EEVblog #418 - Mailbag Apple Newton Teardown

[EEVblog]

Mailbag time.
Dave tears down an original Apple Newton Messagepad 100.



Dave.

[nitro2k01]

Those 40 bucks are actually Swedish kronor. About $6.

Do a giveaway of three of the bags. Either a raffle or a contest. Maybe ask people to specify a reason why they should win.  Maybe split them up further if you can bothered, ~250 pcs per prize.

Yes, 100% recycled paper. Great for the environment, but don't rip it open in such a way that the stuff flies out all over the place. I did that once. 

Ord is Swedish for word. Typsnitt means font, so that's a sample of the font Berling Antikva by Karl-Erik Forsberg. It was finished in 1951. This was in the day and age when people still use movable lead types. The other one is actually a fossil of a plant called Murchisonia, or so they claim.

[EEVblog]

The other one is actually a fossil of a plant called Murchisonia, or so they claim.

Why do you say "claim"?
Murchisonia is an Australian plant by the sounds of it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murchisonia

Dave.

[Slothie]

Make a diode ROM for your micro PSU. None of this flash rubbish, that's just for noons! While your at it you could make a processor out of 2n3904`s

[nitro2k01]

The other one is actually a fossil of a plant called Murchisonia, or so they claim.

Why do you say "claim"?
Murchisonia is an Australian plant by the sounds of it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murchisonia

Dave.

Well I'm curious how archaeologists concluded it's a plant fossil. Apparently if must be a leave that has dried up and formed a coil. And no, just to get that out of the way, I'm not a creationist or any such nonsense.

I couldn't reist to fire up ye ol' Photoshop and doing this after hearing about Davy Jones' Locker. If you want, you could replace the blog header with this for April 1.

[EEVblog]

Well I'm curious how archaeologists concluded it's a plant fossil. Apparently if must be a leave that has dried up and formed a coil. And no, just to get that out of the way, I'm not a creationist or any such nonsense.

I assume you'd have to be an archaeologist/botanist to actually know the technical details of it.
It wouldn't surprise me if there are only a handful or two of experts in the field that could determine such stuff.

Dave.

[kendonator]

Hey all,

It's past midnight here, and I checked EEVBlog and saw a teardown of what I sent in.  Totally psyched, I've been waiting three weeks! 

I would not be surprised if my father took the device apart and made the issue worse, it would not have been the first (or last) poor device to endure his soldering iron...  If I find anything else that's really cool in my garage, I'll send it in.  My dad was...a collector of electronics.  We did have an old typewriter out there (1980's model, too, right up your alley, Dave), I would send it in, but it is too damn heavy and bulky (something like 10 kg, it would cost a fortune to mail), I decided to take it apart.  I'd be willing to send in the boards and actuator mechanism, though.

Congratulations on saying my name properly, by the way.  You would not believe how many people call me "Kendron" or "Kevin" or "Kendra".

My life has meaning, now, Dave Jones has taken apart my Dad's Newton.

[firewalker]

The gLCD was a custom one or a standard model?

Alexander.

[obsoletemac]

The little springs holding the thick envelope closed are called "jungfruben" in swedish, "virgin's legs". 

Really enjoyed the Newton teardown, thanks Dave.

//c

[Winston]

With all of those 1N4148s, you could make a diode array ROM:

http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/w144romal.jpg

[deephaven]

I made a television caption generator once using loads of 1N4148. Trouble is, they were of questionable quality and I had to replace around 25% of them before I got a clean looking caption. The logic to drive this diode ROM was RTL in TO5 packages.

[nitro2k01]

Hi Dave,

Just started watching your blogs a couple of weeks ago, lots to catch up on. Well done on a very informative stuff.

I couldn't noticing possibly due to poor video or my eyes have the blue switch at the start of the teardown looked broken. I have no idea what it is but it is on the same location as the power supply and very close to the plugback input. Go figure could be a battery/PSU stuck on PSU.

The big but is was it my eyes that it looked broken.

Not being long on the forum hope I haven't done a spoiler

Malcolm

The video quality is fine. If needed, and if your computer can handle it, click the gear icon and switch to 720p or 480p, and optionally view in full screen.

And the switch is not broken, but the shaft has U shape in cross section.

[SeanB]

I bought 20k of zeners on an auction once, and still have 15k of them ( gave away 5k) in 2 voltages, 12V and 24V. I use them as general purpose diodes, and they work well as that. Have turned a few into lamps by driving them with 12V from a SLA battery till they glow white and melt apart.

