TechCrunch has posted pictures of what they're calling an "unlaunched Apple tablet." In 1990, as the story goes, Apple was supposedly working on a pen-based touchscreen tablet called the Pen Mac that was actually extremely small for the time -- just about an inch thick, with a screen the same size as a Mac Portable. They were bringing a few different companies in on the deal, and apparently it worked well -- ran a full Mac OS, used a pen to control or let you plug in a mouse and keyboard, and there was even a smaller version called the PenLite (bulky by today's standards, but remember that this is 20 years ago now).

So why weren't we all using tablet computers 20 years ago? TechCrunch blames John Sculley, who apparently thought the tablet idea was out, and the PDA idea was in, and we ended up with the Newton instead. I won't second guess him -- while it's easy to think that anything could have beaten the Newton, would the current Apple touchscreen tablet craze even be here if it weren't for the iPhone? And isn't Apple's smartphone just a hop, skip and a jump from their original PDA?

The New York Times Bits Blog is reporting that Michael Tchao, a member of the team that brought the Apple Newton MessagePad to market, is going back to work for Apple after a 15-year absence. In Tchao's new job as Vice President of Product Marketing, he'll be reporting to Apple Senior V.P. of Product Marketing Phil Schiller.

For the past 7 years, Tchao has been General Manager of Nike's Techlab, which has been responsible for the Nike + iPod line as well as the online integration that makes nikeplus.com so powerful.

If you wanted to start doing a bit of speculating, it's interesting to note that Tchao was part of the team that was responsible for Apple's first tablet computer. Of course, the Newton platform wasn't exactly a huge success during its 5 years of life, owing primarily to its high price and (at least in the first versions) less-than-stellar handwriting recognition. Tchao wasn't in a marketing position at the time as the General Manager of Product Planning and Strategy for Apple's Personal Interactive Electronics group, and most of the marketing fumbles of the Newton era can be laid at the feet of the Apple execs in charge at the time.

Tchao certainly has the street cred as a tablet computing expert, with 5 patents to his name during his time with the Newton team. Although we don't know for sure at this time if Tchao has been tapped to resurrect tablet computing at Apple, his background both at Apple and Nike Techlab shows that he not only has the technical background to shepherd a new product to market, but the marketing savvy as well.

Welcome back, Mr. Tchao!

[via Mashable]

If you haven't registered yet, you'd better get moving since WWNC 2009 starts on July 31st!

What? You don't know what WWNC 2009 is? It's the WorldWide Newton Conference, and it's planned for July 31st through August 2nd in Vancouver, B.C. Lest you think that the Newton platform is a Dead Parrot, you should be aware that there is still a vital community of Newton enthusiasts.

Some of the expected topics at the conference are:

• Uses for Newton in today's world: for personal and business use (e.g. connecting to company database)
• Improving Newtsync: discussion on improving OS X's Newton sync application
• Ebooks and Newton: development of PDF viewer applications for Newton
• Discussion around Einstein and new hardware platforms
• Newton programming 101 for beginners
• How to GPS with the Newton, from A-Z
• How to Network the Newton: NPDS, wifi, etc.

Compared to WWDC, the WorldWide Newton Conference is a bargain at just $55 (accommodations, meals, and transportation not included) for the three days. If you still feel the love for your MessagePad, you should plan on attending this conference (I'd go, but I don't think Weblogs, Inc. will pay my airfare...). Sign up now!

We made it through Y2K and we appear to be surviving Twitpocalypse, but will Apple Newton MessagePad fans make through the Newtapocalypse?

Apple's ill-fated and technologically advanced personal digital assistant was hot stuff in the 1990s until it was axed in February of 1998. There are still a good number of Newton MessagePad fans who not only use their devices every day, but are also working together on hardware and software updates to their units to bring them into the 21st Century.

The Newtapocalypse occurs next year at 6:48:31 PM on January 5th, 2010. While a majority of the functions of the MessagePad are not affected by the impending doom, calendar functions are. Here's a description of the problem from 40hz.org:

The overflow happens in all NewtonScript functions which use seconds as the resolution. In contrast to the 32 bit unsigned integer used by the C++ functions, NewtonScript integers are only 30 bits wide. While the C++ functions can handle times from 1904 until 2040 without an overflow, the NewtonScript functions had to be designed with a smaller range of applicable times due to the limited precision.

The seconds-based functions are implemented by taking the value of the real-time clock, subtracting the offset to January 1st 1993, and converting the results to a NewtonScript integer. This limited range causes an overflow on Tuesday, January 5, 2010 at 6:48:31 PM.

