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ABBA
880
Artistry
In September 2010, band members Andersson and Ulvaeus criticised the right-wing Danish People's Party (DF) for using the ABBA song "Mamma Mia" (with modified lyrics referencing Pia Kjærsgaard) at rallies. The band threatened to file a lawsuit against the DF, saying they never allowed their music to be used politically and that they had absolutely no interest in supporting the party. Their record label Universal Music later said that no legal action would be taken because an agreement had been reached.
ABBA
880
Artistry
During their active career, from 1972 to 1982, 20 of ABBA's singles entered the Billboard Hot 100; 14 of these made the Top 40 (13 on the Cashbox Top 100), with 10 making the Top 20 on both charts. A total of four of those singles reached the Top 10, including "Dancing Queen", which reached number one in April 1977. While "Fernando" and "SOS" did not break the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 (reaching number 13 and 15 respectively), they did reach the Top 10 on Cashbox ("Fernando") and Record World ("SOS") charts. Both "Dancing Queen" and "Take a Chance on Me" were certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of over one million copies each.
ABBA
880
Artistry
The group also had 12 Top 20 singles on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart with two of them, "Fernando" and "The Winner Takes It All", reaching number one. "Lay All Your Love on Me" was ABBA's fourth number-one single on a Billboard chart, topping the Hot Dance Club Play chart.
ABBA
880
Artistry
Ten ABBA albums have made their way into the top half of the Billboard 200 album chart, with eight reaching the Top 50, five reaching the Top 20 and one reaching the Top 10. In November 2021, Voyage became ABBA's highest-charting album on the Billboard 200 peaking at No. 2. Five albums received RIAA gold certification (more than 500,000 copies sold), while three acquired platinum status (selling more than one million copies).
ABBA
880
Artistry
The compilation album ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits topped the Billboard Top Pop Catalog Albums chart in August 2008 (15 years after it was first released in the US in 1993), becoming the group's first number-one album ever on any of the Billboard album charts. It has sold 6 million copies there.
ABBA
880
Artistry
On 15 March 2010, ABBA were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Bee Gees members Barry Gibb and Robin Gibb. The ceremony was held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. The group were represented by Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Benny Andersson.
ABBA
880
Artistry
in November 2021, ABBA received a Grammy nomination for Record of the Year. The single, "I Still Have Faith in You", from the album, Voyage, was their first ever nomination.
ABBA
880
Artistry
Neither ABBA nor any of the band members are included in Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Artists of All Time" list.
ABBA
880
Members
The members of ABBA were married as follows: Agnetha Fältskog and Björn Ulvaeus from 1971 to 1979; Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad from 1978 to 1981. For their subsequent marriages, see their articles.
ABBA
880
Members
In addition to the four members of ABBA, other musicians regularly played on their studio recordings, live appearances and concert performances. These include:
ABBA
880
Discography
Studio albums
Allegiance
881
An allegiance is a duty of fidelity said to be owed, or freely committed, by the people, subjects or citizens to their state or sovereign.
Allegiance
881
Etymology
The word allegiance comes from Middle English ligeaunce (see Medieval Latin ligeantia, "a liegance"). The al- prefix was probably added through confusion with another legal term, allegeance, an "allegation" (the French allegeance comes from the English). Allegiance is formed from "liege," from Old French liege, "liege, free", of Germanic origin. The connection with Latin ligare, "to bind," is erroneous.
Allegiance
881
Usage
Traditionally, English legal commentators used the term allegiance in two ways. In one sense, it referred to the deference which anyone, even a foreigner, was expected to pay to the institutions of the country where one lived. In the other sense, it meant national character and the subjection due to that character.
Allegiance
881
United Kingdom
The English doctrine, which was at one time adopted in the United States, asserted that allegiance was indelible: "Nemo potest exuere patriam". As the law stood prior to 1870, every person who by birth or naturalisation satisfied the conditions set forth, even if removed in infancy to another country where their family resided, owed an allegiance to the British crown which they could never resign or lose, except by act of parliament or by the recognition of the independence or the cession of the portion of British territory in which they resided.
Allegiance
881
United Kingdom
This refusal to accept any renunciation of allegiance to the Crown led to conflict with the United States over impressment, which led to further conflicts during the War of 1812, when thirteen Irish American prisoners of war were executed as traitors after the Battle of Queenston Heights; Winfield Scott urged American reprisal, but none was carried out.
Allegiance
881
United Kingdom
Allegiance was the tie which bound the subject to the sovereign, in return for that protection which the sovereign afforded the subject. It was the mutual bond and obligation between monarch and subjects, whereby subjects were called their liege subjects, because they are bound to obey and serve them; and the monarch was called their liege lord, because they should maintain and defend them (Ex parte Anderson (1861) 3 El & El 487; 121 ER 525; China Navigation Co v Attorney-General (1932) 48 TLR 375; Attorney-General v Nissan [1969] 1 All ER 629; Oppenheimer v Cattermole [1972] 3 All ER 1106). The duty of the crown towards its subjects was to govern and protect them. The reciprocal duty of the subject towards the crown was that of allegiance.
Allegiance
881
United Kingdom
At common law, allegiance was a true and faithful obedience of the subject due to their sovereign. As the subject owed to their sovereign their true and faithful allegiance and obedience, so the sovereign
Allegiance
881
United Kingdom
Natural allegiance and obedience is an incident inseparable to every subject, for parte Anderson (1861) 3 El & El 487; 121 ER 525). Natural-born subjects owe allegiance wherever they may be. Where territory is occupied in the course of hostilities by an enemy's force, even if the annexation of the occupied country is proclaimed by the enemy, there can be no change of allegiance during the progress of hostilities on the part of a citizen of the occupied country (R v Vermaak (1900) 21 NLR 204 (South Africa)).
Allegiance
881
United Kingdom
Allegiance is owed both to the sovereign as a natural person and to the sovereign in the political capacity (Re Stepney Election Petition, Isaacson v Durant (1886) 17 QBD 54 (per Lord Coleridge CJ)). Attachment to the person of the reigning sovereign is not sufficient. Loyalty requires affection also to the office of the sovereign, attachment to royalty, attachment to the law and to the constitution of the realm, and he who would, by force or by fraud, endeavour to prostrate that law and constitution, though he may retain his affection for its head, can boast but an imperfect and spurious species of loyalty (R v O'Connell (1844) 7 ILR 261).
Allegiance
881
United Kingdom
There were four kinds of allegiances (Rittson v Stordy (1855) 3 Sm & G 230; De Geer v Stone (1882) 22 Ch D 243; Isaacson v Durant (1886) 54 LT 684; Gibson, Gavin v Gibson [1913] 3 KB 379; Joyce v DPP [1946] AC 347; Collingwood v Pace (1661) O Bridg 410; Lane v Bennett (1836) 1 M & W 70; Lyons Corp v East India Co (1836) 1 Moo PCC 175; Birtwhistle v Vardill (1840) 7 Cl & Fin 895; R v Lopez, R v Sattler (1858) Dears & B 525; Ex p Brown (1864) 5 B & S 280);
Allegiance
881
United Kingdom
(a) Ligeantia naturalis, absoluta, pura et indefinita, and this originally is due by nature and birthright, and is called alta ligeantia, and those that owe this are called subditus natus;
Allegiance
881
United Kingdom
(b) Ligeantia acquisita, not by nature but by acquisition or denization, being called a denizen, or rather denizon, because they are subditus datus;
Allegiance
881
United Kingdom
(c) Ligeantia localis, by operation of law, when a friendly alien enters the country, because so long as they are in the country they are within the sovereign's protection, therefore they owe the sovereign a local obedience or allegiance (R v Cowle (1759) 2 Burr 834; Low v Routledge (1865) 1 Ch App 42; Re Johnson, Roberts v Attorney-General [1903] 1 Ch 821; Tingley v Muller [1917] 2 Ch 144; Rodriguez v Speyer [1919] AC 59; Johnstone v Pedlar [1921] 2 AC 262; R v Tucker (1694) Show Parl Cas 186; R v Keyn (1876) 2 Ex D 63; Re Stepney Election Petn, Isaacson v Durant (1886) 17 QBD 54);
Allegiance
881
United Kingdom
(d) A legal obedience, where a particular law requires the taking of an oath of allegiance by subject or alien alike.
Allegiance
881
United Kingdom
Natural allegiance was acquired by birth within the sovereign's dominions (except for the issue of diplomats or of invading forces or of an alien in an enemy occupied territory). The natural allegiance and obedience are an incident inseparable from every subject, for as soon as they are born they owe by birthright allegiance and obedience to the Sovereign (Ex p. Anderson (1861) 3 E & E 487). A natural-born subject owes allegiance wherever they may be, so that where territory is occupied in the course of hostilities by an enemy's force, even if the annexation of the occupied country is proclaimed by the enemy, there can be no change of allegiance during the progress of hostilities on the part of a citizen of the occupied country (R v Vermaak (1900) 21 NLR 204 (South Africa)).
Allegiance
881
United Kingdom
Acquired allegiance was acquired by naturalisation or denization. Denization, or ligeantia acquisita, appears to be threefold (Thomas v Sorrel (1673) 3 Keb 143);
Allegiance
881
United Kingdom
Local allegiance was due by an alien while in the protection of the crown. All friendly resident aliens incurred all the obligations of subjects (The Angelique (1801) 3 Ch Rob App 7). An alien, coming into a colony, also became, temporarily, a subject of the crown, and acquired rights both within and beyond the colony, and these latter rights could not be affected by the laws of that colony (Routledge v Low (1868) LR 3 HL 100; 37 LJ Ch 454; 18 LT 874; 16 WR 1081, HL; Reid v Maxwell (1886) 2 TLR 790; Falcon v Famous Players Film Co [1926] 2 KB 474).
Allegiance
881
United Kingdom
A resident alien owed allegiance even when the protection of the crown was withdrawn owing to the occupation of an enemy, because the absence of the crown's protection was temporary and involuntary (de Jager v Attorney-General of Natal [1907] AC 326).
Allegiance
881
United Kingdom
Legal allegiance was due when an alien took an oath of allegiance required for a particular office under the crown.
Allegiance
881
United Kingdom
By the Naturalisation Act 1870, it was made possible for British subjects to renounce their nationality and allegiance, and the ways in which that nationality is lost were defined. So British subjects voluntarily naturalized in a foreign state are deemed aliens from the time of such naturalization, unless, in the case of persons naturalized before the passing of the act, they had declared their desire to remain British subjects within two years from the passing of the act. Persons who, from having been born within British territory, are British subjects, but who, at birth, came under the law of any foreign state or of subjects of such state, and, also, persons who, though born abroad, are British subjects by reason of parentage, may, by declarations of alienage, get rid of British nationality. Emigration to an uncivilized country left British nationality unaffected: indeed the right claimed by all states to follow with their authority their subjects so emigrating was one of the usual and recognized means of colonial expansion.
Allegiance
881
United States
The doctrine that no man can cast off his native allegiance without the consent of his sovereign was early abandoned in the United States, and Chief Justice John Rutledge also declared in Talbot v. Janson, "a man may, at the same time, enjoy the rights of citizenship under two governments." On July 27, 1868, the day before the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, U.S. Congress declared in the preamble of the Expatriation Act that "the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent right of all people, indispensable to the enjoyment of the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and (Section I) one of "the fundamental principles of this government" (United States Revised Statutes, sec. 1999). Every natural-born citizen of a foreign state who is also an American citizen, and every natural-born American citizen who is also a citizen of a foreign land, owes a double allegiance, one to the United States, and one to their homeland (in the event of an immigrant becoming a citizen of the US) or to their adopted land (in the event of an emigrant natural-born citizen of the US becoming a citizen of another nation). If these allegiances come into conflict, the person may be guilty of treason against one or both. If the demands of these two sovereigns upon their duty of allegiance come into conflict, those of the United States have the paramount authority in American law; likewise, those of the foreign land have paramount authority in their legal system. In such a situation, it may be incumbent on the individual to renounce one of their citizenships, to avoid possibly being forced into situations where countervailing duties are required of them, such as might occur in the event of war.
Allegiance
881
Oath of allegiance
The oath of allegiance is an oath of fidelity to the sovereign taken by all persons holding important public office and as a condition of naturalization. By ancient common law, it was required of all persons above the age of 12, and it was repeatedly used as a test for the disaffected. In England, it was first imposed by statute in the reign of Elizabeth I (1558), and its form has, more than once, been altered since. Up to the time of the revolution, the promise was "to be true and faithful to the king and his heirs, and truth and faith to bear of life and limb and terrene honour, and not to know or hear of any ill or damage intended him without defending him therefrom." This was thought to favour the doctrine of absolute non-resistance, and, accordingly, the Convention Parliament enacted the form that has been in use since that time – "I do sincerely promise and swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty ..."
Allegiance
881
Oath of allegiance
In the United States and some other republics, the oath is known as the Pledge of Allegiance. Instead of declaring fidelity to a monarch, the pledge is made to the flag, the republic, and to the core values of the country, specifically liberty and justice. The reciting of the pledge in the United States is voluntary because of the rights guaranteed to the people under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution - specifically, the guarantee of freedom of speech, which inherently includes the freedom not to speak.
