newton
where to start?
You'll hear a lot of flak about the early newtons...
Newton OS 2.1 on the MessagePad 2000/2100 was awesome. There were limitations, sure... (mostly connectivity to desktop PC's) but overall, an insanely fine package.
First, the OS was designed to be a handheld OS. It tried to throw out the desktop metaphor because it didn't apply.... things like crossing out text erased it. To copy text, you just dragged it to the side of the screen where it "stuck". Then to paste, you just drag it back. The handwriting recognition was excellent. I've heard rumors that only now Calligrapher 6.0 is surpassing Apple's handwriting recognizer.
The entire system/OS was very unique. All data was stored in "soups" - which were sort of commonly accessible data structutes...
the beauty of this is all apps had access to other app's data... as well, they could easily extend the data sets.
As a result - NO information should be entered twice. I want to call my friend 'Fred'. I can write 'Call Fred' in the notepad, tap on Assist, and it will go to my addressbook, get Fred's phone number and bring it into the Call application....
Or, if a new app comes out that does anything - prints mailing labels, it just pulls address data from the addressbook.
anyway.... the biggest advantage of the Palm was size.
arn