This is the list of affected functions:

• SetSysAlarm
• TimeInSeconds
• TimeToTimeInSeconds
• TimeInSecondsToTime

Got that? John Sculley and company were probably hoping that by now you'd be using your Knowledge Navigator instead of a Newton MessagePad, and 2010 seemed far, far away. For anyone who wants to use calendar alarm functions on a Newton OS 2.1 devices after January 5th of next year, there's a fix that is being tested.

Now you'll be able to sleep better at night, won't you?

Update: I should change the title of this post to "Don't fear the reaper", since several commenters have pointed out that the update was released three weeks ago. The 40hz.org web page originally cited still says that "A solution is under testing". Frankly, considering the caveats listed on the update page, I think it would be a much better idea just to get an iPhone, guys!

I'm proud to count myself among InfoWorld's Tech cult No. 7: The Tao of Newton. I'll confess that my 2100 has seen less action since I bought my iPhone, but it'll never be relegated to my basement wasteland where various Palms, Visors and even a 3Com Audrey dream of more useful days.

Newton ownership is definitely not for everyone. it's big and takes some doing to get it to cooperate with contemporary hardware and software. But for the faithful it's a terrific piece of hardware. For more Newton information, check out The NewtonTalk mailing list.

People either have the love or they don't. You can have mine when you pull it from my cold, dead hands.

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.

Welcome to the TUAW newsletter for April 1st 1996. We're really glad that our subscriber base is growing, and that you are continuing to read our daily coverage of all things Apple, including Mac and Newton. We've got a lot in store for this issue, and would love to hear your comments back, so be sure to leave us a note in the attached forum thread to let us know how you liked it.

Happy Birthday, Apple!
Yes, today Apple turned 20 years old. While the company has been struggling for the past year, we can only hope that a turnaround is imminent. We've definitely seen some improvements, like that shiny new Newton MessagePad 130 that Apple released a few weeks ago, but we can't help but think that Apple is missing something. Either way, Apple is still an innovative company that holds true to their slogan of bringing "The Power to Be Your Best" to the consumer and professionals that rely on their products everyday.

Rumor Alert: Is Apple working on a new OS?
Our sources familiar with Apple's plans tell us that Apple is actively working on a project that will eventually replace the Mac OS. According to insiders, the code name for the project is Copland. We're also hearing word that Copland will feature amazing new features like protected memory, better performance, less crashes, and be completely PowerPC native. Becoming PowerPC native will be a huge issue as the PowerPC Macs only started shipping two years ago.

Apple's CEO stepping down? Who's stepping up?
We've recently heard that Apple's board of directors have replaced CEO Michael Spindler with Gil Amelio. From sources, we've heard that Apple will begin a massive layoff of employees -- not good for the company. Here's hoping Gil can turn the ship around.

Apple releases update to Newton MessagePad
Just a couple weeks ago Apple released a new MessagePad that looks promising. The MessagePad 130 features an ARM 610 processor that runs at 20Mhz, an 8MB ROM, 1.2MB RAM, and 1.5MB flash memory for storage. There is the same 320x240 screen that we've come to love on these portable wonders, and there is a backlight included on this model. It runs the 2.0 version of the Newton OS, which has been available on the MessagePad 120 since last year. The device is powered by 4 AA batteries (or a rechargeable pack), and only weighs 1 pound! This device looks promising and we can't wait to get our hands on it. You can get your MessagePad for $800USD.

**For more Apple news, be sure to sign up for The Unofficial Apple Webmailer available on TUAW.com, or you can see more Apple news on their website.**

Each year, a crew of Newton users, developers and devotees gathers to celebrate the little green device, discuss projects, share resources and generally have fun. As a Newton owner myself, I've wanted to attend one of these for years.

This summer's event features sessions by Grant Hutchinson, Ryan Vetter and (tentatively) Paul Guyot, who will discuss NPDS, modern uses of the Newton and the Einstein Project, respectively. You can get a full list of presentation topics here.

One topic that I'm sure will be on everyone's mind is the 2010 bug. Briefly, the Newton's clock has a 17-year life, which was born in 1993 and ends in 2010. January 5, 2010 to be exact. Some users have reported erratic behavior when they've tried to schedule calendar events after that date, sometimes requiring a hard reset to escape. This seems to be limited to Newton OS 2.1 devices only.

