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back to article Before the iPad, there was the Newton

If any old-tech devotees are more rabid than Amiga amigos, the Newtonians are. So, for those lovers of Apple's pioneering handheld, here's an up-close-and-personal visual caressing of the Newton MessagePad 120, circa 1995. Newton MessagePad 120 - logo The MessagePad 120 had the longest lifespan of any device based on Apple' …

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  1. DIGITALUnderworld

    Got both...

    I still have my Apple Newton in the original packaging. They are very similar, but the color is nice.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Halo

    No Sale

    I remember working for a company back in the mid 90's, we were looking at a solution and the Newton seemed to be ideal.

    We needed 450 Newtons and contacted 4 Apple dealers but alas no response back from any of them (maybe they thought we were crazy?!?!).

    We ended up going the PC route , thanks Bill

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    back in the day

    Back in the day when this was new it was NOT good, it was a piece of crap FAIL.

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  5. James Dore
    Jobs Halo

    Sigh. Still no better note-taker.

    I had an MP120, which I bought in 1997. It got signed by Douglas Adams, but I was a tool, and never covered, or replaced, the flip cover that he signed, so it wore off. Bah. Anyway, I then got an MP2k, which was awesome, and which still works, even on Wifi. There isn't anything electronic that yet comes close to it for taking notes, even the iPad; the resistive and slightly textured screen on the MessagePads is great for writing on, and very robust for poking with the stylus.

    Anyone know of any good styli for the iPad? And if Inkwell (Ghost of Newton, which lives on in Mac OS X, and is summoned if you connect a graphics tablet) got ported and hidden?

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  6. DZ-Jay

    Why it was killed

    When Steve Jobs came back to Apple in 1997, Newton-based devices were one of the first things to go, and quickly. There, of course, are the notions that the company had already invested over $2bn USD on the notorious devices, and that they were just a money hole.

    However, this cannot be necessarily the reason for their cancellation, for as this article states, by the second iteration the devices were much more capable and actually selling quite good. Apple was on track to recuperate its investment, yet the product was discontinued nonetheless.

    According to some well known Apple people who were there (but whose names escape me at this time), Steve Jobs canceled the product expediently for very personal reasons. You see, the Newton project was spearheaded by Jean-Louis Gasset (and, I believe John Sculley too, at some time), whom was a prominent player in the original drama that found Steve Jobs ousted from his own company back in the Eighties.

    -dZ.

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