79-543: The MessagePad is a series of personal digital assistant devices developed by Apple Computer for the Newton platform , first released in 1993. Some electronic engineering and the manufacture of Apple's MessagePad devices was undertaken in Japan by Sharp . The devices are based on the ARM 610 RISC processor , run Newton OS , and all feature handwriting recognition software. Alongside
158-419: A CompactFlash slot or a combination of the two. Although designed for memory, Secure Digital Input/Output (SDIO) and CompactFlash cards were made available that provided peripheral accessories like Wi-Fi or digital cameras to devices with software support. Some PDAs also have a USB port, mainly for USB flash drives . Some PDAs use microSD cards, which are electronically compatible with SD cards, but have
237-458: A bitwise NOT operator. Node.js uses the caret in package.json files to signify dependency resolution behavior being used for each particular dependency. In the case of Node.js, a caret allows any kind of update, unless it is seen as a "major" update as defined by semver . In mathematics , the caret can signify exponentiation (e.g. 3^5 for 3 ) where the usual superscript is not readily usable (as on some graphing calculators ). It
316-529: A calculator , and some sort of memo (or "note") program. PDAs with wireless data connections also typically include an email client and a Web browser, and may or may not include telephony functionality. Many of the original PDAs, such as the Apple Newton and Palm Pilot , featured a touchscreen for user interaction, having only a few buttons—usually reserved for shortcuts to often-used programs. Some touchscreen PDAs, including Windows Mobile devices, had
395-498: A Newton device to access additional information, find out where they were in the museum, listen to audio, see animations, control robots and other media, and to bookmark information for printout at the end of the exhibit. The device became known as the ARIF, a Malay word for "wise man" or "seer" and it was also an acronym for A Resourceful Informative Friend. Some 400 ARIFS were installed and over 300 are still in use today. The development of
474-504: A PDA with digital cellphone functionality, the 9000 Communicator . Another early entrant in this market was Palm , with a line of PDA products which began in March 1996. Palm would eventually be the dominant vendor of PDAs until the rising popularity of Pocket PC devices in the early 2000s. By the mid-2000s most PDAs had morphed into smartphones as classic PDAs without cellular radios were increasingly becoming uncommon. A typical PDA has
553-514: A PDA, reducing the number of textbooks students were required to carry. Brighton and SUSSEX Medical School in the UK was the first medical school to provide wide scale use of PDAs to its undergraduate students. The learning opportunities provided by having PDAs complete with a suite of key medical texts were studied with results showing that learning occurred in context with timely access to key facts and through consolidation of knowledge via repetition. The PDA
632-404: A better, clearer, backlit screen, attracted critical plaudits. The eMate 300 was a Newton device in a laptop form factor offered to schools in 1997 as an inexpensive ($ 799 US, originally sold to education markets only) and durable computer for classroom use. However, in order to achieve its low price, the eMate 300 did not have all the speed and features of the contemporary MessagePad equivalent,
711-512: A caret) quickly became reused for many other purposes, such as in computer languages and mathematical notation. As the mark did not need to fit above a letter any more, it became larger in appearance such that it can no longer be used to overprint an accent in most fonts. In Unicode the symbol is encoded as U+005E ^ CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT ; in HTML it may be used directly or inserted with ^ . The combining character for use as
790-621: A desktop computer graphics tablet . With "Shapes", Newton could recognize that the user was attempting to draw a circle, a line, a polygon , etc., and it would clean them up into perfect vector representations (with modifiable control points and defined vertices) of what the user was attempting to draw. "Shapes" and "Sketches" could be scaled or deformed once drawn. "Ink text" captured the user's free-hand writing but allowed it to be treated somewhat like recognized text when manipulating for later editing purposes ("ink text" supported word wrap , could be formatted to be bold, italic, etc.). At any time
869-490: A detachable stylus to facilitate making selections. The user interacts with the device by tapping the screen to select buttons or issue commands, or by dragging a finger (or the stylus) on the screen to make selections or scroll. Typical methods of entering text on touchscreen PDAs include: Despite research and development projects, end-users experienced mixed results with handwriting recognition systems. Some found it frustrating and inaccurate, while others were satisfied with
