In the spirit of today's April Fool's/Apple birthday blasts from the past, we've got a giveaway prize pack that will remind us all of days gone by. [Yes, this is an actual giveaway, not a joke. -Ed.]

Long before there was the iPhone, there was the little PDA that could: the Newton. While it may have sparked mockery and marketplace neglect in its original release, there are still thousands of loyal Newt users (our own Steve Sande among them) who crave the green glow of the touchscreen and the cold, firm feeling of the stylus in their hands.

If you want to join the chorus of Newton owners, here's a unique opportunity: win a mostly-functional (delivered as-is) MessagePad 130 that has been sitting in a box in Mike Rose's office for years now. The left side of the screen is wonky, but other than that it seems to be in working condition. Along with the MP130, you'll get a leather Newton case, a Fodor's 1994 Travel Guide card, a copy of the MessagePad 2000 manual, and a bonus: a copy of the 1996 World Wide Web Yellow Pages. This, friends, is what winning feels like.

See abbreviated rules below, and leave us a comment telling us your favorite Newton memory to enter!

• Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older.
• To enter leave a comment telling us your favorite Newton memory.
• The comment must be left before April 5, 11:59PM Eastern Time.
• You may enter only once.
• One winner will be selected in a random drawing.
• Prize: One copy of the MessagePad 2000 Manual, one copy of the 1996 World Wide Web Yellow Pages, one Newton MessagePad 130 with leather case & custom stylus (note: screen is not fully functional, prize delivered as-is), one Fodor's 1994 Travel Guide card for Newton (total value estimated at $100 -- no warranty included).
• Click Here for complete Official Rules.

Our friend Hadley Stern at Apple Matters reminds us that that on this day in 1997 the Twentieth Anniversary Mac (or TAM) was offered for sale to a mystified public. Originally slated to sell for about U.S. $9,000 it was reduced at introduction to U.S. $7499.00. It was delivered and set up by a concierge, and at the time it was pretty radical, at least in looks. It was a thin, upright design, with an 800x600 LCD screen, a TV Tuner, and a Bose Audio system with a sub-woofer and power supply that sat under your desk.

Only 12,000 were made, but many remained unsold. The price soon dropped to $3500.00 and in March of 1998 it was closed out at $1999.00. That outraged original owners, and Apple responded by giving them a new Apple laptop.

I was able to grab one of the TAMs at $1600.00 and at that price I thought at least it would make a nice music system and second computer. Unfortunately, the system developed a nasty audio buzz. I wasn't alone, and many of the units had to be returned for a fix.

Performance specs weren't too great. It was limited to 128 MB of RAM. Most of the internals were similar to the components of the then current PowerMac 5500 and 6500, although the TAM had a custom motherboard.

I added a processor upgrade sold by Newer Technology, which kicked the speed from 250 to 400 MHz. That helped, but the upgrade required a new back for the TAM that didn't enhance the slim profile.

Of course the TAM was a statement computer, not a howling fast desktop. Here is a link to the specs. Although Steve Jobs was said to have hated the TAM (he was in exile from Apple at the time) you can see some of the early evolution of the iMac in the design.

There are still quite a few of the TAMs out in the world, and there are some web sites dedicated to keeping the flame alive. You can't run OS X on them, so you had to max out at OS 8 or 9.

Jerry Seinfeld had one, and it could be seen on the set of his TV show in the final season.

I parted with mine long ago, but it was always a good conversation piece when people dropped by, and the 90's ultra-modern design doesn't look out of place at all today.

Thanks to Apple Matters for reminding us about the TAM.

Even though reviewers and early attendees have pointed out a slew of Apple references (including a snippet of the 1984 ad) in the Watchmen film, the one we've been waiting for most eagerly is the appearance of Adrian (Ozymandias) Veidt's sleek black SE/30. In the film version of 1985, it's what every 'world's smartest man' is using as his desktop computer. Never mind that in our universe, Apple didn't introduce the 68030-based compact Mac until 1989.

Looks like Gizmodo has the first photos of the all-in-one running System 6 (naturally). Hey, it's the consensus best Mac ever -- what else would you choose? Also, pay no attention to the fact that while that's a consistent ADB mouse, the keyboard appears to be for a PC.

If you can't get enough Watchmen, Giz also has a spoilerific discussion of whether one of the characters resembles a certain iCEO, and the iTunes store is chock-full of smiley-face content for your enjoyment. If the idea of a black SE/30 makes you all tingly inside, check out geektechnique's slick mod on his machine.

Update: Word is that there was, in fact, a security-hardened 'Tempest' model of the SE/30 that matches this description, except for the color. Commenter defor writes:

IT actually IS a Tempest SE/30, model CSI-1891T (the proper model which is a SE/30 that's been tempest-ized) by Candes Systems http://web.archive.org/web/20011127001651/members.aol.com/tempestcsi/ I can't say I've seen one in black before, but it looks fully legitimate, and i've heard of them existing. The old manuals i had seen only showed the platinum variant.

