When I first launched this blog, the first image I posted was a screen capture from the Simpsons episode “Lisa on Ice” (2F05), where Kearney and Dolph spoof the Newton MessagePad’s much-maligned handwriting capabilities.

I bring this up again, because by 2:00 PM EST5EDT today, we will finally find out what the “Son of Newton” will be.

Simultaneously, the value of AAPL will either be rocketing upwards or sinking like the proverbial stone, depending on how investors view the announcement.

I really liked the Newton: it was a computational platform ahead if its time in its user interface and in the way it manipulated data, and was way, way ahead of the available technology to have really made it work.

I actually ran the “beat up Martin” handwriting demo on a real Newton when I was still in the lab, but I wasn’t paying attention and it actually came out “Beat up Marta”. That did get a laugh, but it wasn’t a good thing since the lab tech at the time really was named Marta and she didn’t take kindly to jokes and was never in the mood to be kind to anyone.

Gil Amelio (the former Apple CEO) is probably the one to blame as he used to hold up a wooden mockup and promise the moon, then expect the engineers to to make it happen. Fun days. I think Apple went through five iterations of hardware (OMP aka the MP100, MP110, MP120, MP130, 2000) before getting it right with the MessagePad 2100 and upgraded MP2Ks:

Lots of great stuff hardware-wise to support an advanced OS and GUI built from the ground-up for portable computing (think about this):

• a 162 MHz StrongARM SA-110 low-power CPU (a precursor to virtually all of the low-power CPUs used in current handhelds)
• 480×320 pixel 100 dpi greyscale screen with backlight
• 4 MB RAM
• 4 MB ROM
• two PCMCIA expansion slots for simultaneous data expansion and communications
• serial expansion port
• 24 hours continual usage on a single charge (optional AA battery cage that came with the unit)

4 MB RAM – amazing what a device will efficiently operate with and offer when it’s designed to be a portable platform. It is also very recently that handheld LCDs have exceeded the MP2x00′s screen resolution and sharpness.

Data was stored in “soups”, applications could access cross-soup, and I could efficiently tie together and access data in intuitive rather than rote manner. I wrote my graduate thesis on it, I could record meetings, I had it give a presentation for me using text-to-speech software when my voice gave out, and I used an eMate 300 as a personal web server.

I even remember pulling out the MP2100 to use its backlight as a flashlight when the power went out during the ice storm of 1998.

Unfortunately, by the time the 2100 came out, the company was hemorrhaging money and in danger of becoming a technology footnote so the Newton was killed off. Too bad: they were ready to release a smaller color version of the 2100 as well as the “bMate” (a color business-centric follow-up to the education market’s eMate 300), but neither model materialized.

What Apple learned from the Newton experiment continues to live on in the form of the wildly successful iPhone and iPod Touch, though these units lack pen input and well, soups.

I continued to use a heavily-equipped MP2100 for close to seven years after the technology was axed. At a full travel weight of one kg including a detachable external keyboard, AC adapter, spare battery clip, storage cards, modem and Ethernet card, it helped me run as a very effective road warrior.

It’s only in the last two years or so that technology has improved to a point where I can now assemble a kit that is as light and as versatile as what the Newton used to do for me.

I still own that MP2100 and several other models (OMP, MP130, 2000 and eMate) and while I currently pack both a SonyEricsson P990i smartphone and a company Blackberry to complement a ThinkPad, neither as a PDA is as fun to use as the MP2100 was.

As for why I don’t carry an iPhone: apart from the usurious data plans put forth by Rogers and Fido, there’s no stylus input and again, no soups. Ergo, I can hold off a bit longer.

It’s been 27 years since their first prototype and about six since they filed the patent shown below, but January 27, 2010 is the second coming of Newton: the day Apple is expected by almost everyone and their dog to release some form of tablet device to deliver rich media and change (again) the way we’re supposed to work with computers.

I’m hoping that whatever Stevie pulls out as his “one more thing” surprise at Yerba Buena is up to the task of changing the computational paradigm as its ancestor did 17 years ago. If it does, I’ll be in line for one.

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