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#1732859266232948-496: A diacritic is U+0302 ◌̂ COMBINING CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT , although precomposed characters (like U+00E2 â LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH CIRCUMFLEX ) are available for most European languages. The symbol ^ has many uses in programming languages , where it is typically called a caret. It can signify exponentiation , the bitwise XOR operator, string concatenation , and control characters in caret notation , among other uses. In regular expressions ,
1027-421: A fixed, predefined stroke alphabet. The stroke alphabet used letter shapes which resembled standard handwriting, but which were modified to be both simple and very easy to differentiate. Palm Computing also released two versions of Graffiti for Newton devices. The Newton version sometimes performed better and could also show strokes as they were being written as input was done on the display itself, rather than on
1106-618: A keyboard. Fourteen months after Sculley demoed it at the May 1992, Chicago CES, the MessagePad was first offered for sale on August 2, 1993, at the Boston Macworld Expo . The hottest item at the show, it cost $ 900. 50,000 MessagePads were sold in the device's first three months on the market. The original Apple MessagePad and MessagePad 100 were limited by the very short lifetime of their inadequate AAA batteries. Another factor which limited
1185-618: A line of Newton devices called the ExpertPad PI-7000/7100; those were the same as Apple's MessagePad and MessagePad 100, the only difference is the physical design (the ExpertPads feature a screen lid, which Apple added in 1994 with the release of the MessagePad 110) and the naming. There were a number of projects that used the Newton as a portable information device in cultural settings such as museums. For example, Visible Interactive created
1264-407: A meeting on March 11, 1990. There, they brainstormed a way of saving the MessagePad. Sculley suggested adding new features, including libraries, museums, databases, or institutional archives features, allowing customers to navigate through various window tabs or opened galleries/stacks. The Board later approved his suggestion; he then gave the Newton his official and full backing. The first MessagePad
1343-469: A much smaller physical size. While early PDAs connected to a user's personal computer via serial ports and other proprietary connections , later models connect via a USB cable. Older PDAs were unable to connect to each other via USB , as their implementations of USB did not support acting as the "host". Some early PDAs were able to connect to the Internet indirectly by means of an external modem connected via
1422-483: A power adapter. It provides data transfer at 2,400 bit/s, and can also send and receive fax messages at 9,600 and 4,800 bit/s respectively. The original Apple MessagePad and MessagePad 100 used four AAA batteries . They were eventually replaced by AA batteries with the release of the Apple MessagePad 110. The use of 4 AA NiCd (MessagePad 110, 120 and 130) and 4x AA NiMH cells (MP2x00 series, eMate 300 ) give
1501-404: A runtime of up to 30 hours (MP2100 with two 20 MB Linear Flash memory PC Cards , no backlight usage) and up to 24 hours with backlight on. While adding more weight to the handheld Newton devices than AAA batteries or custom battery packs, the choice of an easily replaceable/rechargeable cell format gives the user a still unsurpassed runtime and flexibility of power supply. This, together with
1580-406: A silkscreen area. For editing text, Newton had a very intuitive system for handwritten editing, such as scratching out words to be deleted, circling text to be selected, or using written carets to mark inserts. Later releases of the Newton operating system retained the original recognizer for compatibility, but added a hand-printed-text-only (not cursive ) recognizer, called " Rosetta ", which
1659-402: A touchscreen for navigation, a memory card slot for data storage, and IrDA , Bluetooth and/or Wi-Fi . However, some PDAs may not have a touchscreen , using soft keys , a directional pad, and a numeric keypad or a thumb keyboard for input. To have the functions expected of a PDA, a device's software typically includes an appointment calendar , a to-do list , an address book for contacts,
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#17328592662321738-473: A touchscreen or small-scale keyboard was slower than a full-size keyboard. Transferring data to a PDA via the computer was, therefore, a lot quicker than having to manually input all data on the handheld device. Most PDAs come with the ability to synchronize to a computer. This is done through synchronization software provided with the handheld, or sometimes with the computer's operating system. Examples of synchronization software include: These programs allow
1817-564: A user could also direct their Newton device to recognize selected "ink text" and turn it into recognized text (deferred recognition). A Newton note (or the notes attached to each contact in Names and each Dates calendar or to-do event) could contain any mix of interleaved text, Ink Text, Shapes, and Sketches. While the Newton offered handwriting recognition training and would clean up sketches into vector shapes, both were unreliable and required much rewriting and redrawing. The most reliable application of
1896-691: A walking tour in San Francisco's Chinatown but the most significant effort took place in Malaysia at the Petronas Discovery Center, known as Petrosains . In 1995, an exhibit design firm, DMCD Inc., was awarded the contract to design a new 100,000-square-foot (9,300 m) science museum in the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. A major factor in the award was the concept that visitors would use
1975-561: Is also used to indicate a superscript in TeX typesetting. The use of the caret for exponentiation can be traced back to ALGOL 60 , which expressed the exponentiation operator as an upward-pointing arrow, intended to evoke the superscript notation common in mathematics. The upward-pointing arrow is now used to signify hyperoperations in Knuth's up-arrow notation . It is often seen in caret notation to show control characters: for instance, ^A means
2054-407: The flash memory used as internal storage starting with the Apple MessagePad 120 (if all cells lost their power, no data was lost due to the non-volatility of this storage), gave birth to the slogan "Newton never dies, it only gets new batteries". The Apple MessagePad 2000/2100, with a vastly improved handwriting recognition system, 162 MHz StrongARM SA-110 RISC processor, Newton OS 2.1, and
2133-414: The 1990's to 2006, typically had an IrDA ( infrared ) port allowing short-range, line-of-sight wireless communication. Few later models used this technology, as it had been supplanted by Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. IrDA allows communication between two PDAs, or between a PDA and any device with an IrDA port or adapter. Some contemporary printers have IrDA receivers, allowing IrDA-equipped PDAs to print to them, if
2212-405: The 1990s and 2000s, PDA's were mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of more highly capable smartphones , in particular those based on iOS and Android in the late 2000's, and thus saw a rapid decline. A PDA has an electronic visual display . Most models also have audio capabilities, allowing usage as a portable media player , and also enabling many of them to be used as telephones. By
2291-542: The ARIF system was extremely complex and required a team of hardware and software engineers, designers, and writers. ARIF is an ancestor of the PDA systems used in museums today and it boasted features that have not been attempted since. Anyway & Company firm was involved with the Petronas Discovery Center project back in 1998 and NDAs were signed which prevents getting to know more information about this project. It
2370-579: The InterConnect port, while itself very advanced, can only be used to connect a serial dongle. A prototype multi-purpose InterConnect device containing serial, audio in, audio out, and other ports was also discovered. In addition, all Newton devices have infrared connectivity, initially only the Sharp ASK protocol, but later also IrDA , though the Sharp ASK protocol was kept in for compatibility reasons. Unlike
2449-497: The MP100 has 1.3 that can be upgraded with various patches.) The Newton OS was also licensed to a number of third-party developers including Sharp and Motorola who developed additional PDA devices based on the Newton platform. Motorola added wireless connectivity, as well as made a unique two-part design, and shipped additional software with its Newton device, called the Marco. Sharp developed
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2528-544: The MessagePad 2000. The eMate was cancelled along with the rest of the Newton products in 1998. It is the only Newton device to use the ARM710 microprocessor (running at 25 MHz), have an integrated keyboard, use Newton OS 2.2 (officially numbered 2.1), and its batteries are officially irreplaceable, although several users replaced them with longer-lasting ones without any damage to the eMate hardware whatsoever. Many prototypes of additional Newton devices were spotted. Most notable
2607-478: The MessagePad series, Apple also developed and released the eMate 300 Newton device. The development of the Newton MessagePad first began with Apple's former senior vice president of research and development, Jean-Louis Gassée ; his team included Steve Capps , co-writer of Mac OS Finder , and an employed engineer named Steve Sakoman . The development of the Newton MessagePad operated in secret until it
2686-403: The Newton handwriting recognition system is the modeless error correction . That is, correction done in situ without using a separate window or widget, using a minimum of gestures. If a word is recognized improperly, the user could double-tap the word and a list of alternatives would pop up in a menu under the stylus. Most of the time, the correct word will be in the list. If not, a button at
2765-602: The Newton platform in a hands on relaxed fashion. The stores had no traditional computer retail counters and featured oval desktops where interested users could become intimately involved with the Newton product range. The stores were a model for the later Apple Stores. (HxWxD) (lid open) (lid open) (23 x 37 x 13 cm) with batteries installed with batteries installed with batteries installed * Varies with installed OS Notes: The eMate 300 actually has ROM chips silk screened with 2.2 on them. Stephanie Mak on her website discusses this: If one removes all patches to
