Newton lore and the guy behind GutenTalk
Apple exec Steve Sakoman is best known to e-bookers these days for his independent service to the Internet–GutenTalk, which he started for the sheer love of it. But in another incarnation he was pushing for Apple to be more future minded and develop the Newton, which, alas, Apple didn’t follow through on. Steve eventually left the company and worked elsewhere, returning to Apple later on. Hey, I liked Steve for GutenTalk, but now I have another reason. Details from osOpinion, via Slashdot:
steve Sakoman worked at Hewlett Packard before he came to Apple, where he helped develop the first HP notebook. When he joined Apple he was happy that he “was not going to make DOS clones for the rest of my life.†Steve had joined Apple to work on the MacPhone, a collaboration between Apple and AT&T.
After the project was canceled, he saw that Apple was not willing to take the same risks it had with the original Macintosh or even the Macintosh II. He went to Apple’s director of new products, Jean Louis Gassée, and threatened to quit unless he was allowed to create the “future Macintoshâ€, a computer that would be as influential on the computer industry as the original Macintosh was. Gassée sympathized with him, and gave him permission to begin an independent research group
While Sakoman was at Hewlett Packard, he saw several “hand entry†computers that did not use keyboards. He was intrigued with the idea of scrapping the keyboard. The fact that most computers used a QWERTY keyboard was a mere fluke, he thought. Steve thought that a more natural method of input would take hold, like handwriting or speech.
Sakoman set to work immediately, getting his brand new research group off the ground. He recruited developers from around the company, including some original Macintosh developers. Like the original Macintosh and their off-site office, Texaco Tower, the new team moved to a converted warehouse on Bubb Road. Steve named the team “Newtonâ€. He did so because Sir Isaac Newton was featured prominently in Apple’s original logo and because he had prompted so many changes in the way people viewed the world.
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