[NTLK] Last attempt at ROMs for Einstein, I need your help

[Larry Yaeger]

On Sep 1, 2023, at 3:26 PM, Noah Leon <moosefuel at gmail.com> wrote:
> One more thing,
>> NewtonOS with its HWR may contain binaries where Apple doesn't own or even have access to the source code.
> It’s true that the Paragraph software would probably have to be removed, but Larry Yeager’s print recognizer is certainly Apple’s. I believe that’s one of the reasons the cursive recognizer was left out of the eMate. Maybe we should shoot for the eMate source code specifically.

That’s a really interesting observation, Noah.  I’d forgotten or didn’t realize the eMate did not have Paragraph in it.  Targeting the eMate source and ROM might get around the largest intellectual property roadblock.

Note:  My memories are fuzzy at this point, but I don’t believe Apple ever had the Paragraph source or any rights to it.  I *think* Paragraph always provided binaries for inclusion in the ROMs.  So even if Apple released some version of the source, it’s unlikely to include any Paragraph source.

Even the binary rights to Paragraph may have been limited, limited to specific OS releases and/or hardware releases.  But I don’t know any of these particulars.  Still, if the Paragraph rights represent any kind of problem, targeting the eMate for source and/or ROMs could make a world of difference.

I worry some of the word lists (dictionaries) may have been licensed as well, but I don’t know that for sure, or under what terms they might have been licensed.  I used to know at least one of the people who worked on that and might be able to track him down.

I still know one of the key persons who bridged the Rosetta/Mondello handwriting world and the core NewtonOS world, the guy who did the original port to Newton, Les Vogel, and can reach out to him if some cleanup work is required.  (Though he’s gainfully employed at Google currently, I think, and may not have time to contribute much, even though I know he’s fond of the work we did on the Newton.)

I’m willing to kibbitz and contribute at a low level, if it helps.  I’d dearly love to be able to just download a Newton or Newton-Einstein app from the App Store and dedicate an iPhone or smaller iPad to it.

I should think the “Soup” concept for sharing data across apps would be of enormous interest from a computer science / historical perspective.  To my knowledge there’s never been anything else quite like it.  This might help motivate the software release from both sides—seeking and fulfilling.

- larryy