More than 10 years ago, Apple designed and produced the Newton Series of portable, handheld devices - now known more commonly as PDA's. The last in the Newton series was the Newton MessagePad 2100.

I've just been re-living some of my fond memories of using my Apple MessagePad 2000 - slightly dusty and with a drained, tired rechargeable battery pack (the Battery Info dialog refers to this as 'deepToast' (!) which I found slightly amusing - luckily, I still have the AA battery pack adapter.) Curiously, I noticed a strong resemblance that I hadn't appreciated before between the Newton Operating System (NewtonOS) and OS X which runs on todays Macintosh computers. For instance, the obvious one is the 'Dock' containing shortcuts to applications, which runs along the bottom of the screen, and, just as in Mac OS X, this 'dock' can be re-positioned depending upon the orientation of the screen!

The Dock in Mac OS X	The 'dock' in Newton OS

Newton OS has a user interface which is massively intuitive, it's handwriting recognition 'engine' is awesome. I picked up my Newton and began writing across the screen using the stylus - it had no problem remembering my handwriting style and translating my scribble into properly formatted electronic text. I'm sure my handwriting must have altered somewhat over the past 6 years or so.... ah, those were the days. In fact, those are the days... Macintosh users can find the same handwriting recognition technology within 'Inkwell' in Mac OS X - available when the computer is aware that a graphics tablet is connected.

So why, might you ask, did I delve to the depths of my cupboard and start playing with my Newton?

It so happens that whilst I was searching for GPS solutions for mobile phones, I stumbled across someone who had explored using a Newton MessagePad with Global Positioning Satellites (GPS)

This also led me to a site hosting the entire collection of Newton Software (available for download.) Connecting my Newton to any of my Macs, all of which have USB ports rather than a serial port, is a little more tricky. The USB to Serial adaptor from KeySpan might resolve this one. The Newton Connection Utility works only in Mac OS 9 (or Classic) though there are several applications written for Mac OS X which do the same thing - handy!

I'll also need a compatible GPS receiver, which rather usefully, talks to other devices using a common language, NMEA.

I might cost this little project out and see if it appears feasible. What I don't want is for the Newton to die leaving me with kit that I can't use with anything else later.