Please, tell us more.
About 15 years later I walked into my lab and got served with a subpoena by Samsung's legal team for deposition. Everybody's lawyers suddenly wanted to talk to me. They dug through my postings, my software, old files on my laptop, even the old Newtons in my office. Between Apple, Samsung, and the very helpful SFLC legal team, the whole thing was like being dropped into a tank of very nice sharks.
One of the patents Apple was going after Samsung for was 8,086,604, the "604" patent. Hemlock, and my proposals on the Usenet for improving it, predated this patent by quite a bit and easily covered most of its claims. Eventually Samsung decided to argue that they didn't violate the patent, rather than argue that it was invalid. That turned out to be the right decision (they won). But had they gone the invalidation route, I'd likely have found myself on the stand in SF. That patent is still live, and my prior art is still ready to invalidate it.
I wonder how many other invalid patents are out there. It boggles my mind that the patent office will grant anyone a patent without even checking for prior art.
That name rang a bell so I had to look you up. I just have to say, I love your book!
Maybe the most interesting/memorable part of my brief foray into the Newton was being invited to the Apple Campus and meeting other engineers (I was still so young then). We were each paired with a weird development Newton that was some kind of PCB bento.
It was cool to see how the sausage is made (or at least what dev prototypes can look like).
I remember too the one engineer I chatted with in the evening that told me, "You could work here." That really surprised me — I thought you had to have a PhD or something to work for Apple.
(Not too many years later, I would in fact get a job at Apple.)
One is an original MessagePad in box, the other a late model, I forget, I'd have to go look.
It's time for me to purge anyways. Prefer these go to a nerd's home who will have fun with them, esp if said person has a history with the Newton.
Was "Sherlocked" a term coined yet when you did this? Had Apple started getting inspiration from 3rd party developers yet?