Eckhart Köppen is working on a fix, but it won't be easy, as a system patch will be required. Former Newton team engineer John Arkley had this to say in 1999:

"...Building and testing a System Update is complex and expensive process and no single engineer could do it. The Newton OS only supports ONE system patch, so ALL the existing 'fixes' and any new ones have to be combined together to combined to create the 'next' System Update."

Still, Eckhart feels it can be done. From what I know of him through the NewtonTalk mailing list, I'm inclined to believe him. In the meantime, check out the "Ramp Up Clip" to get yourself in the mood. WWNC '09 will take place from July 31st - August 2nd in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

This is very interesting -- while investors and consumers alike are panicking every time someone says "Jobs" and "sick" in the same sentence, MacLife has decided to take a more optimistic view of the prospect of His Steveness leaving the company, by compiling a nice list of ten Apple products they say Jobs had nothing at all to do with. As you probably already know, Steve left the company once before, from 1985 to 1996, and during that time, while Steve was working on NeXTstep (which would eventually become OS X), Apple didn't exactly sit on its laurels.

The Newton is first and foremost, and while some may laugh at the handwriting recognition, let's not forget that it can still do things the iPhone can't. And while many of Apple's products were finalized under Jobs' watch, their beginnings come from before his return: the Powerbook, Macintosh TV (which could definitely be seen as a precursor for the AppleTV), and the Power Macintosh were all released without Jobs. Even among the most faithful Apple fans, you have to agree that Apple is willing to get wacky without Jobs to squelch some really crazy ideas: the Twentieth Anniversary Mac, the eMate, and the adjustable keyboard are all examples of that.

Of course, you could definitely argue that Apple's most popular products (iPods, the iPhone, the MacBook lines) wouldn't have happened without Jobs. But there's something to be said for Apple sans Jobs, too. "The Power to Be Your Best" might not be quite as memorable as "Think Different," but it's got its own charm.

As 30GB Zune owners deal with the sudden bricking of their systems after midnight this morning, hopefully they can take comfort in the fact they are not alone in this. Throughout the years, Apple products had their share of time & date problems.

In February 2000, Newton owners began reporting that they were having issues with the Newton being rather confused about what century it was in. Some users discovered that when they entered two-digit numbers as part of birthdays and other common abbreviated dates, things got wonky. For example, if I entered my birth date as 2-28-80 on the Newton, it interpreted the number as being February 28, 2080 rather than 1980. Entries of full dates in the 1900s were also affected. Other users stated that when they tried finding 20th century dates in the Find applet of the Newton, the system actually performed the search using 21st-century dates.

Fixes included resetting the system clock back to 1999 to enter those dates before resetting it again back to 2000 and applying software patches. Sadly, it's a bug that HAL-9000 forgot to mention. Apple even reported back in 1998 that the Newton was Y2K-compliant. Of course, this won't even begin to cover the problems that Newton owners still using the product will have in 2010. If you see our own Newton-sporting Steve Sande at Macworld, be sure to tease him about it.

A Tiger bug discovered in 2005 revealed that Safari's RSS reader would list some items as being an hour ahead of when they were actually posted -- news from the future is not catastrophic, but certainly could be confusing.

Our research this morning hasn't turned up any date-related iPod or iPhone hiccups, but if you know of any examples please let us know in the comments. As for the Zune bricks, there's been no word yet from Microsoft regarding the failures, but Engadget's readers have already come up with a number of theories including blaming it on Steve Jobs, the year 2008 being one-second longer, and other conspiracy theories that are sure to come throughout the day.

Megan's great roundup of Apple history from the other day wasn't enough nostalgia for you? It should have been -- wow there was a lot of old Apple stuff in there. But just in case your itch for the days of Apple yore isn't yet scratched, here's a great little video compilation of every Apple product from the last thirty years, squished into three minutes and set to Fiona Apple's cover of "Across the Universe."

The IIe! The PowerCD! The QuickTake! And even those early notebooks, which look so blocky today, were impressive in their time. Unfortunately, this video won't tell you much about what these products all were, but just the sight of some of these old units is enough to make the memories come flooding back for us old Apple fans. The iPhone and the iPod are so much hipper, it seems, compared to the units of Apple's past -- you think we'll ever look back with such nostalgia on the first touchscreens we got? A product like the Newton was so charming because it was so quirky, but the iPhone is sleek, popular, and impressive. Do you think future generations will look back at today's Apple products with the same fondness?

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Chess goes way back in our history, maybe as far back as 100 A.D., and beautiful chess pieces were found in Scotland dating back to 1200 A.D. Tournaments started in the 15th or 16th century, so along with death and taxes, chess has been around a long time.

