Once again, Wayback Wednesday brings us back to the past! Messrs. Treo, Blackberry, Q, N93, and TyTN/838 Pro/XDA Trion/Whatever Your Name Is, I'd like you to meet your grandpa, Mr. Apple newton.

The device was by no means the first PDA. But this handheld was the first to attain a high profile. Wikipedia even says that "Personal Digital Assistant" was coined during the Newton's development.

Vision
After taking over Apple, CEO John Sculley pushed through projects meant to wean the company from its dependence on the Macintosh. His original idea was to create a "Mac Killer," a device that would reinvent personal computing the way the Mac did. The Newton was to become an ultra-portable computer priced the same as a normal desktop.

Market Performance
Unfortunately, the Newton sold poorly, thanks to a high price ($1000 for a PDA is too much for me), flaky handwriting recognition, and poor marketing. Apple did address the recognition issues, to a level that Newton followers consider unmatched even today, but it was too late. At its peak, an estimated 200,000 users owned the PDA, hardly a wave in the sea. The company apparently decided continuing was an exercise of futility, and dropped the Newton line on 1998. Consider this: at the time, Siemens was working on a "NewtonPhone," which would've been the first mainstream PDA Phone.

Persistently Present
The Newton's release back in 1993 regrettably precedes the Internet Archive's scope (since 1996). Yet thanks to its status as a cult classic, it still maintains a net presence, as recent as last month. CNET UK actually declared, rightly or wrongly, that a 10 year old Newton Messenger 2000 was better than the modern Samsung Q1.

The End...?
But the CNET showdown seems four years behind. The Newton user community has depended on a mixture on hardware and software fixes to cope with today's world. The peak of these endeavors seemed to be 2002, when modified Newtons were finally able to connect wirelessly to the internet, play MP3s and Videos, and even sync with earlier versions of iTunes. For some reason though, as of this writing, apparently .

Has the handheld's age finally become too much for even the most devoted fan to bear? Did the community suffer a mass-defection, to more modern units as their features were perfected? Even if these have happened, it's quite a testament to the Newton's staying power that ebay still sells not only the units themselves, but accessories such as styli and leather cases.

Clarification: If you're wondering why this feature appears earlier or later than a Wednesday where you live, keep in mind this blog's timezone is GMT -4.