It's absolutely insane how far we've come in DIY/Maker capabilities. Short of making your own ICs (thankfully a rapidly developing space), this is an incredible demonstration of what's now achievable by a single person.
I misunderstood the title and thought this was going to be a talk or interview with the person who came up with the concept back then, rather than someone building an approximation of the object today. Still interesting, I guess, but I can’t help but feel disappointed. I’d rather have a piece of insight into history than a mute video of something I can only react with “cool” and then never touch, try, hold, experience, or think about again.
I think the title is actually very misleading. It should be "He Built Apple's 1980s Retro Themed iPad Concept [video]" or even better "He Built a Case for His Raspberry Pi Based on Old Apple Concept Art."
Watched it all. Brilliant maker video. Impressed by the dedication to hours of sanding. Worried he would saw off his fingers trimming the FDD :-o. Keyboard is particularly impressive as is using off the shelf parts for IO and getting the 3d printed case to fit them perfectly. Floppy ejection using steping motor is a fun touch. Love it. Also all the tight tolerences!
I am looking into making a product for fun 3d printing, rpi etc but it'll be 1% of the sophistication of this.
The experience of this video is very reminiscent of the kind of experience one can have with the ClockworkPi [1] series of devices - I have both the original DevTerm and 3 of new uConsoles, and I had a lot of fun getting them assembled. Time to set up a Mac Classic emulator on the uConsole and get my own 'next generation Apple Mac Classic' machine, in my pocket ..
It's awesome job but what ruined the whole thing is to placard a sticker on the front bezel instead of 3d-printing and painting a rainbow Apple logo on the bezel
I remember seeing the first mac in my life around 90 (I was in Brazil, crazy import laws made macs insanely rare there, as the market was completely dominated by government protected companies doing PC clones and a sizable market of small PC builders working mostly from smuggled parts that didn't need to pay the outrageous import tarifs)
It was something for me out of a science fiction movie compared to the PC running DOS. Every single motherfucking detail seemed to have been carefully thought of.
This was in the home of girlfriend who had a rich journalist father (another relic from the 90s) and was able to import his macs via some government contacts, I think.
We would eventually break up, and it would take me another 10 years to finally get a mac again, now this time, a G3 laptop.
Whatever people say, I am still in love with the Mac. You don't forget your first loves so easily.
FWIW, I found the Newton quite workable and carried and used it constantly --- took all of my college notes on it, and in particular, art history, where the professor asked if I could share my notes with a learning-disabled student who had difficulty note-taking and reading handwriting, so I faxed them to the fax machine in the secretary's office.
- handwriting recognition ensured that the text was legible
- the stylus allowed me to include small thumbnail sketches of each slide
- since I had my own copies of the art history texts, one of which I kept in my locker for class (the other was at home for studying), I also included page references to the textbook
After I graduated, I learned that copies of my notes had been shared amongst everyone in the dorms taking that class and that the average grades since then were markedly higher, and the failure rate greatly diminished --- until the old professor retired (taking with her, her personal slides), and the new professor switched texts.
Using a Samsung Galaxy Note 10+, Kindle Scribe, and Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 these days, since there wasn't a replacement for my Samsung Galaxy Book 12, and I despair of how Microsoft has dumbed-down the stylus since Fall Creators Update: https://github.com/TheJoeFin/Windows10-Community/issues/17 --- in Windows 11 I have to keep the Settings app open so I can toggle the stylus behaviour depending on which application I'm using.
Fortunately, Firefox added a preference for using a stylus as a stylus, not an 11th touch input which actually works:
about:config change: dom.w3c_pointer_events.scroll_by_pen.enabled set it to False.
My parents saw the Newton while out at the mall. Mom heard the price and thought it was quite reasonable... at least until dad told her that "seven ninety-nine" meant $799, not $7.99. Guess her impression of its value was closer to how consumers valued it than what Apple was charging.
To be fair, many douchebags did make their use of the cell phone very conspicuous to show off and did so in places that traditionally had not been subject to telephone chatter. We went through a similar cycle when Bluetooth headsets were first introduced. Now we're accustomed to seeing people walking around, seemingly talking to themselves.
The NewtonOS in modern hardware would be awesome. I wonder if anyone has a plan to do that as well, now that the Mac Classic iPad has been manifest ...
Highly recommend the documentary on General Magic. They were actually trying to build the iPhone as early as 1989 (and into the 90s). My former boss Meghan Smith was part of that team, she loved it — and so many Silicon Valley companies came out of that project. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTdyb-RWNKo