Those of you buying tickets to Watchmen via movietickets.com may have discovered, as I did, that there's an iTunes bonus in effect through 3/15: a chapter of the Watchmen motion comic + a "sneak peak [sic]" of the Tales of the Black Freighter animated minifeature. Be sure to scroll down on your ticket confirmation page to see the gift code, as it will not be emailed to you (at least, it wasn't in my case).

Thanks to Laurie & everyone who sent this in.

Ars Technica reports that Apple will announce the latest additions to its list of vintage and obsolete machines on March 17. The list, initially reported through MacMerc, includes the following:

The "vintage" machines are ones where service parts are available to repair machines purchased in California due to existing statutes. This classification does not apply in the other 49 states.

• Xserve RAID
• Xserve (Slot Load)
• Xserve (Cluster Node)

The rest of the additions, to grace the "obsolete" list, include:

• PowerBook G4
• Power Mac G4 (Digital Audio)
• Power Mac G4 (Quicksilver)
• Macintosh Server G4 (Digital Audio)
• Macintosh Server G4 (Quicksilver)

These machines have all had good runs. I had a Quicksilver as my first post-college work computer and thought it was the greatest computer I've ever worked on the time - way, way back in the golden days of years gone by (aka 2002). These computers will now join their brethren in the Mac retirement home. But just because Apple classifies them as obsolete doesn't mean that you can't breathe new life into them.

Have fond memories of these machines? Share them in the comments!

Al Diblasi over at Alfred.TV keeps coming up with fun videos with old Apple or related devices as the centerpiece. In this latest 53-minute masterpiece on YouTube (below), Al boots up a 1991 68040-based NeXT Cube, and then shows off some of the built-in applications, an original brochure for the NeXT, a cool NeXT black turtleneck (Steve Jobs' influence, obviously), and a couple of versions of the NeXTstep OS and development environment.

For those of you who are new to the Mac world, NeXT was the company Steve Jobs founded after being kicked out of Apple. Originally, they produced both hardware, of which this NeXT Cube is a prime example, and software. NeXT was purchased by Apple in 1997, and the NeXTstep environment evolved into what we now know as Mac OS X and the Cocoa development suite. A NeXT computer used by Tim Berners-Lee was the world's first Web server.

Be sure to watch or at least skim through to the end of the video, where Al finds a couple more Apple gems in his brother's basement. You can follow Al's trips through retro computing on Twitter.

It comes with a few games to begin with, and there's also built in access to the Interactive Fiction Database, so you can grab as many text-based adventures as you'd like -- hours and hours of text-based good times. Whether you're an old hand at GET LAMP or new to the surprisingly vast world of IF, Frotz seems like a perfect portal to all the adventuring there is to find out there.

[via Joystiq]

This takes me back to the 10.1/10.2 days, before anyone had invented decent webmail, the days when I still used Eudora and loved it. Passion for Eudora aside, I still experimented with alternative email clients (everybody did, right?), and one of those was GyazMail.

It was actually pretty good, at the time, and a serious rival to Apple's then-still-young Mail. In recent years I'd rather forgotten about it, but lo and behold, here it is popping up with new updates.

This new release kills a bunch of bugs and tweaks a few features, but what impresses me most is that the update is available for Jaguar users, with a separate (Universal Binary) version for those on 10.3 or later. That's what I call legacy support.

If you have a creaky old Mac that still serves you well running one of these older big cats, and you need a mail client for it, GyazMail is well worth a glance.

Earlier this week, we pointed out an unboxing video of a pristine 20th Anniversary Mac. Of course, they're underpowered by today's standards, but many Apple collectors love them. To find one still sealed in its original factory box is a rare indeed.

During the video, we got a look at the obnoxious introductory QuickTime that shipped with these things, which begins, "There are some things in life which capture one's soul." Capture my soul? You mean the TAM is a ghost trap?

Check out the fancy CG graphics, self-important narration and the glinting TAM itself. Many thanks to propstoyou22 for sending us the video.

It's not every day that you can buy a brand new computer that's over 10 years old, but Alfred DiBlasi managed it: an eBay find of an original Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh, fresh in the box. In the 22-minute unboxing video (more than ample even by our standards) Al and his buddies remove the artifact from another era from its packaging and boot it for the first time. Zoom ahead to the 20:00 mark to watch the delightfully pretentious "Design Is Art" QuickTime intro movie (worth YouTubing on its own, if possible) and enjoy the Michael Hedges-esqe (possibly actually Michael Hedges) soundtrack.

