Hi Dave. I know I'm waayyyy too late to respond to this. Like 4 years too late. Meh. I collect vintage computers, and I've got a few newtons which had the exact same problem that it this one looks to have. There's two electrolytic caps on the board that at first glance look like surface mount tantalums (actually, at 12:22 you pointed one of them out and said it was a tantalum). I found when looking closer at mine that they're actually tin cans inside of a plastic package. One is a 100uf used on the speaker output (which isn't really a big deal), and another on the rear side of the board -- you can see that one in the video near the PCMCIA slot around 15:30. On my Newtons, I found that they had leaked pretty badly. It looks like the ones on this one have too; there appears to be a some gunk around that 100u cap near IC4. Also, what looks like flux residue near where the speaker wires are was leaked goo from that cap on mine. Can't say that that's what it is in this one, but I'd give all of that a good clean and replace those two caps. I find replacing those two as well as the big 470uf one gets them going again. I shoehorned in some radial through hole caps on mine because I had no idea what the type of surface mount electrolytic caps are called in this form, and I couldn't find any replacement ones. Eh, if it's stupid but it works, then it's not stupid. Actually it's still stupid. But it works. Meh.

AFAIK, it holds 4 AA batteries. You can't slide the orange slider when you've removed the battery holder. One of the "secret" switches recognizes if you've inserted 4 AA batteries or a rechargeable battery pack. If the latter is recognized, it will charge it when you've got the power adapter connected. If you know how, you can display the thermistor temperature in the menu. It is quite accurate if you're not recharging the battery pack.

Secret blue switch is probably battery type detect - there is probably a rechargeable option to replace the AAA holder. Hence the temp sensing as well.

Apple always took pride in their products. That looks pretty amazing for 1993.

The primary software developer on the Newton was known for constantly adding new hidden features to the software even after it was supposed to be frozen for production. One of the easter eggs was a software thermometer that used the thermistor circuit next to the battery.

I had a MP100 and later was given a MP120 and a MP2000. The battery pack was rechargeable, OR you could use primaries in that little holder. 4xAAA would last anything from 2 to 4 hours of usage, so it wasn't cheap to run. Also it wouldn't work at all on rechargable AAAs because back then it was NiCD with 1.2V. I reckon the authentic Apple pack had 5x 1.2V = 6V to keep up with 4x 1.5V disposable batteries. The orange switchery was a lockout to prevent you from taking out both batteries at once, so to keep the memory powered. Of course both could still go flat in place.

I cannot say how much I wanted one of those, back in autumn 1993!!! Looking forward to the repair video - I'm guessing in this case it WON'T be the electrolytic capacitors at fault!

"Eat Up Martha" -Apple Newton

I bought one of these in 1994 and hardly used it. Still have everything boxed up and it works too! Super slow handwriting recognition by todays standards. It was a fun toy...but that was about it. The interface cable and it's software were sold separately and from what I remember, it wasn't cheap. This was back in the day where 16 meg memory modules cost upwards of $500 USD!!!

The blue switch detects rechargeable battery pack or cell pack if i remember correctly, it also has a temperature sensor in the battery compartment.

7:20 It's interesting that an Apple device was powered by AAA-batteries. This is very different from what they do today, now you cannot even Exchange the battery on an apple device without doing an almost complete disassembly...

April 1st: "Ahoy Dave! I saw you were low on functioning Apple Newtons so I sent you 4,000 of mine."

This guy is like the fucking crocodile hunter of electronics.

I remember flipping thru the apple store magazine way back in the day and wanting one of these so bad... I even started mowing lawns non stop for a couple of months... Ended up spending the money on parts for a 486 system lol

Dave, did you ever get this thing working???

Dave, if you look at the view history of your videos you will notice that people LOVE two things, dissembling popular gadgets and electronics (like Newton here) and dumpster diving. PLEASE DO MORE OF THOSE

According to MacTracker the DIN port is a LocalTalk RS422 port. The Apple Newton could charge a rechargeable NiCad battery pack, I suspect that blue switch inside the battery compartment detects when the rechargeable battery is installed and allows the Newton to recharge the battery.

