System Updates and Patches
Even if NewtonOS is rather stable, there are few bugs left and they have to be fixed. This is what the following software have been written for.
710031 is the only system update that was not designed by Apple. It fixes a small bug discovered by Avi Drissman, which many users (including myself) have never experienced.
Avi documented this bug and wrote a patch. On the contrary to this patch, the 710031 system update doesn't use more memory than Apple's previous system udpate (717260), neither on the internal store nor on RAM. However, it only works on MP2x00.
| 710031 System Update | |
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MacOS application to transform the 717260 system update by Apple into the 710031. (MP2x00 US only) |
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DOS program to transform the 717260 system update by Apple into the 710031. (MP2x00 US only) |
Building and testing a System Update is complex and expensive process and no single engineer could do it.
-- John Arkley
Writing a system update without the ROM source would be like rewiring your computer in the dark without opening the case. :-)
-- Walter Smith
Er ist in erster Linie als Technologiedemonstration ("hurra, ich kann es") geeigent und fixed nur den Dates/Find-Bug.
-- Carsten Lemmen
Newton Internet Enabler has a bug related to the domain name resolver. The domain names are names such as apple.com and are translated into addresses using the DNS protocol. The translation is valid for a given amount of time, but mistakenly, NIE keeps the information sixty times longer than it should. NIE Patch fixes this problem.
NIE Patch v4 also adds to NIE the possibility to resolve the Rendezvous (Zeroconf) names ending with .local. This feature is only available if Dock TCP/IP v1.2 is installed.
| NIE Patch v4 | |
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Package, documentation and source code in a MacOS archive. |
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Package, documentation and source code in a ZIP archive. |
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Package only. |
Lantern (also known as Newton Devices) is a Newton package that allows one to use Ethernet (and WiFi) cards. When an Ethernet card is inserted, Lantern determines which driver to use by looking at some identification information on the card.
However, Lantern cannot handle cards with an identification string longer than 31 characters. This limitation may be related to an old version of the PCMCIA specifications. LanternPatch fixes this problem.
Lantern Patch is used by More WiFi Cards, a package that extends Hiroshi Noguchi's driver.
| Lantern Patch v1 | |
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Lantern Patch v1 with source code in a MacOS archive. |
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Lantern Patch v1 in a Zip archive. |
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Lantern Patch v1 package only. |
Searching all the NewtWorks documents (for example with the Find icon) causes a memory leak, i.e. all the memory that was used for searching is not released. After a while, the Newton no longer has enough memory and you need to restart. With many documents, it may be impossible to run two consecutive searches without rebooting.
NewtWorks Fix fixes this problem but slows searches noticeably.
| NewtWorks Fix v1 | |
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Package and documentation in a MacOS Archive. |
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Package and documentation in a ZIP archive. |
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Package only. |