Allegiance
881
In Islam
The word used in the Arabic language for allegiance is bay'at (Arabic: بيعة), which means "taking hand". The practice is sanctioned in the Quran by Surah 48:10: "Verily, those who give thee their allegiance, they give it but to Allah Himself". The word is used for the oath of allegiance to an emir. It is also used for the initiation ceremony specific to many Sufi orders.
Absolute majority
882
ç#REDIRECT Majority
Absolute majority
882
7,859 words)
Altenberg
885
Altenberg (German for "old mountain" or "mountain of the old") may refer to:
MessagePad
887
The MessagePad is a discontinued series of personal digital assistant devices developed by Apple Computer for the Newton platform in 1993. Some electronic engineering and the manufacture of Apple's MessagePad devices was undertaken in Japan by Sharp. The devices are based on the ARM 610 RISC processor and all featured handwriting recognition software and were developed and marketed by Apple. The devices run Newton OS.
MessagePad
887
History
The development of the Newton MessagePad first began with Apple's former senior vice president of research and development, Jean-Louis Gassée; his team included Steve Capps, co-writer of macOS Finder, and an employed engineer named Steve Sakoman. The development of the Newton MessagePad operated in secret until it was eventually revealed to the Apple Board of Directors in late 1990.
MessagePad
887
History
When Gassée resigned from his position due to a significant disagreement with the board, seeing how his employer was treated, Sakoman also stopped developing the MessagePad on March 2, 1990.
MessagePad
887
History
Bill Atkinson, an Apple Executive responsible for the company's Lisa graphical interface, invited Steve Capps, John Sculley, Andy Hertzfeld, Susan Kare, and Marc Porat to a meeting on March 11, 1990. There, they brainstormed a way of saving the MessagePad. Sculley suggested adding new features, including libraries, museums, databases, or institutional archives features, allowing customers to navigate through various window tabs or opened galleries/stacks. The Board later approved his suggestion; he then gave Newton it is official and full backing.
MessagePad
887
History
The first MessagePad was unveiled by Sculley on the 29th of May 1992 at the summer Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Chicago. Sculley caved in to pressure to unveil the product early because the Newton did not officially ship for another 14 months on August 2, 1993, starting at a price of $699. Over 50,000 units were sold by late November 1993.
MessagePad
887
Details
With the MessagePad 120 with Newton OS 2.0, the Newton Keyboard by Apple became available, which can also be used via the dongle on Newton devices with a Newton InterConnect port, most notably the Apple MessagePad 2000/2100 series, as well as the Apple eMate 300.
MessagePad
887
Details
Newton devices featuring Newton OS 2.1 or higher can be used with the screen turned horizontally ("landscape") as well as vertically ("portrait"). A change of a setting rotates the contents of the display by 90, 180 or 270 degrees. Handwriting recognition still works properly with the display rotated, although display calibration is needed when rotation in any direction is used for the first time or when the Newton device is reset.
MessagePad
887
Details
In initial versions (Newton OS 1.x) the handwriting recognition gave extremely mixed results for users and was sometimes inaccurate. The original handwriting recognition engine was called Calligrapher, and was licensed from a Russian company called Paragraph International. Calligrapher's design was quite sophisticated; it attempted to learn the user's natural handwriting, using a database of known words to make guesses as to what the user was writing, and could interpret writing anywhere on the screen, whether hand-printed, in cursive, or a mix of the two. By contrast, Palm Pilot's Graffiti had a less sophisticated design than Calligrapher, but was sometimes found to be more accurate and precise due to its reliance on a fixed, predefined stroke alphabet. The stroke alphabet used letter shapes which resembled standard handwriting, but which were modified to be both simple and very easy to differentiate. Palm Computing also released two versions of Graffiti for Newton devices. The Newton version sometimes performed better and could also show strokes as they were being written as input was done on the display itself, rather than on a silkscreen area.
MessagePad
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Details
For editing text, Newton had a very intuitive system for handwritten editing, such as scratching out words to be deleted, circling text to be selected, or using written carets to mark inserts.