[bitwelder]

On the Newton I noticed most of the chips have a 93XX date marking (and some have also a (c)1993 ), but the two Apple ROMs are marked 9502.
A newer 1995 revision for the firmware, while using a ~1.5 years old board?

[xDR1TeK]

Hi Dave, I got an idea for the 4148 diodes, build a high frequency voltage doubler, it would be xFactor voltage multiplier.
It would be nice to see to what high voltage you can get those up to.
Also, though it won't drive much, but it can energize something, wonder what exactly.

[jancumps]

Hi Dave, I got an idea for the 4148 diodes, build a high frequency voltage doubler, it would be xFactor voltage multiplier.
It would be nice to see to what high voltage you can get those up to.
Also, though it won't drive much, but it can energize something, wonder what exactly.

That was my first electronics summer holiday job: build high voltage doublers for a powder paint company to increase the yield during powder painting. When high voltage was applied to the aluminium profiles, the paint powder was attracted to the aluminium, and less powder got lost.

[xDR1TeK]

Seems very smart, application specific engineering. Cool.

[ealex]

In the video, at 16:33, then pointing the thermistor: there is a SOT23-3 device marked TR3 that seems toasted - the traces are quite thick - maybe it acts like a switch ?
Can you bypass it ? Maybe it will start.

[nitro2k01]

That was my first electronics summer holiday job: build high voltage doublers for a powder paint company to increase the yield during powder painting. When high voltage was applied to the aluminium profiles, the paint powder was attracted to the aluminium, and less powder got lost.

With 1n4148's? They're typically only rated for a relatively low reverse bias. Those in the video, 70 V according to the pacakging. If they were 1n4148's, how did they stand up to the test?

[rj2k000]

I hand-place 400 1N4148 or 1N914s in a product every year. I could use any that are surplus.

[codeboy2k]

It would be cool to make a DIODE logic computer, and throw in some LEDs at a few key points to act as address and data indicators.

You'd have to make the basic building blocks using Diode Logic, AND, OR, NAND, NOR, FLIP-FLOPS, COUNTERS, MEMORY, etc.

Have it run a small program that can output a few different phrases, like "hello world" and some such..., the output being shifted through a LED array.

might be pretty cool on your office wall.

The voltage might be dangerously high to account for the maximum voltage drops...

[mariush]

I hand-place 400 1N4148 or 1N914s in a product every year. I could use any that are surplus.

With so many components I'd consider  moving to surface mount components and maybe even buying a second hand pick and place machine to put the smt diodes on the boards.

[silicon_ghost]

I owned a second generation Newton 2100 and loved it. The handwriting recognition was quite good and would learn your style of cursive scribbling.

I also wrote some apps for it and the data architecture was phenomenal. It used a loose database structure; I think a record was called a bag and fields were called slots. Every system database was extendable. For example, the base contacts database and app had say 20 predefined fields (first name, last name, city, etc.).  Any third party contacts app could add any custom field to any record. The third party app would see the new fields and the base contacts app would not delete or modify the custom fields. Anyone familiar with the Python language today would recognize this as the way classes and objects work in that language. Incorporating this at the OS level was revolutionary.

When Steve Jobs came back and killed the PDA I swore off Apple products for a decade. In fact I'm still primarily a Windows, Linux, and Android fan.

The reason there is a thermistor in the battery compartment is (at least in the second generation), you could use a custom rechargeable battery pack. I think it was NiMH.

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk HD

[xDR1TeK]

Nexus 10!!!! wooooooooooow
i want one

[NiHaoMike]

I owned a second generation Newton 2100 and loved it. The handwriting recognition was quite good and would learn your style of cursive scribbling.

I also wrote some apps for it and the data architecture was phenomenal. It used a loose database structure; I think a record was called a bag and fields were called slots. Every system database was extendable. For example, the base contacts database and app had say 20 predefined fields (first name, last name, city, etc.).  Any third party contacts app could add any custom field to any record. The third party app would see the new fields and the base contacts app would not delete or modify the custom fields. Anyone familiar with the Python language today would recognize this as the way classes and objects work in that language. Incorporating this at the OS level was revolutionary.

When Steve Jobs came back and killed the PDA I swore off Apple products for a decade. In fact I'm still primarily a Windows, Linux, and Android fan.

Apple did not kill the PDA. The iPad is more or less a huge PDA, the iPhone is a PDA that has phone functionality built in, and the iPod Touch is really just a PDA. It's true that the name disappeared as it evolved, but it's the same sort of device. It's also true that Apple devices are not as open as the classic "PDAs", but fortunately, Android is very open.