2844-433: The Newton was collecting and organizing address and phone numbers. While handwritten messages could be stored, they could not be easily filed, sorted or searched. While the technology was a probable cause for the failure of the device (which otherwise met or exceeded expectations), the technology has been instrumental in producing the future generation of handwriting software that realizes the potential and promise that began in
2923-685: The PDA and Google's servers. RIM sells BlackBerry Enterprise Server to corporations so that corporate BlackBerry users can wirelessly synchronize their PDAs with the company's Microsoft Exchange Server , IBM Lotus Domino , or Novell GroupWise servers. Email, calendar entries, contacts, tasks, and memos kept on the company's server are automatically synchronized with the BlackBerry. The most common operating systems pre-installed on PDAs are: Other, rarely used operating systems: Some PDAs include Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers. Other PDAs are compatible with external GPS-receiver add-ons that use
3002-705: The PDA directly, using a cable, or may use wireless technology such as infrared or Bluetooth to connect to the PDA. Newer PDAs, such as the HTC HD2 , Palm Pre , Pre Plus , Pixi , and Pixi Plus , as well as devices running the Android operating system, include more advanced forms of touchscreen that can register multiple touches simultaneously. These " multi-touch " displays allow for more sophisticated interfaces using various gestures entered with one or more fingers. Although many early PDAs did not have memory card slots, later models had either some form of Secure Digital (SD) slot,
3081-458: The PDA manufacturers (for example, GoldMine and IBM Lotus Notes ). Some PDAs can synchronize some or all of their data using their wireless networking capabilities, rather than having to be directly connected to a personal computer via a cable. Devices running Palm's webOS or Google's Android operating system primarily sync with the cloud . For example, if Gmail is used, information in contacts, email, and calendars can be synchronized between
3160-521: The PDA to be synchronized with a personal information manager, which may be part of the computer's operating system, provided with the PDA, or sold separately by a third party. For example, the RIM BlackBerry came with RIM's Desktop Manager program, which can synchronize to both Microsoft Outlook and ACT!. Other PDAs come only with their own proprietary software. For example, some early Palm OS PDAs came only with Palm Desktop, while later Palm PDAs—such as
3239-432: The PDA's operating system supports it. Universal PDA keyboards designed for these older PDAs use infrared technology, due to cost and a lack of wireless interference. Most PDAs can synchronize their data with applications on a user's computer, allowing the user to update contact, schedule, or other information on their computer, using software such as Microsoft Outlook or ACT! , and have that same data transferred to
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3318-501: The PDA's GPS functions can be used for navigation. Underwater divers can use PDAs to plan breathing gas mixtures and decompression schedules using software such as "V-Planner". Caret Caret (from Latin caret 'there is lacking') is the name used familiarly for the character ^ provided on most QWERTY keyboards by typing ⇧ Shift + 6 . The symbol has a variety of uses in programming and mathematics. The name "caret" arose from its visual similarity to
3397-927: The PDA's processor and screen to display location information. PDAs with GPS functionality can be used for automotive navigation. Integrated PDA's were fitted as standard on new cars throughout the 2000's. PDA-based GPS can also display traffic conditions, perform dynamic routing, and show known locations of roadside mobile radar guns. TomTom , Garmin , and iGO offered GPS navigation software for PDAs. Some businesses and government organizations rely upon rugged PDAs, sometimes known as enterprise digital assistants (EDAs) or mobile computers , for mobile data applications. These PDAs have features that make them more robust and able to handle inclement weather, jolts, and moisture. EDAs often have extra features for data capture, such as barcode readers , radio-frequency identification (RFID) readers, magnetic stripe card readers, or smart card readers. These features are designed to facilitate
3476-615: The PDA's serial port or "sync" connector, or directly by using an expansion card that provided an Ethernet port. Most PDAs use Bluetooth, a popular wireless protocol for mobile devices. Bluetooth can be used to connect keyboards, headsets, GPS receivers , and other nearby accessories. It is also possible to transfer files between PDAs that have Bluetooth. Many PDAs have Wi-Fi wireless network connectivity and can connect to Wi-Fi hotspots. All smartphones, and some other PDAs, can connect to Wireless Wide Area Networks, such as those provided by cellular telecommunications companies. Older PDAs, from
