The MessagePad, released in 1993, was the first in a series of Newton devices to be developed and sold on the market. The 1.4 pound physical device was collaboratively manufactured by Apple and Sharp. The MessagePad packed a 20MHz ARM 610 RISC processor, 640 kilobytes of RAM, and a 336x240 monochrome LCD touch screen with stylus and handwriting recognition support. It was powered by four AAA batteries. It ran Newton OS version 1.05 and cost $699.99.

The Newton platform was axed from the Apple product line for two main reasons.

(1) The early Newton OS that shipped with the original MessagePad proved to be not so user friendly, especially when it came to the unpredictable handwriting recognition software. The press and other media outlets (inc ...