Educate me

Lazarus18 · #1 November 9th, 2001, 06:38 PM

I recently replaced my Visor with an iPac for the superior input of the transcriber in PockPC 2002. But I keep hearing about how the Newton was eventually far superior after you worked with it long enough (as far as I'm aware Transcriber doesn't actually LEARN anything).

I'm not going to go trading in the iPac for a dead device, but have seen Newtons very cheap on eBay, and tucows even has some medical software for them. I was thinking of picking one up, but know nothing about them.

What model numbers are old and which are new, and what's worth getting? Did the OS change significantly? Would I have any hope of connecting it to my G4 or PB G3?

kainjow · #2 November 9th, 2001, 09:29 PM

I own a Visor Platinum but I just bought a Newton 2000 from a guy I met in the Apple discussion area on their support section.

I love the Newton compared to the Palm OS. You wouldn't believe how much better it is! I can just write like normal on the screen whereever I want and it recognizes my writing almost perfectly! After you use the Newton, you'll never want to turn back to the Palm or PocketPC (except maybe for size). You can still buy the Newton Connection Utilities from many places (or even download it free) to sync with your computer (even Mac OS X with a serial adapter).

It is awesome.

AdmiralAK · #3 November 9th, 2001, 10:41 PM

I have to throw my hat in and say palm and graffiti SUCK,

having said that I cannot officially compare rosetta (newton's HWR) with transcriber, since I dont have my new iPaq here yet.

There are several models of the newton floating around on ebay.

Newton OMP --> Original Newton
Newton 110 --> Next up after the OMP
Newton 120 --> Next after the 110, I think more RAM ? (also came in 2 versions, OS 1.3 and 2.0 version)
Newton 130 --> 120 with OS 2.0 and backlight
Newton 2000 --> Great model, OS 2.1, backlight, slightly bigger display? More resolution

newton 2100 --> Upgraded 2000. More RAM essentially.

My first newton was a 120 and the I upgraded to a 2100. If you just wanna play with it get a 120(~$50-$80). I had a 120 but needed more from it (I carry my newton EVERYWHERE!) so I got a 2100 (~$300). I love this device, great programs (have dictionaries and references on it, as well as games a comm tools, addresses and all the trimmin's

)

The newton was, and is a great device. I just wish more enthusiasts who knew about ciding would provide extensions to make it better

(like improving Ir for modern devices like cell phones and other PDAs)

Its one amazing machine! I highly recommend it! After using the palm you will be pleasently suprized at how something older than your palm can be lightyears better !

Admiral

Lazarus18 · #4 November 10th, 2001, 12:25 AM

Sounds like I'll try to hunt down a 130 for under $100 then (I may need the backlight). Does that sound feasible? The RAM amount on these guys looks pretty sad, but I'm guessing that the applications were also very small. Can you upgrade it in any way?

AdmiralAK · #5 November 10th, 2001, 09:45 AM

Its true that programs are small.
I had an extra 2MB PCMCIA card in it as well (the 120).
In my 2100 I have 4MB built in, and 2 PCMCIA card for a total of 18MB.

I still have 2MB free and I have A LOT of programs in it he he (games games games and translators

... this december I want to make several newton books of grammar references for it)

I would suggest you get a 4MB PCMCIA card for it You never know what you might need

For you the 130 sounds good.

BTW I hanlded an iPaq yesterday and I was amazed at the size. I would really like to receive mine ( have to wait till the 20th to ship!

) and do a comparison between the newton and the iPaq.

Admiral

Lazarus18 · #6 November 12th, 2001, 07:18 PM

The iPac is pretty nice. The display is great, very bright and readable.

The interface sucks of course. I mean, it's Windows, so what do you expect. Mine came with Dashboard on the CD and getting gigabar is easy. With those two installed you can avoid the accursed start menu all together. It never ceases to amaze me how muddled and sloppy a MS OS gets in so short a time. After you've installed just a few programs the start menu gets to be this big mess. Anyway just use dashboard and gigabar, all's well.

The transcriber leaves something to be desired though (which is why I'm looking at the Newton out of curiosity). It's pretty good, but has some real problems with some of the letters I make, no matter how I change the settings. And the fact that it can't learn (to the best of my knowledge) is disturbing.

So far I don't see a huge improvement over the Palm except for the ease of character input (whatever its flaws the transcriber beats up on the alien script that is graffiti).

I'll let you know how it goes if I manage to get a 130 cheaply.

AdmiralAK · #7 November 12th, 2001, 07:32 PM

I dont know much about transcriber (because I have not used it yet), but once I get my iPaq I plan on buying penreader (www.penreader.com) since it can do cyrillic, greek, and other non english languages as input ( no asian languages yet).

I saw a demo of it a while back and I was impressed. As I said I dont know yet how transcriber works so I cant compare. What I can compare are the newton and the palm (graffiti..yuck!).... The newton kicks SERIOUS ass

Admiral

EmpireCityRay · #8 December 7th, 2001, 11:34 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by AdmiralAK
Newton 120 --> Next after the 110, I think more RAM ? (also came in 2 versions, OS 1.3 and 2.0 version)

You're correct it did bring more RAM and did serve as a point from Newton OS 1.3 into 2.0

Quote:

Originally posted by AdmiralAK
The newton was, and is a great device. I just wish more enthusiasts who knew about ciding would provide extensions to make it better

You might want to put that message up on the open source community and have people create Newto software and OS to be compatible not only for X 10.1.1 or less but for the classic version too.