[NTLK] NewtonOS Preservation – Seeking Input

[Matthias Melcher]

> On 8. Sep 2025, at 03:57, mark audacity romberg <mark.romberg at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> The problem is—we don’t have NewtonOS. We have ROM image dissassemblies. 
> 
> Without the source code, what is there to preserve?

I have to clarify ;-)

My idea is to contact the Computer History Museum which is a well renown entity in the U.S., and ask them if they would be willing to ask Apple for the NewtonOS source code. It seems much more promising to go through them, instead of me calling someone at Apple.

My question is, does anyone on this list know Al Kossow or anyone else at the CHM personally?

Does anyone on the list live close to Mountain View in California, who could go to the museum and hand over our petition in person?

Does anyone have contact to more prominent people in the Apple community who could help us with our case? Steve Wozniak visited our Newton conference for hours a few years ago. Can he maybe help us?


It's not even so much about the source code itself - most of the NewtonOS is disassembled or even decompiled. It's more about having an official source that would allow us to fix the 2038 bug - and so much more.

 - Matthias