You should do a Tea Time Teardown, every day at 5pm.. a teardown! I'd love it! :)

The LTC902CS appears to be an RS422/RS562 line transceiver designed for AppleTalk networks. That was apparently a custom Apple version but the commercial equivalent is the LTC1320 which you can find datasheets for. If this info is wrong, blame the Internet ;)

ORD is swedish for "word" and the stamp is a tribute to Karl-Erik Forsberg, the swede that developed the font "Berling" that is used on the stamp.

"Aaaauustraaailllia! Not Austria!" ... Funny you should say that. My mother-in-law is from Austria and we constantly have to tell people here in the States "No, its Aaaauuuusssttriaaaa! Not Austriaillliaaa!" Brilliant!

That battery mechanism was ingenious.

I loved the newton, it was the first ipod, ipad, and smart phone. Just 15 years to early.

Those little "flip things" are brads. LOL :D Great vid. Always enjoy your videos.

The Serial connector may be odd, but it should be a RS422 or RS423, so not so custom Apple stuff. Not just the typical RS232 you find on "lower class" hardware.

Aaah that damn Newton! I got one for cheap years ago the handwriting recognition is madness!!

the blue switch is the main battery detector. the black switch is part of the locking mech that won't let you switch the orange switch unless there is a battery in either the backup slot or the main slot. so to change the main battery you switch it over to replace main and swap the battery, to swap the backup you do the reverse. as you said it was part of the design to maintain data.

Hmmm. I recognize those boxed SMD Electrolytic capacitors in that Apple Newton. Those are the reason that Sega Game Gears found in the wild don't work anymore!

You could, but 1n4148 are signal diodes with a low reverse breakdown voltage. These are rated 70 V as you can see in the video. So they would pop long before you would reach any kind of "fun" voltage.

That's why most DDL systems add a transistor RTL inverter after a few gates. It also explains why most operated off of a 12V rail.

the open frame Package is called TAB. Tape Automated Bonding the leads were cut right before placement and hot bar soldered to the board

I do wonder how many stages you could practically build?

Hey Dave, just a heads up: The LTC902 was Appletalk chip. The non Apple version sold as a LTC1320.

i'm thinking the switch for the pen was really just to capture the pen?

I liked the explanation of each IC function.

In "The Simpsons" Kearney tells his buddy, "...take a memo on your Newton: Beat up Martin." He scribbles away only to see the Newton's handwriting recognition interpret his memo as "Eat up Martha."

I had a 2000 Casio WinCE/PocketPC. It looks quite similar inside, except that it didn't have any protection against running out of battery. It had flast (CompactFlash card slot) for storage, but lot's of things were only stored in RAM, like your contact details and appointments. If you removed the batteries those were all lost, even the password you put into it. Full factory reset every time it ran out of juice. And MicroSoft ActiveSync for backing up your data never worked properly. I used it for a few months, had it run out of juice two or three times, and then just gave up on this quite expensive PDA. I think it was an E125.

They did have a rechargeable battery for that, I believe the little blue switch on the end would demote if the rechargeable pack was installed or the AAA pack.

According to wikipedia, the Apple II production was stopped tha same year as this Newton was built!

Use the diodes for diode-resistor-logic gates, you might have enough to make a sizable ALU.

Excellent hw design! Excellent manufacturing execution. Guess that's why apple nearly went out of business before Steve returned.

You can make a big diode calculator from diode logic (I guess so)

Oh snap. I wanted one of those so bad back in the day.

What happened near the end wen you tried to power it on, was that emi from the device?

I think it would be fairly interesting to see just how much, if any, variance there would be in such a device.

I think the voltage drop across the diode in serial would be pretty high for a good cpu...and I think that the switching caratteristic of the diode would limitate a lot the speed of the ddl cpu...but it's a fun project to make!

Looking forward the the fault finding video, nice wallpaper too.

Beside Acorn Computers, one of the first device using an ARM cpu. Nowadays they are in almost any smartphone and many microcontrollers.

Damn, I like that idea!

Whow, that little computer uses a battery that would just be made up of some standard cells! Interesting! (Not an Apple fanboy, but that's interesting to see, anyway, simply because you rarely see smart electronics using standard cells anymore. Once in a while I still see a digital camera that uses them, such as one of my mom's cameras.)

"ORD" translates to "word" in English. The stamp is one of a series of stamps dedicated to different fonts, in this case Berling Antiqua.

those metal thingys holding the first envelope closed are brads, or split pin fasteners

Diode logic is always entertaining.

Perhaps the op-amp was used for audio in or out.

