Hey, Mastodon … I’m trying to track down an #AppleNewton developer named Stephen A. Cronin.
He worked at #AMD and operated a software company called TapTech based out of Austin, Texas in the late 90s. I’ve managed to contact his former software partner, Francis Preve … but Francis lost touch with Stephen years ago.
Together they released a sequencer program for #NewtonOS called NR404 and I’m hoping the source code still exists somewhere.
Happy 30th birthday to the Apple Newton which was released on this day in 1993!
While the Apple Newton had its challenges and eventually paved the way for more advanced mobile devices, it remains an essential milestone in the evolution of portable computing.
“Love Notes to Newton is a film about what a beloved (but short-lived) pen-based Personal Digital Assistant created by Apple Computer has meant for the people…”
In addition to the full length “Love Notes to Newton” film, Noah Leon has recently published full interviews with with Steve Capps (author of the MacOS Finder and much of #NewtonOS), as well as James Joaquin (head of #AppleNewton marketing and business development).
Two and a half years ago, I reached out to Tom Collins and Dan Rowley of ICS (Innovative Computer Solutions), a company that developed software for the #AppleNewton such as GestureLaunch, NewtCase, SoupKitchen, and BarKeep.
After a bit of back and forth. they kindly created a GitHub repository containing most of their software, as well as a #Python script to generate registration codes for the products that require activation.
Twenty eight years ago today, #NewtonOS 2.0 received the “Mobility Award for System Software” at the Mobile Insights ’96 conference … beating out other contenders including Microsoft Windows 95, General Magic’s #MagicCap, and Geoworks’ Geos.
While I'm thinking of all the things I'm thankful for, I want to make sure to say a huge thank you to @mhzmodels for the recent creation & donation of new #AppleNewton#MessagePad & #eMate voxel art to UNNA.org!
Even better, they have been released under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license and uploaded the UNNA.org archives for the community to use (non commercial & by attribution, of course):
Twenty seven years ago today, Apple shipped its Newton Toolkit development tool for Windows. “[It] gives developers the platform independence they desire.”