h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Maybe Douglas could persuade Apple to stop being snobbish and lower their prices so that normal folk can see how wonderful they're supposed to be. Only then can we stop lining Gates' pockets. What was the Newton? Was it one of these palmtoppy things? Is it true that the iMac has no floppy drive? How are those people in Cambridge doing with developing the small portable spectacles-based monitor?

PalmPilot was developed by ex-Apple guys. They might even have been Newton guys.

Is that the one with the little pen, the giraffe and the graffiti thing? Is it any good? Was the Newton a similar thing, thought out slightly differently?

Yes to all three questions!

Lovely. How much did it cost in pounds sterling? What colours did it come in? Net weight? Length of guarantee?

Which are you asking about?

The Palm (also known as the Pilot) is currently available as 3 different models (the III, IIIx and V) in the UK - you can pick one of them up for between 150 and 300 pounds, or find an older model (such as the PalmPilot Pro, which I use) second-hand. They're dinky and light - easily fit in a pocket, and very useful. I'm very happy with mine, though I don't use it as much as I used to (or should... I really should be making better use of the calendar and to-do list).

The Newton was much larger, about 8"x3", and considerably heavier. Only really fitted in the largest of pockets. It was also much pricier... around 600-800 quid. We still have at least one devoted Newton fan in the company, who takes his Messagepad 2000 everywhere.

There's a lot to be learnt from the differences between the Newton and the Palm, the most notable being that the Newton was always much more powerful than the Palm. The MP2000, which came out over 2 years ago, had a >100Mhz StrongARM in it, whereas the latest Palms have a 16Mhz Dragonball (miniature Motorola 68000, like the Atari ST and Amiga used to have). The Newton had a much more adventurous (and flexible) system architecture and could do things like proper handwriting recognition (whereas the Palm's Graffiti system uses a much simpler system). But when it came down to it, it was marketed wrongly, was too expensive and the form factor was pretty out of line with what people wanted.

The Palm, on the other hand, has always been the most under-powered of the big 4 PDA systems (WinCE, Psion and Newton being the others) yet it's also been selling twice as many as all the others put together. My guess is that:
a) it had the best size and weight (WinCE hasn't been in palmtops all that long)
b) it was cheapest
c) it didn't try to be too clever (in marked contrast to the Newton) - it just stuck to the things it was good at and just plain worked.

-- Yoz

You may need to check out the new Psion Series 5mx (at http://www.psion.com) for power, speed and functionality - not to mention a keyboard! Java is on its way... That also uses an ARM processor (but still only 25MHz - why they don't pump it up to at least 200MHz, I'll never know. It requires hardly any power at all.

It also totally rocks. Gs, I need to get some commission from those guys...

I have a psion 3 which I have had for about 8 years. Really good - use it all the time. I dropped it and broke it the other day and they fixed it and got it back to me within about 2 days. I also think it has a sexy shape...