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#applenewton

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younata
Rachel Brindle @younata@hachyderm.io · Aug 03, 2026
Replying to @younata@hachyderm.io
Only a day later, and I am finding myself significantly more impressed at the handwriting recognition on the MessagePad 2100. Yes, I’m slightly changing how I write to try to fit that, but if it’ll result in more readable chicken scratch, then this is only a good thing. But, like, this was all handwritten, with only a handful of corrections made, and only to change the capital M’s down to lowercase m’s. No ducking autocorrect! (I need to do the patch that’ll let me set the date to a current one, the Newton had its own y2k38 problem about a decade ago due to using 16? 24? bit Ints to represent date) #AppleNewton
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younata
Rachel Brindle @younata@hachyderm.io · Aug 03, 2026
Replying to @younata@hachyderm.io
I also haven't gushed enough about how much I absolutely ADORE espy sans (the default Newton system font. Used in the app/icon names and such. It's not the font for the text of the note, which I believe is Sand?). My introduction to Espy Sans was the iPod Mini in 2004, and to this day Espy Sans is my favorite font. Apple knocked it way out of the park with that. Unfortunately, Espy Sans is not going to make an (official) comeback because it's a bitmap font, and truetype fonts are definitely a better technology. #AppleNewton
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younata
Rachel Brindle @younata@hachyderm.io · Aug 02, 2026
Replying to @younata@hachyderm.io
It arrived. I am very excited. It’s larger than the specs made it appear. I’m going to try to daily-drive this for a bit, but I doubt I’ll do that long-term. #AppleNewton
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younata
Rachel Brindle @younata@hachyderm.io · Aug 02, 2026
Replying to @younata@hachyderm.io

Ok, so initial impressions:

  1. There's so much whimsy in this. Deleting a note has a cute animation where the note is crumpled up and put into a trash can. Accompanied with a sound effect of crumpling paper.
  2. I forgot how much resistive touchscreens suck. It takes an unreasonable amount of pressure for a touch to be recognized. Similar to when you're trying to use a ballpoint pen that's nearly out of ink.
  3. The handwriting recognition is surprisingly good for the mid-90s. That said, it's still objectively bad. It's easy to forget that we didn't get good handwriting recognition until relatively recently. That said, Eat Up Martha is definitely still a thing, even though Simpsons was making fun of the original MessagePad. I'm going to keep trying, but it is frustrating.
  4. The built in screen cover is so useful. Shame that the modern equivalent (an iPad) has the cover as a separate accessory.
  5. The device itself is pleasantly chunky. They definitely did their best with then-current technology to make this as thin as possible, and I'm so glad the technology just wasn't there to make this thinner.
  6. Turning on the backlight is non-obvious. You hold the power button for a bit until it turns off. Same deal to turn it off. Thanks NewtonFAQ for that (https://newtonfaq.com/newton-faq-hardware.html#IIC6c)
  7. This thing is SO delightfully 90s.

#AppleNewton

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splorp
Grant Hutchinson @splorp@mastodon.social · Dec 21, 2025
Boosted by CM Harrington @octothorpe@mastodon.online
Announcing the latest release of the Newton Glossary! This edition contains 1,974 terms, definitions, acronyms, colloquialisms, cross-references, and trivia related to the #AppleNewton. https://newtonglossary.com Since the last update, 24 new terms have been added. Check out the latest entries: https://newtonglossary.com/latest Full release notes: https://newtonglossary.com/changes
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