From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Aug 11 02:53:07 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id CAA24730 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 11 Aug 1997 02:53:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tyree.iii.co.uk (tyree.iii.co.uk [193.117.77.66]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id CAA24725 for ; Mon, 11 Aug 1997 02:52:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from carrig.strand.iii.co.uk (carrig.strand.iii.co.uk [192.168.7.25]) by tyree.iii.co.uk (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id KAA01542; Mon, 11 Aug 1997 10:50:18 +0100 (BST) Received: (from nik@localhost) by carrig.strand.iii.co.uk (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA00403; Mon, 11 Aug 1997 10:55:40 +0100 (BST) Message-ID: <19970811105540.52314@strand.iii.co.uk> Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 10:55:40 +0100 From: nik@iii.co.uk To: Marco Molteni Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Apple Newton MessagePad References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.76e In-Reply-To: ; from Marco Molteni on Sat, Aug 09, 1997 at 02:55:12PM +0200 Organization: interactive investor Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Sat, Aug 09, 1997 at 02:55:12PM +0200, Marco Molteni wrote: > In quest of a way to drastically limit the amount of various-shaped > pieces of papers floating around my desk, folders and briefcase [1] > when I need to jot down or to retrieve (!) something (eg University notes, > memorandum, URLs, ...), I found the Apple Newton MessagePad, which seems > pretty cool: > > 1. LCD display sufficiently wide > 2. interfaceable to a PC > 3. handwritten recognition > 4. real keyboard > > Any comment about this toy or suggestions about similar ones ? I've had a Newton 130 for a little over a year. It's great for the things I use it for. Specifically; - Diary - Contacts - Flat file database - Money management The only problems I have with it are a) You have to shell out cash to get the programming environment. I'd prefer Apple to offer a bare bones environment for the hobbyist for free b) It's a bit too slow for instant use. Looking stuff up takes an appreciable amount of time. This is a pain if you're checking out what's happening on a particular day with a customer who's hanging on the telephone. The Newton 2000 solves the speed problem. Sadly, I can't afford one yet. When I (finally) get my own FreeBSD home box I'm going to spend some time working on a Newton DB for typically 'Unixy' information. I envisage being able to wander around the office inspecting the various bits of hardware on the network and scrawling (literally) the information into a DB on the Newt. I should then be able to come back to my desk, hook it up to my Unix box and run some scripts to produce things like named maps and other host tables, web pages that outline what's where, /etc/aliases and so on and so forth. At the moment though, it's just a pipe dream, :-( N -- --+==[ Nik Clayton is Just Another Perl Hacker at Interactive Investor ]==+-- "The good guys dress in black. Remember that." NC5-RIPE