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Hardware

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

By John Sheesley November 14, 2008, 5:06 AM PST

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Cracking Open the Apple Newton

The Apple Newton H1000 (OMP)

The Apple Newton H1000 (OMP)

The Newton was the first successful PDA. Introduced in 1993, it paved the way for such things as the Palm PDA, Pocket PC, and even devices like the iPhone. Ridiculed for poor performance, it didn’t last long in the marketplace, but its influence lingers on today. n

nWe got a hold of one and discovered what’s inside. Our unit is an Apple Newton H1000, also known as an OMP (Original Message Pad). This was the first Newton on the market. It debuted in 1993.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Model H1000

Model H1000

Our Newton is the H1000, which is also known as the Newton MessagePad. This is the original unit made in 1993. As you can see, it was made in Japan.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

The Control Panel

The Control Panel

The Newton is basically one large tablet. You can write anywhere except at the bottom, displayed here. These are touch buttons which launch applications.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

The Stylus

The Stylus

The stylus stores in the side of the case. Unlike modern styluses which are usually little pointers, this one is full size, equivalent to a ball point pen.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

The top

The top

Here’s the top of the unit. The black box on the left is the IR window. Next to it is the card slot for a PCMCIA memory card.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

On/off

On/off

The button in the middle is the On/Off switch. It’s springloaded. At the far left is the button to pop the PCMCIA card out with. It’s mechanical in nature and takes some pressure to release.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Power and synch

Power and synch

These two connectors, below the stylus holder are hidden beneath a rubber gromit. The one on the left is for an AC/Adapter. The one on the right allows you to synch your Newton with your Mac. Your OLD Mac.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Memory!

Memory!

You can expand the Newton memory using a PCMCIA card. This card contains a whopping 2MB of memory. Lots by 1993 standards.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Powered up

Image: Nick Heath / TechRepublic

Powered up

Here’s the unit powered up. You can see the greenish reflective LCD screen common on some low powered devices in the 80’s and 90’s. No backlighting here. The screen is useless unless it’s well lit.

Image: Nick Heath / TechRepublic
Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Preferences

Preferences

You have many choices to configure your Newton, including training it to learn your handwriting. It is supposed to recognize regular writing, not special kinds like Grafitti on the later Palms.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Party like it's 1994

Party like it's 1994

By default the Newton thinks that it’s January 4, 1994.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

The Newton is Y2K compliant. It understands 2008 as being a valid date. There’s no direct date input though. You must scroll through 14 years of dates.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

On screen keyboard

On screen keyboard

You can write freehand and the Newton will do OCR or you can bring up an onscreen keyboard like this.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Handwriting style

Handwriting style

You can specify how the Newton recognizes your handwriting.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Feedback!

Feedback!

One of the Newton’s downfalls that it was ridiculed for was its poor handwriting recognition. It rendered the word TechRepublic as feedback!

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Newton vs iPod Touch

Newton vs iPod Touch

Here you can see the size of the Newton relative to an iPod Touch.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Similar dimensions

Similar dimensions

As you can see the Touch is much smaller, but rotated into a landscape mode, the screen width is identical to the width of the Newton.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Battery Compartment

Battery Compartment

The Battery Compartment is on the bottom of the unit.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

AAA battery pack

AAA battery pack

The Newton runs on 4 AAA batteries which sit inside of a removable battery pack.

backupbatterycharger.jpg
backupbatterycharger.jpg
Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Backup battery

Backup battery

There’s a lithium battery for backup purposes to keep data in the Newton in case the 4 AAAs die.

nTo the left there’s a red switch you set to remove the backup battery and the 4 AAA battery pack.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Model and Serial Number

Model and Serial Number

Inside the battery compartment is the model and serial number for the Newton.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Backup Battery removed

Backup Battery removed

Slide the red switch to Remove Backup and it unlocks the lithium battery.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Back cover screws

Back cover screws

There are two screws accessible from the outside, and 5 inside of the unit. Remove these first.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Snap apart

Snap apart

Once the 5 screws are removed, the back of the case snaps off, with a little prying.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Main system board

Main system board

With the back off, you can see the clean system board. It’s a very clean design, mostly all ICs.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

RAM

RAM

This is the main RAM for the Newton. The H1000 comes with 640K of RAM.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Apple LSI chip

Apple LSI chip

This chip handles most of the bus activity on the Newton. It provides the interface for RAM, DMA, Real time clock, PCMCIA card, audio, and video.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

CPU

CPU

The Newton uses a 20Mhz ARM610 CPU. It was one of the first mobile processors.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Apple ROMS

Apple ROMS

These two identical chips (to the lower left and bottom of the CPU) are the system ROMS for the Newton. It comes with 4MB onboard ROM storing the Newton programs such as Calendar, Calculator, and so on. The chip in the upper left hand corner is another RAM chip used for parity checking on the others.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Upside down serial controller

Upside down serial controller

This inverted chip is a Zilog Z85C3008VSC CMOS serial controller. It’s the chip that controls the serial port on the Newton and allows you to connect your Newton to a PC. Unlike most serial controllers which are RS232, this is an RS422 standard chip.n

nThe LT902SC chip to the left is a driver/receiver chip for the RS422 chip. The AD7880AR chip to the right is an Analog to Digital converter chip.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

IR

IR

This is the IR port for the Newton. You can use it to beam information to another Newton or IR capable device.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Speaker wires

Speaker wires

Here’s the wires that run to the speaker. They’re soldered in place, so you must be careful with them.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

System board screws

System board screws

There are lots of little screws to remove to take the system board off.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Hidden screw

Hidden screw

There’s a screw hidden deep in the machine you have to remove to get the system board off.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Touchscreen

Touchscreen

Here’s the touchscreen for the unit with the cover off.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Assembly date

Assembly date

Here’s the assembly date for the unit.

October 29, 1993.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Removing the cover

Removing the cover

There are two large screws which connect the speaker to the front cover. Remove them and cover disconnects.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Shielding

Shielding

Here you can see the shielding between the system board and the LCD.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Ribbon connector

Ribbon connector

The LCD connects to the system board with a ribbon connector.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

PCMCIA socket

PCMCIA socket

Here’s where the PCMCIA expansion cards sit when you put them in the machine.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Disconnected

Disconnected

Here’s the ribbon cable disconnected from the system board.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Ribbon edge

Ribbon edge

Here’s a closeup of the ribbon connector. you can see the trace wires in the ribbon and the exposed card edges.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Ribbon connector

Ribbon connector

Here’s where the ribbon plugs in.

nBeneath it, you can see the blue Reset button which is inside of the battery compartment.

Cracking Open the Apple Newton

Cracked open

Cracked open

The Newton Message Pad H1000 (OMP) completely cracked open.

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