Apple Newton H1000

Then one day Apple released their Newton. This was in the very earliest stages of the Personal Digital Assitant (PDA) revolution. I wanted one bad, but I wasn't willing to pay for what they cost new. Fortunately I found one for sale in the Cornell classified ads, and I picked it up. I actually used it for a few years. It worked fine, but it was too big and too heavy.

The Newton was a rather revolutionary device. It employed handwriting recognition and drawing aid tools. One could write anything anywhere on the screen, and the Newton would interpret it. Or at least it would try to. I gave it my best shot. I really tried to give the device ample opportunity to aclimate to my writing style, but it never worked well enough to be really practical.

Unfortunately Apple had tried to do a little too much at one time. While they tried to interpret all handwriting, Palm Pilot, the eventual PDA leader, created a handwriting style that was more suited to digital recognition. That wound up being the way to go. Apple dropped out of the PDA game, not to reutrn.

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