Newtons

posterboy

So I might have the opportunity to pick up a Newton 2100 in the near future and was wondering a few things:



1) are there programs to sync it in OS X?



2) which connector does it use and which adaptor for said connection to USB or FW have you guys had the best success with?



Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.



--PB

fran441

First of all, you can still use NCU with the Newton but you have to use Classic.



Second of all, you can use Keyspan's twin serial adapter or buy an ethernet card to sync with the Mac.



Hope this helps.



BTW, if any mod sees this, move to the Digital Hub please.

thinkdifferent1984

Fran, I saw somewhere that a person was able to get the Newton to sync up with the Palm software, however, the website is gone. Do you remember seeing anything about this?

torifile

<a href="http://www.newtontalk.net"; target="_blank">www.newtontalk.net</a> . Search the archives and you'll find your answers. Short answer is yes, you can sync to older versions of Palm Desktop (2.6.1). But you have to do it through classic. Not ideal, but it works ok.

thinkdifferent1984

Awesome, thanks a lot!

posterboy

So what y'all are saying is that there isn't a way to sync in OS X?



I wonder if iSync will sync a Newton, that would be sweeet.



--PB

pesi

[quote]Originally posted by PosterBoy:

<strong>So what y'all are saying is that there isn't a way to sync in OS X?



I wonder if iSync will sync a Newton, that would be sweeet.



--PB</strong><hr></blockquote>



it would be great if apple released on open API for iSync so such software could be written. it remains to be seen if that will come to pass.



then we could sync not onyl palms, but newtons and even... *gasp* pocketpcs... (i know, i know, evil empire and all that, and they really, truly suck... but some of use are forced to use them for development purposes...)

torifile

iSync is SyncML, an open standard for synchronizing multiple devices. There's no witch-doctoring or past Apple caginess now. They are all about the open standards. I don't know a damn thing about SyncML or how hard it would be to implement, but it would be really cool.

stroszek

[quote]Originally posted by Fran441:

<strong>BTW, if any mod sees this, move to the Digital Hub please. </strong><hr></blockquote>



But Fran, aren't you a mod? Can only global mods and admins move stuff around?

fran441

I'm the moderator of Future Hardware and the Digital Hub. I can move threads from those forums to forums I do not moderate, but I can't move threads from forums such as General Discussion to the ones I do.



That doesn't mean I'm not on the lookout for threads to keep the Digital Hub active, though.

fran441

[quote]iSync is SyncML, an open standard for synchronizing multiple devices. There's no witch-doctoring or past Apple caginess now. They are all about the open standards. I don't know a damn thing about SyncML or how hard it would be to implement, but it would be really cool.<hr></blockquote>



From what I gathered at the Apple booth, iSync is based on an open standard, but for some reason they aren't pushing it with the Palms. I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps Palm wants to keep support limited to the Palm Desktop. But if this truly is an open standard, I wouldn't be surprised to see someone write a plugin of sorts for it to work with the Newton. You'd have to use a third party tool to install packages, though, unless iSync is really fully featured.

splinemodel

Yo Fran, I am also in the boat to purchase a use 2100. One important question:



How good is the handwriting recognition? Can I write basically anywhere on the screen, the way I like (my handwriting is neat) and it will pick it up resonably quickly a quite accurately? that's the impression I get with people who tell me about the 2100, but I want to know before I rush out and get one.

posterboy

Here is another question, are there any Wireless PCMCIA cards that work with the newton? Such as the Orinoco WaveLAN cards?



--PB

bobthetomato

[quote]Originally posted by Splinemodel:

<strong>Yo Fran, I am also in the boat to purchase a use 2100. One important question:



How good is the handwriting recognition? Can I write basically anywhere on the screen, the way I like (my handwriting is neat) and it will pick it up resonably quickly a quite accurately? that's the impression I get with people who tell me about the 2100, but I want to know before I rush out and get one.</strong><hr></blockquote>



I've had one for about 8 months and the recognition improves with time. My writing isn't the neatest <img src="graemlins/embarrassed.gif" border="0" alt="[Embarrassed]" /> and it does really well for notes in class unless I get careless and sloppy. I prefer note based not-taking, because I can switch to digital ink mode and draw a diagram of a concept which would be tons harder in a regular laptop (though taking text notes is faster with a keyboard (which you can find for a Newton 2100 if you try hard enough).

cake

I've had a 2100 for a few weeks and it has my handwriting pretty much down. I print everything, so maybe that's easier for it to learn - I don't know, but it's [pretty amazing.

torifile

I've got chicken scratch handwriting and it does a damn good job on my handwriting. I tend to connect letters so the print recognition doesn't do so well, but the cursive picks it up like nothing. One thing I hate about it is the inability to insert punctuation if you just started writing (I have problems with my lowercase 'i' too). But really it far surpasses anything out there currently.