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EEVblog #418 – Mailbag Apple Newton Teardown

EEVblog February 1, 2013 EEVblog, EEVblog - Podcast 8 Comments 1,360 Views

Mailbag time.
Dave tears down an original Apple Newton Messagepad 100.
Photos HERE
Forum Topic HERE

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Hans

The idea with switch-system in the battery compartment is that you can ONLY exchange one battery at the time, so the device will always have one battery to keep the memory data alife.

So it is to secure your data that they had made this strange stuff in the battery compartment.
Lai CH

He he, saw my parcel. At least I know my parcel arrived safely. ^_^…
JRR

You had some bad video ripple right at the end there – shutter speed aliasing against the lighting?
smilr

Wow – interesting to see one of these again.

I had a blast taking notes in college during the early 2000s on an old MP2100 I snagged off eBay for relatively cheap… might go dig it out of storage and see if it still works!

As for the blue switch in the battery bay – I believe that the MP110 and later models supported NIMH rechargeable packs, not sure about the H1000 (MP100). Does the blue switch in the battery bay get depressed by the battery pack you have? If not – it may be designed such that a rechargeable pack would press the button, signalling to the newton that the batteries were rechargeable and therefore OK to feed current into. This would also explain the blue thermistor as a temp sensor to monitor charge status.

I remember that the newton family were very picky about the ac adapter power supplies – apple made the power bricks self current limiting. Hooking a conventional power supply up, even if at the correct voltage, would fry the newton as they would draw more current than they could handle, having relied upon the current limiting built into the OEM power supplies themselves.
JFA in Montreal

The AM chip that’s upside down from which the electrons are falling off… well, it’s normal, since you’re in Australia. Northern equipment shipped to Oz must have tight lids with seals, must be able to operate upside down, otherwise they’ll all loose their electrons, of course.
George in U.S.A.

Did anyone notice the date codes on the ROMs?
They were from 1995. Two years newer than the rest of the ICs. I wonder if this Newton was sent back to Apple for a OS ROM upgrade at some point.
ac

> Two years newer than the rest of the ICs.

Apple has a time machine.
Christian Berger

4000 Diodes? You could build a ROM 🙂