No limit in perfect conditions. Output voltage formula: Vout = 2 x Vin(as RMS) x 1.414 x (# of stages)

The brass tabs are called "brads" or "split pins" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_fastener

Well, the video is kinda old, but you could maybe build like a automated test machine for all those diodes, like pulling the diode belt with some servos and probing them and then record the results. Easy project, but kinda fun (I think...) ^^

I second the motion for a Cockroft Walton.

Happy 30th to the Newton

I haven't seen those split pins used since I was in high school like 10 years ago lol.

Those bag clips are called "jungfruben" in Sweden, that would translate roughly to "virgin's legs", the point being that they spread out wide :P

The “little clip things” are called “brass fasteners”, or “split pins”... or here in the US: “brads”.

6:54 that looks like a DB-9 connector used by Apple for serial ports. Although Macs did have a tenth pin that allowed LocalTalk networking by using the RS-422 standard.

You will never run out!

Use your makerbot to make a drive system that feeds the roll thru another set of contacts to test whatever you get on such paper tape rolls.

You could use that 6.5 digit bench DMM you have coming in, and do a primer in very sensitive low current measurement of leakage current on a statistical example of 3000 diodes:)

i have the h1000 newton Same as this but only 1.0 software, changed both caps 3,3 Uf for the lcd and the 100Uf for the audio Now hes working as new =) yhe mp100 have an issue with the power switch, u need to clean it to fix the power button. sure it will work, otherwise its broked!

Do you think they are quite valuable now? Mine was quite interesting for a short while but it didn't do much, I could not get it to talk with anything even an IRDA compatible printer! I had a Psion that seemed to do alot more !

You can use 4148s as TEMPERATURE Sensors... Make an Array 64x62 of it and have a realy fine temperature map for your reflow oven or so :-)

Dave, I would just send you old computers and consoles so you can take them apart. It would be awesome to watch.

Hi Dave. I'd really like to see you get this thing running again. I don't have any apple computers aside from a 30GB iPod video.

Can you build a votage multiplier with that much diodes?

Just wait until he says he's low on paperclips and 10 fans sends him a few thousand paperclips each ;)

Hey, you finally figured out that it's a butterfly wing :)

I assume that giant LSI part is an LCD controller?

A bunch of bridge rectifiers? Or maybe a ring matrix for a Western Electric 1A2 system.

can i have the origional image of that LSI FPGA ?

I still have an original Newton that sort of works. The screen has a noise going through it. Bad filter cap somewhere? The AAA battery holder disintegrated. Bought a non-functional unit just for the holder. Finally, the green paint on the outside has become gummy. South Florida is not kind to electronics.

We call those clips at the beginning butterfly clips

I would love to see you do something cool with diode logic.

GPS is GEC-Plessey Semiconductor, once quite a common source for ARM chips.

Those brass fasteners are called "brads", last I recall.

AFAIK if you short some testpads on CP1000, you will boot to a debug menu

I wonder if the mystery LSI is a dedicated OCR engine. That was the Newton's claim to fame at the time.

Exactly like mine!

6:03 I bet you sent all the Apple Fanboys into a frenzy ;)

I wish they'd kept that battery pack design. I bought a Newton Messagepad 130 and I cannot count the number of times the battery door slipped off and the batteries went flying.

Then again, I guess if you were really bored, you could put 100 of them in series (on the higher steps in the ladder) to get a theoretical 7 kV reverse voltage tolerance, and about a 70-100V forward voltage drop.

4000 diodes LOL Dave will never complain about being low on anything ever again!

In school we called those Brass Fastener's.

How do you tear down a board?

Brads in the US are small pin type nails used in woodworking... ;-)

I Just noticed the crappy Elkos (This in Quarder schaped Plastick Cases, mostly glued to the PCB) the same ones in this Newton as in the Sega Game Gear, they most faulty....

1n4148's are just signal diodes though, so it wouldn't run much.

nice!

I have 10k of 24V zeners, and only 5k of 12V zeners......bought at auction for $2 for the 2 boxes. I use them as regular diodes , or turn them into little lights that light once....

I still have my Newton Messagepad

You could have used the diodes to create a massive voltage multiplier.

EEvblog can you tell me how to install ram into my old macbook or make a video, your the best -Mr.Jman

built the biggest resistor-diode OR-gate ever made!