I’ve always wanted an Apple MessagePad (Newton). When they came out in 1993 I was still at University and could not afford one. We needed to do things like buy food, pay rent etc. and there wasn’t really enough to to that let alone buy toys for me. A few years later I saw a Palm Pilot for the first time. A trip to Germany the man on a plane next to me on showed me the one he had. He loved it. I was converted. Again no money so I waited. I used a tax rebate to get one. (The rest of the rebates went on car repairs and new carpet.) I’m on my 3rd pilot now.
Anyway I saw a MessagePad on Trademe and bid for it. I won! So I’m now the proud owner of a small piece of mobility history. Mine is the original version and is still boxed and even has the unused stickers. The only ting missing is the cable to connect it to a computer. I’ll have to find one of those. I think it needs a new internal battery. I run it on the mains connection.
The first version had issues with it’s hand writing recognition. You can tune it to match your writing. Now I’ve done that it is a lot better. At first it was not able to recognise my last name. It managed Richard OK but I had all sorts of weird answers for Rowley. ‘Bailey’ and ‘Reilly’ I can understand but ‘Soviet’ takes the biscuit!
If it gets the word wrong you can double tap the word and get a list of other suggestions. If the work it should be is not present, you can use an on screen keyboard to enter it. Now it has ‘Rowley’ all is good.
I paid less than $100 (NZ) for it. I’ve seen some people claiming the first model is worth $700 (US). Of course things are only worth what people will pay for it.
