Apple Newton on the Nokia 770

[dillera]

I got Einstein, the Newton emulator working on my 770.

http://homepage.mac.com/dillera/PhotoAlbum6.html

More info at my blog as this progresses......
http://www.dillernet.com/apple/

[michaelalanjones]

Let us know when you get it all worked out - I want to do this!

[DaveC]

Just wondering how fast it is running. I would think it's a tad sluggish given the limited CPU on the 770. It'd be cool if the speed was usable and if it could be used in portrait mode thus maximizing more of the available screen real estate...

Dave

[Karel Jansens]

Wow.

I mean...

No, still: Wow.

I know Paul Guyot said it would be relatively simple to recompile Einstein for different machines, but... well, wow.

The speed issue: Einstein in its current incarnation is not yet completely optimized for speed and without a functional Relativity layer (which I assume would be the biggest job on the Nokia 770 platform) speed really isn't the biggest concern anyway.

Questions for Dillera: Have you tried changing the orientation of the screen? Does the HWR actually work?

[michaelalanjones]

I would be ecstatic if they re-compiled it simply for full-screen, landscape mode, for nostalgia reasons. If I could get the sandbox to work on my PC at home, I would re-compile it myself. Uh, that is, if the source code is available.

[JMills]

I would be ecstatic if they re-compiled it simply for full-screen, landscape mode, for nostalgia reasons. If I could get the sandbox to work on my PC at home, I would re-compile it myself. Uh, that is, if the source code is available.


It's funny... because I purchased the Nokia 770 because it had some of the same features that the Newton MessagePad 2000 had back when I was at Apple.

Between the MP2000 and the N770 I ended up with a Palm IIIxe, which spent most of its time irritating me more than assisting me.

PDA is not supposed to stand for Personal Digital Annoyance. ;-)

-JMills happy again in N770 land.

[thoughtfix]

Can't wait until a full port of this is done - but then what? What happens to things the Newton never supported like - COLOR?

[JMills]

Can't wait until a full port of this is done - but then what? What happens to things the Newton never supported like - COLOR?


Why we use faux-greyscale of course!

Newton OS in Sepiatone! ;-)

[Karel Jansens]

Just one detail that I -- and others -- overlooked:

Einstein is not an emulator in the sense that it is some kind of clean-room rewrite of the Newton OS; it uses the actual code from a Newton MessagePad 2X00 ROM.

This means that, in order to run Einstein legally, a user must also own a Newton MessagePad with its ROM (the ROM is actually extracted from the MP and used by Einstein).

But don't fret, Newtons are cheap -- for the moment...

[anderbr]

Wow - impressive. But couldn't it run landscape to take advantage of all the screen ?

[dillera]

Wow.


Questions for Dillera: Have you tried changing the orientation of the screen? Does the HWR actually work?

Orientation - you can start it either way- I don't know about real-time rotation. It's slow -- too slow to 'use' at this point. But not insanely slow.

The HWR does do something- it's translating it to something.

[dillera]

Can't wait until a full port of this is done - but then what? What happens to things the Newton never supported like - COLOR?

Newton (the last ROMs at least) supported color- Apple just never used color screens. Paul says Einstein will do color without too much work.

[fuslit]

Its a shame that you need a newton to pull the rom from, I don't have the cash to go buying a used Newton to just have on hand just to try it out.

But, still very cool progress, it's great to see the development happen!

-Todd

[orbitalcomp]

dillera -

A few questions for you, if you don't mind:

1. Is root access required to run this?

2. How does it install? Does it go through the application manager like all of the other 770 apps?

3. Is it hard to extract the required ROM from the Newton?

4. Will you be making this available for download?

The Newton was awesome, it was just about 4-5 years ahead of it's time. I still have all of my Newtons laying around, I was really into them for years. I have the original MP100 (classic design), the clear-case, limited edition MP110, the MP2000, the Motorola Marco (wireless), and the eMate 300. I even have every piece of original packaging and all accessories (boxes, manuals, etc.) for every device, and it is all still in pristine condition.

[Mike Cane]

LVTT:

WTF? I'm offline for a few measly hours and you've transgendered your 770!

[michaelalanjones]

OMP stands for Original Message Pad. I sold my Newton MP130, MP 110, (2) eMate 300's and my wife's OMP on eBay, back in the day. Then I saw an OMP on eBay that was going to sell for $5 and I bid $12 for it, and won it.

I guess (probably) you are saying that the user must own an MP 2000 to use this?

