Newton eMate 300

eMate 300 - front

The eMate 300 was the first and only Newton designed in notebook form. Thinking they were building the ideal educational laptop, the Newton team actually ended up building the ideal laptop, period. What educators wanted was cool looking, rugged computers. But who doesn't want their computers to be cool looking and rugged? Apple, with all its marketing brilliance of the period, decided to limit sales to the educational market.

eMate 300 - side

The eMate 300 shipped with a 25 MHz ARM 710a RISC processor, 3 MB RAM and 8 MB ROM. NewtonOS 2.1 (that's the one with the handwriting recognition that actually works), the standard Newton address book and calendar, and NewtonWorks: a word processor, drawing program, spreadsheet, and graphing calculator are included and even burnt into ROM, so you needn't worry in the least about deleting them.

eMate 300 - pen

The eMate 300 had the great misfortune of being born during Apple's greatest financial difficulties. As a result of Steve Jobs' desire to bring focus to Apple, the entire Newton division got the axe, which is truly regrettable, as the Newtons were just finally getting really good.

eMate 300 - overview

Though several years old now, the eMate 300 remains as useful as ever and has yet to be replaced by a comparable product. For those looking for a small, portable, rugged, word processor with exceptional battery life, the eMate 300 remains the way to go. A USB to serial adapter is all it takes to make the eMate work with the latest Apple hardware.

eMate 300 - bottom eMate 300 - manuals eMate 300 - power supply

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Comments

yeah i have the emate 300 as well, a lovely computer, built for kids...or built for people who often drop great hardware!! Biggrin

performaman's picture

I just got one today, and it is amazing. The designers made it so you could fold the screen even with the keyboard and use it like a tablet. The handwriting recognition works very well, and the screen can be rotated so it can be held like a book. I have one from a school district, and despite external scratches and some on the touchscreen, it is a very sturdy machine.

performaman's picture

Yes. A common problem in the eMate is a punctured display cable. Fortunately, there is a way to fix it. Instructions can be found at:
http://www.inventors-emporium.co.uk/pages/newton-emate-hinge.html
Finding a new cable:
http://www.pda-soft.de/ematecable.html
Disassembling the eMate:
http://www.pda-soft.de/emate_disassemble.html
Yes. This really sucks if it happens to you. I know,it's happened to me. I'm going to have to get a replacement cable if the damage is really bad, which will put me $49 in the hole. There's also info on the site about preventing the problem, so I advise that you do so.

My husband and I both have a love for retro-macs. Just this week he gave me an emate 300 that he got on ebay. I love to write and this is the perfect little machine for it. I have no problems with the size of the keyboard, even though it is smaller than my 1400c (which I dearly treasure). I haven't had much time to play with it yet and really see what it'll do. If anyone has any ideas on it please let me know. Thanks.

First off welcome new Newton User (though specifically eMate Users)!

Well what you can do if you haven't gotten any responses to your question is to use it to write stuff (like a journal or novel as some use it for) on the road or wherever you are at. Later when you get home off load your stuff onto your Mac (of PC if you use that). You can also use it for an occasional game to occupy your time and also jot down your ideas and thoughts for later.

Enjoy1 Biggrin