[NTLK] Fwd: Love Notes on YouTube

[Peter Fraser]

Forwarding comments on the film, and Newton itself, from someone we all know and admire (with his permission).

I think these heartfelt comments, from such a significant person, magnify the specialness of the Newton. Note also whom he decided to add to the discussion (I’ve masked their addresses).

IMPORTANT:

He’s asked me to remind you to please not send him any correspondence, because he is seriously inundated almost all the time, and it really causes issues. Despite your undoubtedly good intentions:  please, please don’t. 

Sent from my iPhone

— Peter
pjfraser at mac.com

Begin forwarded message:

> From: ʞɐıuzoʍ ǝʌǝʇs  <steve at woz.org>
> Date: August 25, 2023 at 5:35:04 PM EDT
> To: Peter Fraser <pjfraser at mac.com>
> Cc: J Wozniak <xxx at woz.org>, John Sculley <xxx at xxx.com>, Diane Sculley <xxx at xxx.com>, Andy Hertzfeld <xxx at xxx.com>
> Subject: Re: [NTLK] Love Notes on YouTube
> 
> Thanks, Peter.
> 
> How great the Newton was. What an important part of my life it was. It took the world so long to catch up. How amazing that Apple could have supported so many bright developers.
> 
> Of my 8 years of teaching, usually with Macintosh laptops, my eMate year was the best. It was the only year that the teachers followed through and could actually use the product as well as their students, right down to creating and beaming assignments through a few layers, to all, and to the printer too. Everywhere I went I had the Newton on me to take notes and more. I’d plug my Newton into the old and slow AppleTalk connector at home and print the notes immediately on my LaserWriter.
> 
> One time I had to insure the instructor at a Driver Improvement course that I was not with the police or monitoring her, just using my favorite note-taking method. It was totally unheard of to be taking notes on some electronic device at the time.
> 
> I remember my first few minutes with a brand new Newton in the San Francisco Airport. I had just tried handwriting a bit, to see the recognition work, when I got a phone call and needed to write a reminder to myself. On my Newton, I wrote, by hand, “Sara dentist Tuesday 2pm”. I wanted to try a few buttons so I clicked on one called Assist and it opened the calendar with Tuesday marked “Dentist” and with my daughter Sara selected from my contact list. I was astounded by how human this was. I had only intended to keep a note for later. How did this product understand my intent?
> 
> From then on, even to call friends, rather than dialing a phone from memory, I’d write, on my Newton, “call Jim” and hit assist to have it play the touch tones that called Jim. I’d always make calls in this human way, rather than dialing on the phone from memory. This was a device for humans. It was over a decade before computers had such assistive ability.
> 
> At the time Apple dropped the Newton, it had just become profitable. The returning Steve Jobs said that we couldn’t maintain another OS. Of what was being dropped by Apple in that time frame, the Newton and OpenDoc (remember Cyberdog?) were sad to me.
> 
> Of so many products that had value and went away, from Apple and others, this is the one that most brings me to tears. I still keep a couple of unopened Newton MessagePad 2100’s. I keep no other products this way but I have deep feelings for the Newton.
> 
> I remember a few years back when there was a Newton conference online that I even wound up finding, and downloading, resources and manuals to develop Newton apps, if I’d only had more time.
> 
> I’m thankful for having watched this whole movie. It’s about the people who were behind the Newton.
> 
>> On Aug 16, 2023, at 5:53 PM, Peter Fraser <pjfraser at mac.com> wrote:
>> 
>> FYI
>> 
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> 
>> — Peter
>> pjfraser at mac.com
>> 
>> Begin forwarded message:
>> 
>>> From: Noah Leon <noah at moosefuel.media>
>>> Date: August 16, 2023 at 5:24:37 PM EDT
>>> To: newtontalk at newtontalk.net
>>> Subject: [NTLK] Love Notes on YouTube
>>> Reply-To: newtontalk at newtontalk.net
>>> 
>>> Dear fellow Newtonians,
>>> The time has come to release our film, Love Notes to Newton, into the wide world of YouTube.
>>> 
>>> I’m hoping this will be a new life for the movie.
>>> 
>>> Please share the film freely with family and friends or anyone. Our focus is now on getting the story out there.
>>> 
>>> Thanks again for contributing and being part of this great project, I hope you will continue to enjoy Love Notes and share it with others, or enjoy it for the first time if you haven’t seen it yet. 
>>> 
>>> Fun fact, originally I was going to call the film “Love Letters to Newton” but special thanks to Grant for suggesting Love “Notes” as an obviously better choice. In fact, Grant Hutchinson, Sylvain Pilet, B. Dudney made it happen, along with help from Steve Capps to get all the old Newton people together. I also had help from Pawel Piotrowski, Simon Bell and Frank Orlando put in many long hours designing animations, shirts and logos. It was entirely funded and shot by fans, a true fan film.
>>> 
>>> bit.ly/3qgONBt
>>> 
>>> Keep the green!
>>> noah
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> 
>>> http://newtontalk.net
>>> http://twitter.com/newtontalk
> 
> 
> ʞɐıuzoʍ ǝʌǝʇs 
> steve at woz.org
> 
> It doesn't work that way
> -- Ariana Gillis, John and the Monster
> 
> If you see somebody’s cold, Give ‘em a coat
> — No-no Boy, Boat People
> 
> PGP (GPG) fingerprint 5796 CED6 9AC6 7EC1 B42B 56CB 7933 8524 A90B B342
>