MessagePad
887
Details
Later releases of the Newton operating system retained the original recognizer for compatibility, but added a hand-printed-text-only (not cursive) recognizer, called "Rosetta", which was developed by Apple, included in version 2.0 of the Newton operating system, and refined in Newton 2.1. Rosetta is generally considered a significant improvement and many reviewers, testers, and most users consider the Newton 2.1 handwriting recognition software better than any of the alternatives even 10 years after it was introduced. Recognition and computation of handwritten horizontal and vertical formulas such as "1 + 2 =" was also under development but never released. However, users wrote similar programs which could evaluate mathematical formulas using the Newton OS Intelligent Assistant, a unique part of every Newton device.
MessagePad
887
Details
The handwriting recognition and parts of the user interface for the Newton are best understood in the context of the broad history of pen computing, which is quite extensive.
MessagePad
887
Details
A vital feature of the Newton handwriting recognition system is the modeless error correction. That is, correction done in situ without using a separate window or widget, using a minimum of gestures. If a word is recognized improperly, the user could double-tap the word and a list of alternatives would pop up in a menu under the stylus. Most of the time, the correct word will be in the list. If not, a button at the bottom of the list allows the user to edit individual characters in that word. Other pen gestures could do such things as transpose letters (also in situ). The correction popup also allowed the user to revert to the original, un-recognized letter shapes - this would be useful in note-taking scenarios if there was insufficient time to make corrections immediately. To conserve memory and storage space, alternative recognition hypotheses would not be saved indefinitely. If the user returned to a note a week later, for example, they would only see the best match. Error correction in many current handwriting systems provides such functionality but adds more steps to the process, greatly increasing the interruption to a user's workflow that a given correction requires.
MessagePad
887
Details
Text could also be entered by tapping with the stylus on a small on-screen pop-up QWERTY virtual keyboard, although more layouts were developed by users. Newton devices could also accept free-hand "Sketches", "Shapes", and "Ink Text", much like a desktop computer graphics tablet. With "Shapes", Newton could recognize that the user was attempting to draw a circle, a line, a polygon, etc., and it would clean them up into perfect vector representations (with modifiable control points and defined vertices) of what the user was attempting to draw. "Shapes" and "Sketches" could be scaled or deformed once drawn. "Ink text" captured the user's free-hand writing but allowed it to be treated somewhat like recognized text when manipulating for later editing purposes ("ink text" supported word wrap, could be formatted to be bold, italic, etc.). At any time a user could also direct their Newton device to recognize selected "ink text" and turn it into recognized text (deferred recognition). A Newton note (or the notes attached to each contact in Names and each Dates calendar or to-do event) could contain any mix of interleaved text, Ink Text, Shapes, and Sketches.
MessagePad
887
Details
While the Newton offered handwriting recognition training and would clean up sketches into vector shapes, both were unreliable and required much rewriting and redrawing. The most reliable application of the Newton was collecting and organizing address and phone numbers. While handwritten messages could be stored, they could not be easily filed, sorted or searched. While the technology was a probable cause for the failure of the device (which otherwise met or exceeded expectations), the technology has been instrumental in producing the future generation of handwriting software that realizes the potential and promise that began in the development of Newton-Apple's Ink Handwriting Recognition.
MessagePad
887
Details
The MessagePad 100 series of devices used Macintosh's proprietary serial ports—round Mini-DIN 8 connectors. The MessagePad 2000/2100 models (as well as the eMate 300) have a small, proprietary Newton InterConnect port. However, the development of the Newton hardware/software platform was canceled by Steve Jobs on February 27, 1998, so the InterConnect port, while itself very advanced, can only be used to connect a serial dongle. A prototype multi-purpose InterConnect device containing serial, audio in, audio out, and other ports was also discovered. In addition, all Newton devices have infrared connectivity, initially only the Sharp ASK protocol, but later also IrDA, though the Sharp ASK protocol was kept in for compatibility reasons. Unlike the Palm Pilot, all Newton devices are equipped with a standard PC Card expansion slot (two on the 2000/2100). This allows native modem and even Ethernet connectivity; Newton users have also written drivers for 802.11b wireless networking cards and ATA-type flash memory cards (including the popular CompactFlash format), as well as for Bluetooth cards. Newton can also dial a phone number through the built-in speaker of the Newton device by simply holding a telephone handset up to the speaker and transmitting the appropriate tones. Fax and printing support is also built in at the operating system level, although it requires peripherals such as parallel adapters, PCMCIA cards, or serial modems, the most notable of which is the lightweight Newton Fax Modem released by Apple in 1993. It is powered by 2 AA batteries, and can also be used with a power adapter. It provides data transfer at 2,400 bit/s, and can also send and receive fax messages at 9,600 and 4,800 bit/s respectively.
