22 August 2007
30-3: Yes, It's a Baseball Score
I'm a little freaked out over the latest Rangers game results (I think I'm one of six people that follow baseball anymore). Against the Baltimore Orioles, the Rangers scored 30 runs - something that hasn't been seen in modern baseball in over a century. The Orioles' ERA went from 4.39 to 4.60 in a single game. Two players homered twice and earned seven RBI's EACH! The stats can go on forever, but anybody who says baseball is a boring game didn't watch this one.
16 August 2007
RetroTech: The Apple Newton and Why I Love It
My first real job started in early 1994, at the Austin Apple Assistance Center. I was hired as a ten-dollar-an-hour intern (a princely sum for the times) and happily spent the next two years swimming in technology. Looking back, I can still remember how fun that job was. And all the stupid mistakes I made and how many opportunities I let slip by, but I suppose most 19 year olds do.
One of the absolutely coolest things I saw during my time there was the Apple Newton. Remember, my friends, that this wasn't a PDA. This was the original PDA - the device that coined the term. Looking down my first time at that Original MessagePad, with its pitiful memory and iffy handwriting recognition, was a religious experience for me - it showed an entirely new paradigm of computing that was truly more personal because it could be carried with you everywhere.
I never supported the product while I was at Apple; I did become friends with some members of the team, though, and absolutely loved talking with them about it. I even tried my hand at learning Newton programming, though my ADD mindset at the time meant that lasted about two weeks. But the sheer wonder of handheld computing that I felt that first day has never really left me. When I got more adult and a bit more financially secure, I started purchasing my own mobile geegaws (currently, an HTC Wizard that will likely be upgraded this year to a TyTN II.) Alas, by that time the Newton had been relegated to the dust heap of history, cancelled by a resurgent Steve Jobs. To this day, I think there are people for whom even his turnaround of Apple, the iPod and the iPhone aren't enough to forgive that decision.
So imagine my surprise when I, in a fit of Wikipedia boredom, looked up the Newton and found that I was not alone in my nostalgia. In fact, the Newton was the posterchild for orphaned tech: thousands of people, it seemed, still used them; hundreds actively wrote about them and kept in communication, and several very gifted people with more time on their hands than I have were still programming for it. I was amazed, and delighted, that there was still a Newtonverse out there. In fact, I was so happy I went out and purchased one - a MessagePad 2100, which was the very last and greatest of the Newtons made by Apple. It blew the Original that first kindled my technolust away. And it was mine.
I suppose you might say I've spent the past few weeks in a form of nostalgic wish fulfillment. I remember thinking about how I would fill a Newton up with apps if I could just get my hands on one when I was at Apple. Now I've got over 15 megs of apps on mine (which, for the Newton architecture, is a lot - trust me.) They include:
- A full-fledged web server (Newton Personal Data Sharing)
- An HTML editor
- An SMTP/POP3 client
- Wireless ethernet
- A productivity app suite (NewtonWorks)
- Math/scientific calculator software
- A multilingual translator
In short, all the geeky apps that make PDAs so much fun. I was somewhat shocked by how advanced Newton software, for the most part written in the mid- to late 1990's, had been - and how the fundamental categories of mobile software hasn't really changed.
Do I have all these apps on my smartphone? Yes. Is it more convenient than the Newton? Yes. Am I having twice as much fun using my Newton than my smartphone? Hell yes. The 19 year old in me grins every time I take it into my hands and slide the on switch...which is something that I can definitely use these days, with a job that seems to age me more and more. And that, in various mutations and incarnations, is IMHO a prime reason why "retrotech" exists. Tandy Color Computer user groups, Apple IIgs web sites, Commodore 64 FTP archives...just like pictures or scents or snatches of music, technology can become a part of our past. It can take us back to different times.
One of the absolutely coolest things I saw during my time there was the Apple Newton. Remember, my friends, that this wasn't a PDA. This was the original PDA - the device that coined the term. Looking down my first time at that Original MessagePad, with its pitiful memory and iffy handwriting recognition, was a religious experience for me - it showed an entirely new paradigm of computing that was truly more personal because it could be carried with you everywhere.
I never supported the product while I was at Apple; I did become friends with some members of the team, though, and absolutely loved talking with them about it. I even tried my hand at learning Newton programming, though my ADD mindset at the time meant that lasted about two weeks. But the sheer wonder of handheld computing that I felt that first day has never really left me. When I got more adult and a bit more financially secure, I started purchasing my own mobile geegaws (currently, an HTC Wizard that will likely be upgraded this year to a TyTN II.) Alas, by that time the Newton had been relegated to the dust heap of history, cancelled by a resurgent Steve Jobs. To this day, I think there are people for whom even his turnaround of Apple, the iPod and the iPhone aren't enough to forgive that decision.
So imagine my surprise when I, in a fit of Wikipedia boredom, looked up the Newton and found that I was not alone in my nostalgia. In fact, the Newton was the posterchild for orphaned tech: thousands of people, it seemed, still used them; hundreds actively wrote about them and kept in communication, and several very gifted people with more time on their hands than I have were still programming for it. I was amazed, and delighted, that there was still a Newtonverse out there. In fact, I was so happy I went out and purchased one - a MessagePad 2100, which was the very last and greatest of the Newtons made by Apple. It blew the Original that first kindled my technolust away. And it was mine.
I suppose you might say I've spent the past few weeks in a form of nostalgic wish fulfillment. I remember thinking about how I would fill a Newton up with apps if I could just get my hands on one when I was at Apple. Now I've got over 15 megs of apps on mine (which, for the Newton architecture, is a lot - trust me.) They include:
- A full-fledged web server (Newton Personal Data Sharing)
- An HTML editor
- An SMTP/POP3 client
- Wireless ethernet
- A productivity app suite (NewtonWorks)
- Math/scientific calculator software
- A multilingual translator
In short, all the geeky apps that make PDAs so much fun. I was somewhat shocked by how advanced Newton software, for the most part written in the mid- to late 1990's, had been - and how the fundamental categories of mobile software hasn't really changed.
Do I have all these apps on my smartphone? Yes. Is it more convenient than the Newton? Yes. Am I having twice as much fun using my Newton than my smartphone? Hell yes. The 19 year old in me grins every time I take it into my hands and slide the on switch...which is something that I can definitely use these days, with a job that seems to age me more and more. And that, in various mutations and incarnations, is IMHO a prime reason why "retrotech" exists. Tandy Color Computer user groups, Apple IIgs web sites, Commodore 64 FTP archives...just like pictures or scents or snatches of music, technology can become a part of our past. It can take us back to different times.
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