From: Jim Witte (jswitte_at_bloomington.in.us)
Date: Sat Feb 21 2004 - 15:22:50 PST
> I guess, however, that maybe Newton _was_ the biggest fiasco in the
> computer
> industry... For Apple, that is... Frankly speaking... If Apple had
> been able
> to hold on, what would the Newton be today? Apple messed up, and let
> go of
Here's an email I sent to a particular person once associated with
Newton:
More mysteries.. "$#%@ why doesn't Jobs just bring back NS as an
alternative to AppleScript! (or Hypercard for that matter!)" NS
certainly seems like it would be a bit more powerful (I don't know if
AS supports first-class-functions), and I always though HC made a bit
(or a lot) more sense than AS - especially when it came to type
coercion - none of this nonsense of having to say "set tfile to name of
file (choose file) **as string** " (Emphasis added). HC would just
coerce it for you, AS apparently doesn't.. And 'put' always seemed
more logical to me than 'set'. 'Set' makes sense when talking about a
property, but 'put' makes more sense when talking about variables - the
are conceptually containers after all, and you don't set containers
often (unless you set them on the ground, and that's stretching the
metaphors a bit much..) Arrgh! And as an added bonus, if AS had
basically been identical in syntax and semantics to HC (with necessary
additions for app-command and some kind of class-structure added,
prototype-based makes the most sense, but then, I'm biased ;-), I think
you'd have had a HELL of a lot of old HC programmers who could
immediately start cutting their teeth on AS. As it is, now you have a
sub-industry devoted to writing AS books (perhaps for "disgruntled HC
programmers")
More importantly, IMO, HC should have been integrated into the system
from the beginning (buttons and fields *on the desktop*.. Custom
interfaces that users could actually write *years* before Visual Basic
was even a glimmer in Gates' eye..) Then adding AS-application-command
capabilities would have been natural.
Going further, if they had, then either HC or NS could have taken the
place of JavaScript and probably even Java (or Java would become
NS-compatible - I've heard "rumors" (*cough*) of the last project in
the labs got a Java VM working as a TInterpreter/TCompiler class). The
Newton book format could have taken the place of HTML (probably with
little modifications, maybe to fit into the IEEE specs for HTML at the
time, if there *were* any then). TinyTim/Copperfield would be the
basis for the first web-browser engine, and then HyperCard/Newton would
have ruled the Web..
And Macs would be in the driver's seat (as opposed to PCs), since
Macs would have built-in application-control and user-creatable
interfaces (something Java is slowly crawling towards now with projects
like Fluency), instead of Microsoft being effectively in the driver's
seat because they've co-opted and corrupted the established standards
for HTML and Java (and probably JavaScript as well - I don't know about
that).
With that, and had Apple focused on vertical markets with Newton -
scenario: right now you go to a hospital (at least at Bloomington
Hospital you do) and fill out a piece of *paper*, then having *one*
person type it in to a database (or check it), then a *second* person
checks it again, then a *third* person gives you your hospital barcode
ID bracelet. Instead, you'd just be handed a (NewtonSlate-based) padd
(notice the extra 'd' - I'm a trekkie ;-), enter the data (unerringly,
thanks to an integration of the Paragraph and Rosetta recognizers..),
it would automatically be reconciled against the database (if you had
already been there, after you enter your SSN, it would fill in the rest
of the information and ask whether it was correct), and then a little
printer on the site of the padd would print a barcode directly onto a
hospital bracelet. Something that used to (and now, at least in
Bloomington) takes 15 minutes could take 5, and the hospital would save
at least 2 sheets of paper (I'm sure it's at least in duplicate, if not
triplicate).. Apple could have absolutely ruled the world.. (This
absurdity of hospital inefficiency actually happened to me recently in
the ER - albeit at 12:30 at night..)
And another (partly related - mostly a rehash of what I said about
HC) one I sent to the macosx-talk mailing list:
Another little tidbit I read about Amelio is that he basically said
that if Apple had not for all intents and purposes dropped Hypercard
when they did, the World Wide Web would be based on it.. Probably a
bit far-fetched, but maybe not *too* far, if Hypercard had been
developed into what Runtime Revolution is today - cross-platform, fully
interface-capable, fast - and if some way to make Hypertalk and
Hypercard objects into small transportable units like JavaScript or SWF
files.
Integrating Hypercard into the Finder (think buttons, fields, and
little user-applets on the desktop, inside folders, etc) and bringing
Applescript (ie. system-wide Hypertalk) to the Mac about a decade
early, some modest integration with Windows (for the other 95%), and
adding database access (think system-level Perl possibly before Perl
was even a gleam in Larry Wall's eye) - as much as that existed back
when HC was created - I don't know my comp history - would have all
been good starts.
Likewise, with the Newton, Apple should have aggressively gone after
vertical markets. The general computing public wasn't ready for
something that potentially powerful and integrated yet (it still mostly
isn't IMO) - that much should have been clear from the reaction to the
early Newton ads, and the very ad-design itself ("Where is Newton?"
"Who is Newton?" We're wondering *what is the product*. Does that tell
us anything?).
But vertical markets would have been (and were) a different story: A
hospital wanting to completely change their patient data-entry system
to one using Newtons? It happened, and then they got shafted. Wireless
communications with Newtons? It happened a little with the Marco.
It's rumored that Apple had a prototype airport-like card for it.
DARPA wanting to do something with wireless Newtons on submarines?
That also happened. Presentation systems based on the Newton? EZVGA
did this, there were plans to add PowerPoint support to that, and Java
integration to the virtual machine so that the Newton could natively
run Java. (probably in a TInterpreter subclass, probably with full
exception support, not the ugly hacks that NewtWaba has to go through
to get it to run - some day it'll get rewritten as a P-class. After we
figure out how to write TViews)
"High-end executives", who I think you'd get more of when focusing on
vertical markets versus the mass consumer markets, are more likely (I
think, but this is a stereotype and I'm not a marketing student) to
take chances and use cutting-edge technology, especially well-designed
cutting-edge technology.
Jim Witte
jswitte_at_bloomington.in.us
Indiana University CS
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