Steve buys a new Newton 12/17/95
On December 11th, 1995 I bought a Newton 120 with the brand new 2.0 version of the Newton OS. The week prior I was able to play with one for several hours and was impressed. I ended up getting one at a really good price and could not resist.The other reason I bought one is that I am a Geek and like to write software, which is just too hard to do on the Magic Link given my short amount of time. The Newton is definately easier to develop for and with OS 2.0, Apple has added even more hooks into the system.
In the end, the day-to-day things that bugged with with my Magic Link included:
- Horrible screen.
- Too slow
- Poorly integrated with my Mac
- No software, and even if there were, memory issues were a hassle
- Harder to develop for
The Magic Link still has some definate plusses over the Newton. Its just too bad that Sony and General Magic have not made them more useful. For example, I added XMAS trees to all of the people I wanted to send cards to. But how do I export those people into something useful so I can use it with my Mac? As a developer, I can easily write a soup exporter on the Newton that will accomplish this and then I can give it out to every other Newton owner.
If you are looking for a PDA and thats it, take a look at both the Newton and the Magic Link. Compare them side by side for your needs. The new Magic Link has 2MB of RAM and a backlit screen according to the reports and should be a sweet unit. I heard it also has a built in 14.4 modem now!
© Copyright 1997-2002 Steve Riggins. Graphics by Andrew Duncan.
