play through and solve the game once and for all. Have a look at a screenshot taken of XU4 running on my iBook

Another interesting project is Ultima IV: Virtue of Humility, a complete re-write of Ultima IV in Dark Basic, resulting in a similar but different game.

Posted in Multi-Platform | 11 Comments