MessagePad

The MessagePad was a series of touchscreen mobile devices and the very first tablet computer released by Apple Computer as part of its Newton platform.

History
On May 29, 1992, Apple CEO John Sculley unveiled the first device, tentatively called the Newton NotePad, during the keynote address of the in. The first MessagePad was released on August 3, 1993 running a monochrome version of Newton OS, which was advanced for its day and came with a stylus similar to the. The MessagePad 2000 and eMate 300 introduced grayscale support in March 1997, but the Newton platform was discontinued in February 27, 1998.

Legacy
The iPhone and iPad, released in 2007 and 2010 respectively, are considered to be spiritual successors to the MessagePad. A similar stylus did not appear from Apple until 2015 with the Apple Pencil for the iPad Pro. In 2020, iPadOS 14 introduced handwriting recognition for Apple's iPad line.

Articles

 * A Guide to the Apple Newton by Stephen Hackett at 512 Pixels (2015-08-18)
 * Retro Apple: The Apple Newton MessagePad was well ahead of its time by Steve Sande at Rocket Yard (2020-08-21, archived 2020-10-21)

Tutorials

 * Hardware projects for the Apple Newton MessagePad and eMate at PDA Soft