4 ms·

Never saw one of these, not sure how they competed but Palm Pilot was much more successful where I was. The modern equivalent feels to me to be e-ink devices,

by tjoff 3y ago

Never saw one of these, not sure how they competed but Palm Pilot was much more successful where I was. The modern equivalent feels to me to be e-ink devices, it still saddens me to no end that apple managed to kill the e-ink market completely with the ipad. It is finally gaining some traction though.

afandian 3y ago
I had a couple of Newtons. And now a ReMarkable tablet. I’ve often thought that if it ran the Newton software it would be perfect(ish).
pjmlp 3y ago
Compared with Palm, the programming environment was ahead of its time, instead of C with lots of contraints (all those handle based APIs), it was NewtonScript (inspired in SELF), a cool OS architecture, and C++ for when NewtonScript wasn't good enough.
JohnFen 3y ago
> not sure how they competed but Palm Pilot was much more successful where I was. The Newton predates the PalmPilot. The main problem that the Newton had was that it was very slow, large, and heavy. The Palm Pilot was a better market solution because it was none of those things. It was also much less capable, but it was capable enough for the market. Funny story: I had a software company producing commercial Newton software. When the Palm Pilot was released, my attorney brought it to my attention, suggesting that I should target it. I dismissed it because it was a much less capable machine. He was excited about it because it was affordable, small, and light. In terms of the smart business move, my attorney was 100% right and I was 100% wrong.
- jacknews 3y ago
  Ha, I used to write apps for PalmPilot. We showed them to our accountant one time, along with the website, where we had a 'news' page, where we'd post new releases and other stuff. The accountant instantly commented, "that's exactly what I want. Not a whole website, just somewhere I myself can post a 'news log'". I dismissed the idea, of course why wouldn't you want a whole website, and for news, you use a mailing list where you can send out an email newsletter. Blogger came out the following year.

by tjoff 3y ago

afandian 3y ago

I had a couple of Newtons. And now a ReMarkable tablet. I’ve often thought that if it ran the Newton software it would be perfect(ish).

pjmlp 3y ago

Compared with Palm, the programming environment was ahead of its time, instead of C with lots of contraints (all those handle based APIs), it was NewtonScript (inspired in SELF), a cool OS architecture, and C++ for when NewtonScript wasn't good enough.

JohnFen 3y ago

> not sure how they competed but Palm Pilot was much more successful where I was. The Newton predates the PalmPilot. The main problem that the Newton had was that it was very slow, large, and heavy. The Palm Pilot was a better market solution because it was none of those things. It was also much less capable, but it was capable enough for the market. Funny story: I had a software company producing commercial Newton software. When the Palm Pilot was released, my attorney brought it to my attention, suggesting that I should target it. I dismissed it because it was a much less capable machine. He was excited about it because it was affordable, small, and light. In terms of the smart business move, my attorney was 100% right and I was 100% wrong.

jacknews 3y ago
Ha, I used to write apps for PalmPilot. We showed them to our accountant one time, along with the website, where we had a 'news' page, where we'd post new releases and other stuff. The accountant instantly commented, "that's exactly what I want. Not a whole website, just somewhere I myself can post a 'news log'". I dismissed the idea, of course why wouldn't you want a whole website, and for news, you use a mailing list where you can send out an email newsletter. Blogger came out the following year.