Fifteen years ago , Apple released its first and only touchscreen laptop computer ( so far ) , the often forgotteneMate 300 . This translucent clamshell portable , which ran Apple ’s Newton PDA operating organization , represented a bluff experiment in educational computer science and a drastic departure from Apple ’s traditional hardware pattern .
The automobile ’s colourful case , which later on inspired the iMac and theiBook , launched a novel epoch in Apple intent — though few realized it at the meter . In fact , few citizenry could in reality buy the rugged machine when it plunge in March 1997 , as Apple offer it for sale only through education channels .
With a25MHz ARM CPU , 1 MB of RAM , and 2 MB of ostentation memoryfor document storage ( unusual at a time when most PDAs used battery - backed RAM ) , the eMate was n’t made for heavy lifting . Instead , Apple designed it as a depressed - cost educational computing equipment for children .
Indeed , the eMate was one of the chintzy information processing system Apple had ever made . Its $ 799 damage ( which is equivalent to about $ 1151 in today ’s dollar when align for pretentiousness ) made it seem like a steal equate to Apple ’s flagship notebook computer at the clip , the PowerBook 3400 , whichretailedfor $ 4500 in its most bare - bone conformation ( that ’s about $ 6485 today , and it was n’t even amber - plate ) .
A new educational manifesto
Tucked into the eMate’sfirst intersection spec sheetis a abbreviated tract that position out the basics of a bold educational ideology . It ’s slathered in selling patois ( they call it a “ Distributed Learning Environment ” ) , but it ’s there .
Essentially , Apple wanted to put a cheap , portable , rugged computer in the hands of every baby . It wanted to make the gimmick light to use and interoperable in a macrocosm full of both Windows and Mac simple machine . And it require the eMate to be web friendly — both peer - to - peer ( via IrDA transport ) and peer - to - net . Sound intimate ?
Those are all features that would be replicated a decade later in the extremely publicizedOne Laptop Per Childinitiative that produced the rugged , portableXO-1 laptop .
Interestingly , the eMate 300 did not gain significant adhesive friction in the educational sphere , but the very feature that Apple design to attract to schoolhouse administrators — low cost , ease of use , ruggedness , and long bombardment life among them — finish up appeal to the politics marketplace in ways that Apple did not anticipate .
For instance , in 1997 , the Largo , Florida police departmentannounced plansto kit 20 of its patrol car with eMate 300s for wireless pinch reporting from the field . A news written report from that clip also mentions that the section was waiting for Apple to produce a less - colorful “ business version ” of the eMate ( which never go on ) . And agree to oneNewton fan page , Australia was planning to replace all of its government personal computer with eMates , but Apple pulled the fireplug on the integral Newton line before that could happen .
Translucent accessibility
At the time of the eMate ’s release , all of Apple ’s desktop computers sported Pt gray cases , and its laptop computer came cloaked in charcoal gray . In the midst of that bourgeois color pallette , Apple ’s Newton division take forth a semitransparent dark emerald green computer with playful curves , bulbous turning point , and a salient carrying hold .
honestly , it looked like a miniature , and for near reason : It was an educational product , and Apple design it to attract to small fry . semitransparency worked well in that regard . According to the eMate ’s primary enclosure designer , Thomas Meyerhoffer , Apple designed eMate ’s translucency to raise a sense of accessibility — in that one could see the unit ’s midland components , and nothing would be hidden from the user .
Apple ’s pre - Steve Jobs experiments with translucent credit card , particularly in the eMate 300 , proved to be very important to Apple ’s fate . Without the eMate , there would have been no iMac — at least not what we recognize as the iconic early semitransparent models today .
A Newton PDA at heart
As a appendage of the Newton family , the eMate admit user to draw or write ( via handwriting recognition ) with an include stylus on its 480 - by-320 backlit grayscale LCD . It could move any software program written for Newton OS 2.0 , which also powered Apple ’s handheld MessagePad PDA devices .
One of the eMate ’s self-aggrandizing lastingness as a portable learning machine was its bent of built - in coating included in 8 MB of ROM . With a push of a clit , user could call up an integrated office suite that included word processing , spreadsheet , and drawing capabilities .
Apple also offered NetHopper , a Newton - base WWW web internet browser , and a Eudora email client on certificate of deposit - ROM ( installable through a Mac connection ) as a nod to its Internet capableness . user could sum a modem or ethernet card to a PC wit slot on the side of the machine to thieve up to the Net , but Apple did not admit any web arranger in the boxwood .
A colorful legacy
To this date , no sales records for the eMate have ever been released , but many think that the machine , which was highly regarded by the press , had the potential to be a best - sell product if Apple had made it more wide available .
In September 1997 , the eMate received a significant endorsement as a product with a “ bright future ” from an authority no less than Steve Jobs himself as part ofan email to a customer . The about - to - be interim chief executive officer intelligibly appreciate its visual sensation and design , although the eMate , first herald in December 1996 , initiate from an Apple without Jobs .
Ultimately , Steve Jobs have it away that Apple could only survive in that troubled clock time if it centre on its core business concern ( the Macintosh ) , so the entire Newton line receive its death in former 1998 , much to the mortification of Newton fans everywhere . The eMate die with it , but its legacy endure on . Its innovative visual intent helped catalyze a new geological era of success for Apple , and its role as a low - cost learning machine for minor has now been accomplish very well by the iPad .