[dillera]

dillera -

A few questions for you, if you don't mind:

1. Is root access required to run this?

2. How does it install? Does it go through the application manager like all of the other 770 apps?

3. Is it hard to extract the required ROM from the Newton?

4. Will you be making this available for download?



1 - yes
2 - It's tricky. You have to kill the Matchbox window manager and anything else you can to free up ram. then you run it from a ssh session.
3. No, once you have bootstrapped the newton- that is, gotten it to the point where you can run the Dock application and install the Dump application.... if you don't have a Mac with an old serial/appletalk port this is tricky.
4 - Einstein for Nokia is already available by the author: http://www.kallisys.com/newton/einstein/

Check my blog for a detailed directions on how I ran it.

[putkowski]

sad day when an obsolete newton is more available than a linux machine..

can you say "too geek to believe?"

Mike:

transgendered doesn't even come close. this is a whole 'nother species..

[newsbot]

[LINK: http://www.kallisys.com/newton/einstein/] Kallisys` Paul Guyot, who
ported Einstein on the Zaurus, has also successfully created a version for
the Maemo platform, which runs on the Nokia 770. [LINK:
http://www.dillernet.com/apple/2006/01/18/a-new-era-dawns/] Andy Diller
was lucky enough to try it out on his 770 and [LINK:
http://homepage.mac.com/dillera/PhotoAlbum6.html] posted some pictures.


Interestingly, Paul just released another version of Einstein, this time
for the Pepper Pad. Some pics [LINK:
http://chuma.org/photos/pepper-einstein/] here, courtesy of Victor
Rehorst....Read the full article. (http://www.internettablettalk.com/content/view/163)

[Mike Cane]

Mike:

transgendered doesn't even come close. this is a whole 'nother species..

PUN ALERT!

The 770 was NEWTered.

[RogerS]

Just one detail that I -- and others -- overlooked:

Einstein ... uses the actual code from a Newton MessagePad 2X00 ROM.

This means that... a user must also own a Newton MessagePad with its ROM.

But don't fret, Newtons are cheap -- for the moment...I went straight to eBay and looked -- the current bids were in the $125 - $150 range.

I wish "cheap" meant $10-$15. :-)

Hey, if you had a dead Newton, could the ROM still be read? Maybe non-working Newtons cost less.

[erwin]

Hey, it seems that my posting of this photo was almost profetical... :-D ;-)
http://www.internettablettalk.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/57/cat/504

[dillera]

Hey, if you had a dead Newton, could the ROM still be read? Maybe non-working Newtons cost less.


yes, you can use a dead newton! You just need to legally own the chip that has the rom.

[Karel Jansens]

But how are you going to extract the files from the ROM of a non-working Newton? I know for a fact that Paul Guyot will not provide ROM-files to anyone, as Apple is following the Einstein project with argus eyes to prevent copyright infringement.

[Hedgecore]

I wonder what the point is of suppressing further development of software Apple dropped as much as the hardware they produced to run it. It'd be like Sierra sending the SPA in to raid a kid who downloaded King's Quest 1. You figure they wouldn't make it public domain by now... or at least let people use the ROM for emulation purposes with a strict EULA.

[Karel Jansens]

I wonder what the point is of suppressing further development of software Apple dropped as much as the hardware they produced to run it. It'd be like Sierra sending the SPA in to raid a kid who downloaded King's Quest 1. You figure they wouldn't make it public domain by now... or at least let people use the ROM for emulation purposes with a strict EULA.

Steve Jobs is the spawn of Satan, of course, but there's hardly anything that can be done: after all, this is the same man who killed the Newton platform (allegedly) purely out of spite.

[Mike Cane]

@ desktop:

This reminds me of the Atari ST days. A Mac emulator called MagicSac that turned an ST into a Mac. You needed the *physical* ROMs for that -- to plug them into the hardware!

Since this only requires the code, I wouldn't go nuts driving up used Newt prices. This stuff will show up on P2P.

[Karel Jansens]

@ desktop:

Since this only requires the code, I wouldn't go nuts driving up used Newt prices. This stuff will show up on P2P.

... and that would kill the project almost immediately. It wouldn't even take Apple: Paul Guyot has vouchsafed that he will pull the plug on his code the moment someone warez a MessagePad ROM.

There's no need to go into a buying frenzie anyhow: Einstein is far from usable at the moment and besides, there's even no guarantee that the ROMs will remain necessary in the future.

