Day 6: Retrocomputing Advent Calendar – Apple Newton eMate 300 #retrocomputing #firstcomputer #electronics
ππΎποΈ Day 6: Retrocomputing Advent Calendar – Apple Newton eMate 300 ππΎποΈ
The eMate 300 was a before-Chromebook education-centric “laptop” by Apple, designed specifically for education as a low-cost laptop running the Newton OS. Released in 1997, it featured a 6.8-inch 480×320 grayscale touchscreen, a stylus, and a compact keyboard. It had a 25 MHz ARM 710a processor and built-in rechargeable batteries that could last up to 28 hours (I did not get that on ours, though). It was less powerful than the Newton MessagePad 2000, which was out at the same time however – the eMate had internal memory expansion and a PCMCIA slot for accessories like modems and Ethernet cards. Best of all, it had the translucent ascetic, which was popular then and built for classroom use. There were unreleased purple, clear, red, and orange versions, but we have yet to see those in real life.
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
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Python for Microcontrollers β Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Open Hardware is In, New CircuitPython and Pi 5 16GB, and much more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI β Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maximβs Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey