All Newton devices had at least one PCMCIA memory card slot. According to Engineering360 (the world’s largest online destination for engineers):
“PCMCIA memory cards and storage cards are used to add memory (RAM, SRAM, Flash, etc.) and/or storage capacity (hard disks, CD-ROM, etc.) to computers. PCMCIA is an acronym for the Personal Computer Memory Card Association, the organization which develops and maintains standards for PCMCIA cards. Originally, these devices were known as PC cards because they were designed to add memory to portable computers.”
The original MessagePad and the 100 series Newtons (100, 110, 120, 130) had one Type II card slot, the MessagePad 2000 and 2100 had two Type II card slots, and the eMate 300 had one Type III card slot.
This Newton 4MB Flash Storage Card added 4MB of internal storage to a Newton device.
This quad-fold brochure from 1996 is titled “An Overview of Apple Products” with the subtitle “Choosing the system that’s right for you.” The opening 2-panel spread is an overview of the brochure with the headline “Apple Macintosh: Ease-of-use, power, compatibility, and multimedia.”
Fully unfolded, the brochure reveals 4-panel spreads that alternate between a photo featuring a product and overview, followed by a spread with a product specifications grid. The sections include: Macintosh Performa and Power Macintosh Computers, Macintosh PowerBook Computers, Displays and Printers, and Apple Servers and Services.
The end pages of the brochure shift focus to discuss ways to use Apple products. Each category uses a four-panel spread and includes Communications, Multimedia, and Publishing. These last three sections include several Apple peripherals from the time, including the GeoPort Telecom Adapter Kit, the Newton MessagePad 130, AppleCD 600e/600i drives, AppleDesign Powered Speakers II, Apple ColorOne Scanners, and QuickTake 150 digital cameras.
Folded, this brochure measures 3.875 x 8.25 inches. I also have a similar version of this brochure from 1995 with product specifications from that year.
Newton Press was a software application for the Newton, Apple’s handheld Personal Digital Assistant. On a two-page MessagePad Accessories sheet, Newton Press is described:
Newton Press This easy-to-use software allows you to publish electronic documents such as travel itineraries, reference books, or sales charts on your personal computer for viewing and annotating on your MessagePad.
The box states:
“Create documents on your desktop computer, then publish them as Newton books. Drag and drop word processing documents, graphics files, or text created on your personal computer directly to the Newton Press application for simple, one-step creation of Newton electronic reference books. Or use the formatting capabilities to format your books, create tables of contents, establish paragraph links, and more. Anyone with a Newton personal digital assistant (PDA) can view, annotate, fax, or print the books you create.”
This copy of Newton Press is unopened and in its original shrink wrap.
The Apple Newton MessagePad 100 was the same as the original Newton, but shipped with a newer version of the Newton operating system (Newton OS 1.2). All available Newton models included the MessagePad (Original MessagePad, OMP), followed by the MessagePad 100, 110, 120, 130, 2000, and 2100. In addition, the eMate 300 also ran the Newton OS.
The Newton MessagePad was the first device referred to as a “Personal Digital Assistant” (PDA). The MessagePad 100 was a handheld device with a 336×240 monochrome display that was touch-sensitive. Users could interact with the display with a stylus that came with the Newton stored in a compartment on the right side. The device used a 20 MHz ARM (Acorn RISC Machine) 610 processor and had a total of 604k of storage, although only 150k was usable. This Newton weighed just under 1 pound at 0.9 pounds.
The Newton MessagePad 100 could be plugged in to a Macintosh or Windows computer using a serial port connection, or data could be “beamed” to and from the device through infrared. It also had a PCMCIA card slot (later called a PC Card) accessed from the top to allow other programs to be run or the memory to be expanded.
The Newton was also among the first devices commercially available to use handwriting recognition as part of the operating system. However, this feature did not work well when first released, leading media and popular culture to ridicule and parody the feature. The Newton’s handwriting capabilities were featured on an episode of The Simpsons (“Lisa on Ice”) and in a week-long story of the Doonesbury comic strip by Garry Trudeau.
When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1998, the Newton was one of the projects that was cancelled.
I used this Newton MessagePad 100 for 3 years while serving as a band director. This device allowed me to keep all my notes and contacts and I used it along with my Macintosh PowerBook 160. For the record, I did not experience the handwriting recognition issues with this device that were popular to reference at the time. In fact, I believe the Newton OS 1.2 handwriting recognition from around 1995 has the same, or better, accuracy than the “Scribble” text input on the Apple Watch in 2020.
The Newton 9W Power Adapter could be used with all Newton MessagePad products in the United States, Canada, and Japan. An Apple price list also noted that this adapter could “recharge the NiCd Rechargeable Battery Pack for the MessagePad 120 and 130, and the NiMH Rechargeable Battery Pack for the MessagePad 2000 and 2100.”