A few years ago, someone started a cleanroom reverse-engineering project of the NewtonOS. It never got past alpha-stage, but the sources are still out there. So who knows? With the fresh knowledge of Einstein and Relativity it might very well be that this Newton clone is the way forward.

[Remote User]

@ desktop:This reminds me of the Atari ST days. A Mac emulator called MagicSac that turned an ST into a Mac. You needed the *physical* ROMs for that -- to plug them into the hardware!I was there. I met Dave Small (Littleton, CO) several times at Atari shows, and once when I paid his airfare to my office in '95. Late in the 80's I watched him insert a floppy drive into the Atari and turn it into a Macintosh. Think about that. Everything that made the Macintosh what it was was reduced to some code on a floppy. The Atari ST & Macintosh were both 68000 'puters, and so was the Amiga. The Atari ST was color, though from Day 1 while the Macintosh was still a black & white computer.

The illusion that the Apple Chips were necessary was a go-around to prevent him from being prosecuted by Apple for copying their intellectual property. That's all that it was. The Atari ST hardware, unmodified, was as good, or better, at being a Macintosh than Apple's own hardware was and the difference was nothing more than a couple of hundred K of code on a floppy. This was not entirely either a coincidence or 100% genius on Dave's part because Motorola published a reference design on how to build a computer with the 68000 that all these companies followed. That's how Motorola achieved these design wins for its 68000 CPU. At the time the Intel CPU was the infamous 'brain dead' 286. You had to be there.

[dillera]

But how are you going to extract the files from the ROM of a non-working Newton? I know for a fact that Paul Guyot will not provide ROM-files to anyone, as Apple is following the Einstein project with argus eyes to prevent copyright infringement.

MMM interesting point.

The bottom line is this: if you really want to use a newton, you'll buy one for the roms. If you are just a collector and would look for pirated roms and boot it twice, you may be out of luck.

[shirokuro]

Hi Andy,

I followed as best I could all the instructions on your blog for getting Einstein running on my 770, but when I try to run the einstein binary (I've tried loads of -- options) I get "Segmentation Fault"

I have enable root, ssh, successfully run your script to kill all the GUI and stuff, and I have a US MP2x00 (upgraded) ROM 717006 (which works fine on Einstein on MacOSX).

Can you suggest anything I might be doing wrong? Is it possible I have the wrong Nokia770 binary?

Thanks in advance for any help, this is driving me crazy!! :-)

Thanks for your fantastic work in getting this up and running and posting the howto!

[Odin]

I was there. I met Dave Small (Littleton, CO) several times at Atari shows, and once when I paid his airfare to my office in '95. Late in the 80's I watched him insert a floppy drive into the Atari and turn it into a Macintosh. Think about that. Everything that made the Macintosh what it was was reduced to some code on a floppy. The Atari ST & Macintosh were both 68000 'puters, and so was the Amiga. The Atari ST was color, though from Day 1 while the Macintosh was still a black & white computer.

The illusion that the Apple Chips were necessary was a go-around to prevent him from being prosecuted by Apple for copying their intellectual property. That's all that it was. The Atari ST hardware, unmodified, was as good, or better, at being a Macintosh than Apple's own hardware was and the difference was nothing more than a couple of hundred K of code on a floppy. This was not entirely either a coincidence or 100% genius on Dave's part because Motorola published a reference design on how to build a computer with the 68000 that all these companies followed. That's how Motorola achieved these design wins for its 68000 CPU. At the time the Intel CPU was the infamous 'brain dead' 286. You had to be there.

Actually, I was there. I owned an Atari ST (could not afford a Mac at the time) and later, a Newton. The simple reality of all of it is that we live in 1) a capitalist society and 2) a democracy governed by law. It does indeed take a college (EE, ECE, possibly CS) degree to understand that all you need to emulate a Mac on an ST is a disk and guess what, the same is true of a Windoze box. So the transformation seems magical (hence the name "Magic Sac"). The dilemma comes from the junction of (1) and (2). When money is involved and laws are present to protect it, well, you know the rest...

As an aside: few know that Apple had planned on using Intel for the Mac. The support chips were not ready, so they went with Motorola. Now history has come full circle. At least we can sleep soundly knowing that there is a God--that was revealed when Apple went to Unix for Mac OS X.

[speculatrix]

it's a shame that progress on this is so slow!

BTW, I remember running a Mac emulator program on my Amiga, you just booted off a floppy. There was enough space on the floppy to include one mac program (paint, I think) and a trivial game. The only reason it wasn't more widely adopted, I think, was because it was far from trivial to read mac floppies!