3555-513: The PDA—or transfer updated information from the PDA back to the computer, eliminating the need for the user to update their data in two places. Synchronization also prevents the loss of information stored on the device if it is lost, stolen, or destroyed. When the PDA is repaired or replaced, it can be "re-synced" with the computer, restoring the user's data. Some users found that data input was quicker on their computer than on their PDA since text input via
3634-464: The Palm Pilot, all Newton devices are equipped with a standard PC Card expansion slot (two on the 2000/2100). This allows native modem and even Ethernet connectivity; Newton users have also written drivers for 802.11b wireless networking cards and ATA-type flash memory cards (including the popular CompactFlash format), as well as for Bluetooth cards. Newton can also dial a phone number through
3713-495: The Treo 650—have the ability to sync to Palm Desktop or Microsoft Outlook. Microsoft's ActiveSync and Windows Mobile Device Center only synchronized with Microsoft Outlook or a Microsoft Exchange server. Third-party synchronization software was also available for some PDAs from companies like CommonTime and CompanionLink . Third-party software can be used to synchronize PDAs to other personal information managers that are not supported by
3792-482: The bottom of the list allows the user to edit individual characters in that word. Other pen gestures could do such things as transpose letters (also in situ ). The correction popup also allowed the user to revert to the original, un-recognized letter shapes - this would be useful in note-taking scenarios if there was insufficient time to make corrections immediately. To conserve memory and storage space, alternative recognition hypotheses would not be saved indefinitely. If
3871-450: The built-in speaker of the Newton device by simply holding a telephone handset up to the speaker and transmitting the appropriate tones. Fax and printing support is also built in at the operating system level, although it requires peripherals such as parallel adapters, PCMCIA cards, or serial modems, the most notable of which is the lightweight Newton Fax Modem released by Apple in 1993. It is powered by 2 AA batteries, and can also be used with
3950-400: The caret is used to match the beginning of a string or line; if it begins a character class, then the inverse of the class is to be matched. ANSI C can transcribe the caret in the form of the trigraph ??' , as the character was originally not available in all character sets and keyboards. C++ additionally supports tokens like xor (for ^ ) and xor_eq (for ^= ) to avoid
4029-532: The character altogether. RFC 1345 recommends that the character be transcribed as digraph '> when required. Pascal uses the caret for declaring and dereferencing pointers . In Smalltalk , the caret is the method return statement. In C++/CLI , .NET reference types are accessed through a handle using the ClassName^ syntax. In Apple's C extensions for Mac OS X and iOS, carets are used to create blocks and to denote block types. Go uses it as
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#17328592662324108-421: The circumflex ^ diacritic as the default and the up-arrow as one of the alternative uses. In 1967, the second revision of ASCII followed suit. Overprinting to add an accent mark was not always supported well by printers, and was almost never possible on video terminals. Instead, precomposed characters were eventually created to show the accented letters. The freestanding circumflex (which had come to be called
4187-461: The circumflex symbol into ASCII is a consequence of this prior existence on typewriters: this symbol did not exist independently as a type or hot-lead printing character. The original 1963 version of the ASCII standard used the code point 0x5E for an up-arrow ↑ . However, the 1965 ISO/IEC 646 standard defined code point 0x5E as one of five available for national variation, with
4266-401: The control character with value 1. The Windows command-line interpreter ( cmd.exe ) uses the caret to escape reserved characters (most other shells use the backslash ). For example, to pass a 'less-than' sign as an argument to a program, one would type ^< . In internet forums , on social networking sites such as Facebook, or in online chats , one or more carets may be used beneath
4345-417: The development of Newton-Apple's Ink Handwriting Recognition. The MessagePad 100 series of devices used Macintosh's proprietary serial ports —round Mini-DIN 8 connectors . The MessagePad 2000/2100 models (as well as the eMate 300) have a small, proprietary Newton InterConnect port. However, the development of the Newton hardware/software platform was canceled by Steve Jobs on February 27, 1998, so
4424-404: The device and its ease of use made it possible for the electronic diaries to be carried around and used in the patients' everyday life setting. This was an early example of electronic patient-reported outcomes (ePRO). Personal digital assistant A personal digital assistant ( PDA ) is a multi-purpose mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. Following a boom in
