Newton

The Newton was a (fantastic) PDA Apple made before Steve Jobs took over as interim CEO. Steve almost immediately discontinued the Newton and killed its development (which really sucks) in order to focus on "damage control" at the then-floundering Apple (which was the right thing to do).

There were several models of the Newton released before it was discontinued. The earlier ones (the "Message Pad 1xx") had really mediocre handwriting recognition and didn't gain much positive support from the tech world. The later Newtons however (the "Message Pad 2000" and "2100"), had a much-improved version of the Newton OS, with good handwriting recognition (which was used as the basis for OS X's "Inkwell").

The 2000 and 2100 were just catching on when Steve killed them (along with the "eMate," which was like an earlier version of the iBooks-in-school idea). In concept and in technology, the Newton was really ahead of its time (it used the ARM processors now common in PDAs). It was also, unfortunately, a PDA the size of a hardcover novel (although the size would've eventually come down).

Well, that should clear up the whole "Newton" thing for you.