While the TAM may have been a poor bargain when it was introduced in 1997 (2 GB hard drive and 32 MB of RAM in a machine costing $7,500?) it still wears a striking titanium gray silhouette, and we know that sleek, forward-looking design can command a premium price today. I hope Al gets all the enjoyment out of it that a decade-old computer can possibly provide.

Thanks Eric & Blake!

When I think about a computer, I usually don't think about a 5-ton assembly of brass gears, cams, and steel rods. Yet in 1847 - 1849, Charles Babbage first created his design for the Difference Engine No. 2, a large mechanical computer that used these non-electronic components.

Nathan Myrhvold, former Chief Technical Officer of Microsoft, commissioned the building of a Difference Engine No. 2 based on Babbage's design. It's on display at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, and will soon grace the living room of Myrhvold's home.

What does this have to do with Apple? In this MarketWatch video, it's mentioned that Babbage had problems getting funding for a device that was considered to be ahead of its time. It kind of reminds me of Apple's Newton MessagePad. It was the progenitor of all PDAs and smartphones, but failed in the marketplace because of its price and the fact that few people understood what it was good for.

The video also highlights Daniel Janisch, PowerBook Guy, who upgrades and sells antique PowerBooks (8-year old "Pismo" PowerBooks, for example). You can run Tiger on the Pismos, but they're often abandoned for the new kids on the block.

Thanks to Jomo for the link!

24 years ago today the public could, for the first time, buy themselves a Macintosh computer. This little computer, which cost $2500, changed the way people interact with machines on a very real level. It is also the reason that TUAW exists. Without the Macintosh 128k there would be no TUAW, no Mac, and (most likely) no Apple.

Sound off in the comments if you bought one of those first Macs and share your story of how it impacted your life.

Thanks to everyone who reminded us about this.

Dr. John Zoidberg is my TV Boyfriend. My husband knows, accepts, and understands. So imagine my surprise when TV Squad's Richard Keller posted about how Futurama's Zoidberg got his name. Sure, yadi yadi background stuff and then...Apple II assembly language? Wow cool!

Futurama creator David X Cohen wrote Zoid back in the rocking '80s, when Brøderbund was a gaming force to be reckoned with--although it never actually was released to market. Instead they passed on the software and Cohen was forced to entertain us with cryogenics and one-eyed mutants and, well, you know the rest of the story. "Zoid" inspired the name for my darling Zoidberg, the Dr. McCoy with a mail order medical degree.

Now here's where it gets interesting and TUAW-ish. Cohen still actually has his original Zoid game on a 5.25-inch floppy disk and, according to TV Squad, wants to find someone capable of ripping it for use on an Apple II emulator. Any volunteers? We at TUAW have no idea how to get in touch with Cohen but, hey, we thought we'd throw this one out there and see if we can make Internet magic happen!

Now open your mouth, and lets have a look at that brain!

Here's an awesome project from over at 123Macmini-- James Colby hollowed out a Classic Mac, and stuck a ripped apart mini in there along with a new LCD, took Finder out of the interface and sent it straight to Front Row, and bingo-- a Classic mini jukebox. And I especially like that the Classic was named Morris and the (10 minute old) mini was named Frank, so together, they're Frankenmorris. Cute.

It's a tight fit to get all that stuff in there and working, but it's even more amazing that he was able to get everything out of there-- as he said, he had to cut the front off of the CRT. The front also looks nice considering he made a few cuts there, to let the floppy take in a DVD, and another hold for the IR receiver.

But the end product looks great. One more reason why the mini, despite recent rumors, should stay right where it is.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

I love this. From my old hometown of Maryland Heights, MO (although Google says there is no Mac Store in town there-- maybe it's that old computer store that used to be on Dorsett just east of 270), it's the Mac II couch, made completely out of old Macintosh IIs held together with drywall screws. I can't imagine that it would actually be comfortable (although it's probably as comfy as any park bench), but I do like how there is actually a little bit of design to it-- instead of just building a solid block, those armrests and that base look great.

See, that's the problem with today's computers. Sure, MacBook Pros are super thin, and iPhones are slim little devices that have many times over the power of the old Mac II, but can you build a couch out of them? I think not!

[ via Neatorama ]

Who doesn't enjoy walking down memory lane? Picture it: October 23, 2001 Apple changes the world again but no one realizes it. That's the day Apple introduced the first iPod ever, and produced the above video letting people know what the heck an iPod was.

The original iPod had some things I miss on the newer iPods: FireWire support and a physical scroll wheel (oh, how I miss the physical scroll wheel!).

Here's a fun question, how may folks out there had one of the original iPods? You know, before our PC using friends could get in on the party and everyone from the Queen of England to the Pope could be counted amongst iPod users.

[via Chris Pirillo]