4503-401: The devices among Newton users. Even given the age of the hardware and software, Newtons still demand a sale price on the used market far greater than that of comparatively aged PDAs produced by other companies. In 2006, CNET compared an Apple MessagePad 2000 to a Samsung Q1 , and the Newton was declared better. In 2009, CNET compared an Apple MessagePad 2000 to an iPhone 3GS , and the Newton
4582-442: The diacritic included); alternatively a dead key mechanism can be provided. With the latter, a mark is made when a dead key is typed but, unlike normal keys, the paper carriage does not move on and thus the next letter to be typed is printed under the accent. The ^ symbol was originally provided in typewriters and computer printers so that circumflex accents could be overprinted on letters (as in ô or ŵ ). The incorporation of
4661-453: The display rotated, although display calibration is needed when rotation in any direction is used for the first time or when the Newton device is reset. In initial versions (Newton OS 1.x) the handwriting recognition gave extremely mixed results for users and was sometimes inaccurate. The original handwriting recognition engine was called Calligrapher, and was licensed from a Russian company called Paragraph International . Calligrapher's design
4740-479: The dongle on Newton devices with a Newton InterConnect port, most notably the Apple MessagePad 2000/2100 series, as well as the Apple eMate 300 . Newton devices featuring Newton OS 2.1 or higher can be used with the screen turned horizontally ("landscape") as well as vertically ("portrait"). A change of a setting rotates the contents of the display by 90, 180 or 270 degrees. Handwriting recognition still works properly with
4819-609: The eMate 300 (by replacing the ROM chip, and then putting in the original one again, as the eMate and the MessagePad 2000/2100 devices erase their memory completely after replacing the chip), the result will be the Newton OS saying that this is version 2.2.00. Also, the Original MessagePad and the MessagePad 100 share the same model number, as they only differ in the ROM chip version. (The OMP has OS versions 1.0 to 1.05, or 1.10 to 1.11, while
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#17328592662324898-451: The early 2000s, nearly all PDA models had the ability to access the Internet, intranets or extranets via Wi-Fi or Wireless WANs , and since then generally included a web browser . Sometimes, instead of buttons, later PDAs employ touchscreen technology. The first PDA, the Organiser , was released in 1984 by Psion , followed by Psion's Series 3 , in 1991. The latter began to resemble
4977-400: The early Newton devices' appeal was that desktop connectivity was not included in the basic retail package, a problem that was later solved with 2.x Newton devices - these were bundled with a serial cable and the appropriate Newton Connection Utilities software. Later versions of Newton OS offered improved handwriting recognition, quite possibly a leading reason for the continued popularity of
5056-410: The figure to possibly 750 Newtons. They placed an “Internet Call” for Newtons. They purchased them in large and small quantities. The Newton was also used in healthcare applications, for example in collecting data directly from patients. Newtons were used as electronic diaries, with patients entering their symptoms and other information concerning their health status on a daily basis. The compact size of
5135-589: The more familiar PDA style, including a full keyboard. The term PDA was first used on 7 January 1992 by Apple Inc. CEO John Sculley at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas , Nevada , referring to the Apple Newton . In 1994, IBM introduced the first PDA with analog cellular phone functionality, the IBM Simon , which can also be considered the first smartphone. Then in 1996, Nokia introduced
5214-567: The original proofreader's caret , ‸ , a mark used in proofreading to indicate where a punctuation mark, word, or phrase should be inserted into a document. The ASCII standard (X3.64.1977) calls it a " circumflex "; the Unicode standard calls it a "circumflex accent", although it is no longer practicable for that purpose. On typewriters designed for languages that routinely use diacritics (accent marks), there are two possible ways to type these: keys can be dedicated to precomposed characters (with
5293-535: The quality of the recognition. Touchscreen PDAs intended for business use, such as the BlackBerry and Palm Treo , usually also offer full keyboards and scroll wheels or thumbwheels to facilitate data entry and navigation. Many touchscreen PDAs support some form of external keyboard as well. Specialized folding keyboards, which offer a full-sized keyboard but collapse into a compact size for transport, were made available for many models. External keyboards may attach to
5372-501: The text of another post, representing an upward-pointing arrow to that post; in addition to the arrow usage, it can also mean that the user who posted the ^ agrees with the above post. Multiple carets may be used to indicate that the comment is replying to, or relating to, the post above that correlates with the number of carets used, or to "underscore" the correct portion of the previous post, or simply for emphasis. A similar use has been adopted by programming language compilers , such as
5451-432: The use of these devices to scan product or item codes. Typical applications include: PDAs and handheld devices were allowed in many classrooms for digital note-taking. Students could spell-check, modify, and amend their class notes on a PDA. Some educators distributed course material through the Internet or infrared file-sharing functions of the PDA. Textbook publishers released e-books , which can be uploaded directly to
5530-549: The user returned to a note a week later, for example, they would only see the best match. Error correction in many current handwriting systems provides such functionality but adds more steps to the process, greatly increasing the interruption to a user's workflow that a given correction requires. Text could also be entered by tapping with the stylus on a small on-screen pop-up QWERTY virtual keyboard , although more layouts were developed by users. Newton devices could also accept free-hand "Sketches", "Shapes", and "Ink Text", much like
5609-463: Was a Newton tablet or "slate", a large, flat screen that could be written on. Others included a "Kids Newton" with side handgrips and buttons, "VideoPads" which would have incorporated a video camera and screen on their flip-top covers for two-way communications, the "Mini 2000" which would have been very similar to a Palm Pilot, and the NewtonPhone developed by Siemens , which incorporated a handset and
5688-482: Was also under development but never released. However, users wrote similar programs which could evaluate mathematical formulas using the Newton OS Intelligent Assistant, a unique part of every Newton device. The handwriting recognition and parts of the user interface for the Newton are best understood in the context of the broad history of pen computing , which is quite extensive. A vital feature of
5767-559: Was an important addition to the learning ecology rather than a replacement. Software companies also developed PDA programs to meet the instructional needs of educational institutions, such as dictionaries, thesauri , word processing software, encyclopedias, webinars and digital lesson planners. PDAs were used by music enthusiasts to play a variety of music file formats. Many PDAs include the functionality of an MP3 player. Road rally enthusiasts can use PDAs to calculate distance, speed, and time. This information may be used for navigation, or
5846-472: Was confirmed that they purchased of MP2000u or MP2100's by this firm on the behalf of the project under the name of "Petrosains Project Account". By 1998 they had invested heavily into the R&;D of this project with the Newton at the center. After Apple officially cancelled the Newton in 1998 they had to acquire as many Newtons as possible for this project. It was estimated initially 1000 Newtons, but later readjusted
5925-444: Was declared more innovative at its time of release. A chain of dedicated Newton-only stores called Newton Source, independently run by Stephen Elms, existed from 1994 until 1998. Locations included New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Boston. The Westwood Village, California, near UCLA featured the trademark red and yellow light bulb Newton logo in neon . The stores provided an informative educational venue to learn about
6004-437: Was developed by Apple, included in version 2.0 of the Newton operating system , and refined in Newton 2.1. Rosetta is generally considered a significant improvement and many reviewers, testers, and most users consider the Newton 2.1 handwriting recognition software better than any of the alternatives even 10 years after it was introduced. Recognition and computation of handwritten horizontal and vertical formulas such as "1 + 2 ="
6083-499: Was eventually revealed to the Apple Board of Directors in late 1990. When Gassée resigned from his position due to a significant disagreement with the board, seeing how his employer was treated, Sakoman also stopped developing the MessagePad on March 2, 1990. Bill Atkinson , an Apple Executive responsible for the company's Lisa graphical interface, invited Steve Capps, John Sculley , Andy Hertzfeld , Susan Kare , and Marc Porat to
6162-435: Was quite sophisticated; it attempted to learn the user's natural handwriting, using a database of known words to make guesses as to what the user was writing, and could interpret writing anywhere on the screen, whether hand-printed, in cursive , or a mix of the two. By contrast, Palm Pilot's Graffiti had a less sophisticated design than Calligrapher, but was sometimes found to be more accurate and precise due to its reliance on
6241-569: Was unveiled by Sculley on the 29th of May 1992 at the summer Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Chicago . Sculley caved in to pressure to unveil the product early because the Newton did not officially ship until 14 months later on the 2nd of August 1993, starting at a price of $ 699 . Over 50,000 units were sold by late November 1993. With the MessagePad 120 with Newton OS 2.0, the Newton Keyboard by Apple became available, which can also be used via
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