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Newton OS was the Operating System for the Apple Newton PDAs produced by Apple from 1993 - 1997. Newton OS was written entirely in C++ and trimmed to be low power consuming and use the available memory efficiently. Much like the first Apple Macintosh a lot of applications were written in the ROM of the Newton to save DRAM and Flash space for user applications.


FEATURES

Newton OS featured many interface elements that even the Macintosh OS didn't have at the time, such as drawers and the "poof" animation. These features were used in Mac OS X , along with Newton's Hand Writing Recognition (which is implemented as Inkwell in Mac OS X).

  • Sound responsive - Clicking menus and icons makes a sound, this feature was later introduced in Mac OS 8 .

  • Icons - Similar to the Macintosh Desktop Metaphor, Newton OS uses icons to open applications.

  • Tabbed Documents - Similar to tabbed browsing in today's browsers and Apple's AtEase Interface, documents titles appear in a small tab at the top right hand of the screen.

  • Rotate the screen - In Newton 2.0, the screen could be rotated to be used for drawing or word processing.

  • File documents - Notes and Drawings can be categorized. Eg. Fun, Business, Personal, etc.

  • Print documents - Documents on the Newton can be printed

  • Send documents - Documents can be sent to another Newton via Infrared technology or sent using the Internet by E-Mail, or faxed.

  • Menus - Similar to menus seen in the Macintosh OSes, but the menu titles are instead presented at the bottom of the screen, in small rectangles making them look like buttons.



SOFTWARE

Shortly after Newton's release in 1993, developers were not paying much attention to the new Newton OS API and were still more interested in developing for the Macintosh and Windows platforms. It was not until two years later that developers saw a potential market available to them in creating software for Newton OS. Several programs were made by 3rd party developers including software to enhance Newton's disappointing hand writing recognition technology.

The basic software that came with Newton OS:
  • Works - A program for drawing and word processing, with all the capabilities you'd expect such as rulers, margins, page breaks, formatting, printing, spell checking and find & replace tools.

  • Notes - Used for both drawing and writing in the same program either with a newton keyboard or a stylus pen.

  • Clock - A small floating window type application, known as a desktop accessory on the Macintosh. The Newton clock also included features for an alarm, minute timer and the date.

  • Dates - Calendar program where you can schedule appointments and other special events.

  • Calculator - A basic calculator with square root, percentage, MR, M+ and M- functions additional to the basic functions found on a calculator.



HANDWRITING RECOGNITION

The Newton's early handwriting recognition let the device down, resulting in bad publicity and reviews, this was due to the word-based handwriting recognition engine in the Newton which was developed by the Soviet programmers at Paragraph International Inc.


NEWTONSCRIPT

:''Main Article: NewtonScript .
Newton OS understands applications in C++, along with a user-friendly language called '' NewtonScript ''. These applications are stored in Packages . NewtonScript is as easy to use as AppleScript and contains several features that make it more powerful than AppleScript.


SEE ALSO

Apple Newton