The MessagePad 110 is an interesting piece of hardware. It totally overhauled the Original MessagePad's/MP100's case design to include an integrated screen protection panel, a contrast knob versus a temperature sensor and a horizontally placed stylus holder plus a much nicer stylus. The overall look is more streamlined than the original.

This piece of equipment is quite spectacular, especially considering its March 1994 release date. The handwriting recognition, when trained for a few days, is actually rather good. The dictionary is about 10,000 words from what I can tell compared to 93,000 words on the 2000 series, but if you keep adding words, within a while it will make little difference. But handwriting is just a small piece of the package.

As a few of the designers have said, the media didn't quite understand the concept. The MessagePad was not so much a handwriting recognition device as it was a Personal Digital Assistant given a literal interpretation of the phrase. When most people think of a PDA, they think of some puny little Palm device that runs on a pair of AAA batteries and stores a whole bunch of random information pertaining to their lives in logical locations. That is not a Personal Digital Assistant, that is a Personal Digital Organizer. But the world interprets it as such.

I'll admit that prior to owning a MessagePad, I thought that Palms did okay. That said, I realize now that Apple created probably the only real PDA in the literal sense in existance. Given Newton OS 1.3's and especially 2.0's very good handwriting recognition, and certain OS features, it would be possible to intelligently control a Newton. For instance, if you see a MessagePad's display, no matter the model, there is a little Assist button permanantly on the display. If one would tap this button after they wrote a paper, it would bring up a small dialog. You could write "Send to Tachyon." A second later after it interprets it, it would check to make sure it has the right person if you knew more than one. Then it would say something like "Send could mean fax or email. Which one?" So you would select email and if your MessagePad had the hardware for it, it would actually email the paper to me. Or you could open a new note and write "Remember to pick up plasma cannons at the hardware store" and it would make a new Todo item for you.

These little things are intelligent in the extreme, especially considering the system takes up less than 700k of RAM in an operational state. This is powered by a 20 MHz ARM 610a (100 series and OMP), a 25 MHz ARM 710a (eMate 300) or a 162 MHz StrongARM 110 (2000 series) processor and 640K to 8 MB of RAM, depending on the model. Most of them run on regular alkaline, NiCad or NiMH AA batteries, though eMates and the 2000 series need a special tray. These batteries typically last a few days. An eMate, which used more or less a laptop form factor could run for 28 hours on AAs. My 110 running off of 2100mAh NiMH rechargables ran for five days of heavy use (six hours per day, probably) before getting a low battery warning. That is 30 hours of battery. With alkalines, you can get nearly 50, I hear.

Now imagine a 162 MHz StrongARM in 1997. That would probably be a tad slow, but equivalent to a whole lot of 603 and 604 based computers at the time. My PowerBook 1400 has a 117 MHz processor and is a 1996 vintage, for comparison. It wasn't fast, but not too slow either. It is probably equivalent to about a 1.8 GHz single processor G5 (ballpark estimate) today. Now imagine a 1.8 GHz G5 in a marginally larger iPhone that ran off of rechargable AAs for literally weeks. Yeah. I'd snap one up.

Similar story in 1993. 20 MHz in the OMP/100 was respectable for the time, though AAA batteries were very dissapointing. If you had rechargables, it would at least be bearable. Maybe.

Anyway, this page will serve as a hub for my articles on the 110 and 2100 when it arrives next week [editme]. Awesome machines. For software, try the UNNA. They have pretty much all the Apple stuff plus a whole lot of freeware, shareware and abandonware. It's a lot like the App Store, in a way. Other than that, a lot of old websites are down. You can try to look them up on the WayBack Machine to see if they have content. If you are lucky, they might also have the file you were looking for. Otherwise...well, casualties of war and all that. To be completed.