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eMate wall clock mod.
- Thread starter Quadraman
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classic mac 500
Well-known member
Pretty cool, but I'm with MacMac and LC... I acquired a eMate 300 of my own through a trade recently, and I wrote an article about it, which you can read here:
My great new writing machine: An old Newton eMate 300
I LOVE the eMate! MacMan and all other eMate 300 owners here, does your eMate have the memory upgrade and/or a WiFi card? The Newton has simply blown me away. It's a REAL shame Jobs killed off the Newton, and even more of a shame that Apple didn't effectively market the eMate 300. In my eyes, it's the perfect mix of a full blown computer and a PDA.
What must have programs do all Newton owners here recommend?
My great new writing machine: An old Newton eMate 300
I LOVE the eMate! MacMan and all other eMate 300 owners here, does your eMate have the memory upgrade and/or a WiFi card? The Newton has simply blown me away. It's a REAL shame Jobs killed off the Newton, and even more of a shame that Apple didn't effectively market the eMate 300. In my eyes, it's the perfect mix of a full blown computer and a PDA.
What must have programs do all Newton owners here recommend?
MacMan
Well-known member
I'm not entirely sure if mine has a memory upgrade. There is a card installed in one of the slots on the underside and since the chips have "Apple" printed on them I believe it is the standard memory card for the eMate. The other slot is empty. I'm not much of an expert on the eMate so I'm not entirely sure if this is an upgrade or not.
classic mac 500
Well-known member
I think that card, from the research I've done on the eMate, is the ROM card, and the blank slot is where the upgrade goes. Another thing I found out that I need to address in one of my follow-up articles on the eMate is if you get a memory upgrade that NewerTech made, one may have to resolder the chips on the card as the soldering job on these boards was horrid at best. If you happen to get a WiFi card, or any other PCMCIA card, be sure it's a 5 volt card and not 3.3. The eMate will see a 3.3 card, but will automatically think it's 5 volts which will fry the card and possibly the eMate.
Hope you enjoy your eMate! I know I am!
Hope you enjoy your eMate! I know I am!
I know this thread is ancient now, but I purchased an eMate 300 in January of this year (2010) and got a great deal. I got a working eMate (dead battery...) with an ac adapter and stylus not to mention the memory upgrade for $30. I also purchased a wireless card for it, $10, that I still need to get working. I think the eMate might need a hinge fix in the near future as it seems to open a bit stiffly. Either way, very cool and definitely worth the $30 I paid for it. I think the memory upgrade might be NewerTech, but as the eMate reports 4MB of storage I'm guessing it's working at the moment.
ClassicHasClass
Well-known member
Mine just has wired Ethernet. I need to get my Newtons out in the light of day more.I'm not entirely sure if mine has a memory upgrade. There is a card installed in one of the slots on the underside and since the chips have "Apple" printed on them I believe it is the standard memory card for the eMate. The other slot is empty. I'm not much of an expert on the eMate so I'm not entirely sure if this is an upgrade or not.
beachycove
Well-known member
The eMate memory card occupies the only spare slot on the logic board, so if you can see an empty slot through the memory cover door on the bottom of the unit, you do not have the upgrade. Simple as that.
One good way of finding these cards, however, is related to this observation: if you are looking on eBay, look for a shot of the bottom of the machine (or ask the seller if it has an empty slot — all you need to tell the seller is to look at the thing in good light); very often the seller has no idea that one of these rare cards is in the machine in question, or what the card is worth. An upgrade card is in fact typically worth more on eBay than the eMate itself, so your goal should be to find an eMate with one of the cards already installed, the value of which the seller does not know.
If there is anyone in the market, there was an eMate memory upgrade card for sale a couple of days ago on eBay. I haven't checked since, but it might be of interest here. For those who actually use the machine, it is a worthwhile upgrade that makes an eMate very usable. The benefit had is not only that it expands the storage of the machine, but also that it widens the data path from (as I recall) 16- to 32-bit.
I have eMates that I installed these cards in and they became noticeably snappier. The eMate is no speed demon at the best of times, of course, but it is fast enough for its intended uses.
Still, it is surprising what these things will do. Someone asked about must-have programs. I think that the various add-ons for Works are must-haves (Calculations, Spreadsheet, Drawing and there was even a low-end Database for it that can be had from unna.org). My own favourite, I think, is a text-to-speech program that outputs rather high quality sound (so long as it is played through something other than the little speaker!). Try it with headphones and you will be in for a real surprise.
I find the text-to-speech function generally to be a useful add-on, as I do a lot of writing and very often will edit my work by having it read to me by a machine, while I sit with pen in hand and made corrections on the fly. Occasionally I will write on an eMate, outdoors, as I have a Keep It Simple Systems solar panel that runs the machine even in partial shade, and that charges the battery at the same time. Amazing.
FilePad is a solid product as a simple database; it even comes with a FileMaker connection utility, and there is a full manual. It is available as freeware. Though it was not the really high-end offering in this sphere, it is still a very decent product on which a simple flat-file database can be constructed (no automated scripts or the like, though, so its uses are limited).
One particular frustration in getting "abandonware" software on the Newton, alas, is that many of the very best of the products available had registration numbers tied to specific machines: you had to send in the machine's details in order to get a key generated by the developer. It was part of the purchase process, which was, interestingly, largely web-based for the Newton even in 1997. The upshot is that, for instance, if you had bought a product in 1997 for your new Newton MessagePad 2000 (like I did), but want to use it today on your recently-acquired-from-eBay eMate 300 in 2010 (like I do) ... you very often can't, or at least you can't without re-registering and paying again. But getting hold of the developers is a real challenge. A good many of the companies simply no longer exist, or have moved on so thoroughly to Palm et al. that there is no longer any sign that they ever had anything to do with the Newton platform. Thus the perfectly sane use of antiquated software for antiquated machines actually can't be always arranged.
Still, there is a good range of freeware available. It is not an ideal situation, but it is good enough to be getting on with. For this, the best source is unna.org.
One good way of finding these cards, however, is related to this observation: if you are looking on eBay, look for a shot of the bottom of the machine (or ask the seller if it has an empty slot — all you need to tell the seller is to look at the thing in good light); very often the seller has no idea that one of these rare cards is in the machine in question, or what the card is worth. An upgrade card is in fact typically worth more on eBay than the eMate itself, so your goal should be to find an eMate with one of the cards already installed, the value of which the seller does not know.
If there is anyone in the market, there was an eMate memory upgrade card for sale a couple of days ago on eBay. I haven't checked since, but it might be of interest here. For those who actually use the machine, it is a worthwhile upgrade that makes an eMate very usable. The benefit had is not only that it expands the storage of the machine, but also that it widens the data path from (as I recall) 16- to 32-bit.
I have eMates that I installed these cards in and they became noticeably snappier. The eMate is no speed demon at the best of times, of course, but it is fast enough for its intended uses.
Still, it is surprising what these things will do. Someone asked about must-have programs. I think that the various add-ons for Works are must-haves (Calculations, Spreadsheet, Drawing and there was even a low-end Database for it that can be had from unna.org). My own favourite, I think, is a text-to-speech program that outputs rather high quality sound (so long as it is played through something other than the little speaker!). Try it with headphones and you will be in for a real surprise.
I find the text-to-speech function generally to be a useful add-on, as I do a lot of writing and very often will edit my work by having it read to me by a machine, while I sit with pen in hand and made corrections on the fly. Occasionally I will write on an eMate, outdoors, as I have a Keep It Simple Systems solar panel that runs the machine even in partial shade, and that charges the battery at the same time. Amazing.
FilePad is a solid product as a simple database; it even comes with a FileMaker connection utility, and there is a full manual. It is available as freeware. Though it was not the really high-end offering in this sphere, it is still a very decent product on which a simple flat-file database can be constructed (no automated scripts or the like, though, so its uses are limited).
One particular frustration in getting "abandonware" software on the Newton, alas, is that many of the very best of the products available had registration numbers tied to specific machines: you had to send in the machine's details in order to get a key generated by the developer. It was part of the purchase process, which was, interestingly, largely web-based for the Newton even in 1997. The upshot is that, for instance, if you had bought a product in 1997 for your new Newton MessagePad 2000 (like I did), but want to use it today on your recently-acquired-from-eBay eMate 300 in 2010 (like I do) ... you very often can't, or at least you can't without re-registering and paying again. But getting hold of the developers is a real challenge. A good many of the companies simply no longer exist, or have moved on so thoroughly to Palm et al. that there is no longer any sign that they ever had anything to do with the Newton platform. Thus the perfectly sane use of antiquated software for antiquated machines actually can't be always arranged.
Still, there is a good range of freeware available. It is not an ideal situation, but it is good enough to be getting on with. For this, the best source is unna.org.
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