With the coming of powerful computers, chess was a natural to test how those 'thinking' machines could do against humans. I think the first computer vs. human chess game was in 1950 written by Alan Turing. Of course, there was Deep Blue (from IBM) which defeated world champion Gary Kasparov in 1997.

Chess-playing computers have also played some key parts in movies ... like the WOPR computer in "War Games", and of course HAL-9000 won a game in "2001-A Space Odyssey". It's said the creators of the film, Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick put in a chess playing computer as a joke because they thought no computer would ever play chess well.

Well, chess is played pretty well by computers now, and a fine, fine application has just been released to the iPhone app store. It's called Deep Green [iTunes link], a tribute to Deep Blue and the 'green' I expect comes from the applications origins for the Newton. The creator of the program, Joachim Bondo wrote Deep Green for Apple's ill-fated PDA, and a few days after Deep Green appeared, the Newton was pulled off the market.

Well, Deep Green is back, and is certainly a powerful chess partner. You can play against Deep Green, and adjust the strength of the chess engine. You can play against another person, or you can watch Deep Green play against itself.

Chess mavens will like that you can set up the game board manually, and you can take back moves or watch them again. The animation is very smooth and the chess pieces are very nicely rendered. I played a few games against Deep Green and it pretty much put me out of my misery quickly. When it takes one of my pieces, it vibrates to make sure I don't miss the bad news. If you quit the game before it is completed, it nicely saves it's state and lets you resume where you left off. (Or you can always resign.) Deep Green will also play back a previous game with full animation and you can control the speed.

Features I'd like to see added are iPhone to iPhone games, either over the internet or a wireless LAN.

The game is on sale through December for 4.99 but after the holidays it goes for 7.99. Another chess game that gets good reviews at the app store is Cyber Chess Ultimate, which is an online chess application but I have not tried it.

If you're into chess, I think you'll like Deep Green. It just might be 'checkmate' for iPhone/iPod touch chess games.

It's almost time for the annual tech event we all know and love. Not Macworld Expo, the World Wide Newton Conference! Started in 2004, the WWNC is a gathering of the most vocal and prolific members of the Newton Community. Projects that have come out of the WWNC include Einstein, a Newton OS emulator for Linux-based PDAs, and Newton WaveLAN drivers.

For now, the website has launched and a call for participants has been issued. If you're interested in attending or presenting, you can contact the folks in charge at the official website. WWNC '09 will take place from July 31st - August 2nd in Vancouver, BC, Canada. If you attend, please let us know. Have fun!

While everyone waits for Apple to implement copy and paste on the iPhone (or hacks their own), Newton users have been enjoying it for 15 years.

Here's a great video of the just how Apple pulled it off on a previous touch device. Clicking and dragging selects the text, and moving it to the side of the screen sends it to the clipboard, represented by a shortcut. You can then move multiple copies out of the clipboard and into your applications with a drag of that shortcut.

It seems like a variation of this could work for the iPhone -- drag text to an edge or corner as a clipboard. Of course, there's a lot less text manipulation on the iPhone than the Newton, which was a PDA.

Either way, I still love my Newton. Sure, people make fun of me for carrying around a PDA the size of a baby dolphin, but I don't care. At least I have copy and paste.

Let's face it - my development skills suck like an out-of-the-box Dyson vacuum! Back in prehistoric times when I was a Newton developer, I started by using the standard Newton dev tools but quickly learned that my programming skills were stuck in BASIC and Fortran 77. Pathetic, huh?

Fortunately, a small Canadian firm called NS Basic came out with a development kit based on BASIC that was easy to understand and use. Since then, George Henne and the NS Basic crew have kept up with the handheld world by creating dev tools for Palm OS, Windows Mobile, and (soon) Symbian, as well as providing the only remaining Newton development tool.

So what does this have to do with iPhone? NSBasic let us know about a video on their website that shows a small "Hello, World!" app and a stock quote application running on an iPhone. They're using NS Basic/Palm to write the applications, then running them in the experimental StyleTap Platform for iPhone and iPod Touch. While the apps look frighteningly like Palm OS apps, it's cool to see an easy and powerful set of dev tools that even beginners could use to write iPhone apps.

NS Basic is quick to point out that this is not a shipping product, nor do they have plans to port NS Basic to iPhone. Of course, perhaps a lot of interest in the video will convince them of the viability of the iPhone / iPod Touch market...