Episode 0068: Newton v Pilot

Show Notes

• Host: Dan Hugo
• Summary: A long time ago, the idea of a Personal Digital Assistant was novel and appealing, and so the Advanced Technology Group at Apple turned out the Newton, and it was amazing, except that it did not quite work when it came to its ambitious attempt at handwriting recognition. Along came Graffiti which had us re-learn how to draw letters, and then came the Palm Pilot to make it all work better. I worked in the Newton Group and at Palm (many years after the Pilot)…

Links

• Buy Dan A Coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danhugo
• Dan´s Ko-Fi https://ko-fi.com/danhugo
• Apple Newton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton
• Palm Pilot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PalmPilot
• Graffiti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti_(Palm_OS)
• Example Doonsbury comic strip on Newton https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/mobile-computing/18/319/1714

Attribution

• Apple Newton MP 100 photo By 80sCompaqPC - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=106497465
• Palm Pilot Photo By 80sCompaqPC - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=106497465