MessagePad
887
Details
The original Apple MessagePad and MessagePad 100 used four AAA batteries. They were eventually replaced by AA batteries with the release of the Apple MessagePad 110.
MessagePad
887
Details
The use of 4 AA NiCd (MessagePad 110, 120 and 130) and 4x AA NiMH cells (MP2x00 series, eMate 300) give a runtime of up to 30 hours (MP2100 with two 20 MB Linear Flash memory PC Cards, no backlight usage) and up to 24 hours with backlight on. While adding more weight to the handheld Newton devices than AAA batteries or custom battery packs, the choice of an easily replaceable/rechargeable cell format gives the user a still unsurpassed runtime and flexibility of power supply. This, together with the flash memory used as internal storage starting with the Apple MessagePad 120 (if all cells lost their power, no data was lost due to the non-volatility of this storage), gave birth to the slogan "Newton never dies, it only gets new batteries".
MessagePad
887
Details
The Apple MessagePad 2000/2100, with a vastly improved handwriting recognition system, 162 MHz StrongARM SA-110 RISC processor, Newton OS 2.1, and a better, clearer, backlit screen, attracted critical plaudits.
MessagePad
887
Details
The eMate 300 was a Newton device in a laptop form factor offered to schools in 1997 as an inexpensive ($799 US, originally sold to education markets only) and durable computer for classroom use. However, in order to achieve its low price, the eMate 300 did not have all the speed and features of the contemporary MessagePad equivalent, the MessagePad 2000. The eMate was cancelled along with the rest of the Newton products in 1998. It is the only Newton device to use the ARM710 microprocessor (running at 25 MHz), have an integrated keyboard, use Newton OS 2.2 (officially numbered 2.1), and its batteries are officially irreplaceable, although several users replaced them with longer-lasting ones without any damage to the eMate hardware whatsoever.
MessagePad
887
Details
Many prototypes of additional Newton devices were spotted. Most notable was a Newton tablet or "slate", a large, flat screen that could be written on. Others included a "Kids Newton" with side handgrips and buttons, "VideoPads" which would have incorporated a video camera and screen on their flip-top covers for two-way communications, the "Mini 2000" which would have been very similar to a Palm Pilot, and the NewtonPhone developed by Siemens, which incorporated a handset and a keyboard.
MessagePad
887
Market reception
Fourteen months after Sculley demoed it at the May 1992, Chicago CES, the MessagePad was first offered for sale on August 2, 1993, at the Boston Macworld Expo. The hottest item at the show, it cost $900. 50,000 MessagePads were sold in the device's first three months on the market.
MessagePad
887
Market reception
The original Apple MessagePad and MessagePad 100 were limited by the very short lifetime of their inadequate AAA batteries.
MessagePad
887
Market reception
Another factor which limited the early Newton devices' appeal was that desktop connectivity was not included in the basic retail package, a problem that was later solved with 2.x Newton devices - these were bundled with a serial cable and the appropriate Newton Connection Utilities software.
MessagePad
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Market reception
Later versions of Newton OS offered improved handwriting recognition, quite possibly a leading reason for the continued popularity of the devices among Newton users. Even given the age of the hardware and software, Newtons still demand a sale price on the used market far greater than that of comparatively aged PDAs produced by other companies. In 2006, CNET compared an Apple MessagePad 2000 to a Samsung Q1, and the Newton was declared better. In 2009, CNET compared an Apple MessagePad 2000 to an iPhone 3GS, and the Newton was declared more innovative at its time of release.
MessagePad
887
Market reception
A chain of dedicated Newton-only stores called Newton Source, independently run by Stephen Elms, existed from 1994 until 1998. Locations included New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Boston. The Westwood Village, California, near UCLA featured the trademark red and yellow light bulb Newton logo in neon. The stores provided an informative educational venue to learn about the Newton platform in a hands on relaxed fashion. The stores had no traditional computer retail counters and featured oval desktops where interested users could become intimately involved with the Newton product range. The stores were a model for the later Apple Stores.
MessagePad
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Newton device models
* Varies with installed OS
MessagePad
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Newton device models
Notes: The eMate 300 actually has ROM chips silk screened with 2.2 on them. Stephanie Mak on her website discusses this: If one removes all patches to the eMate 300 (by replacing the ROM chip, and then putting in the original one again, as the eMate and the MessagePad 2000/2100 devices erase their memory completely after replacing the chip), the result will be the Newton OS saying that this is version 2.2.00. Also, the Original MessagePad and the MessagePad 100 share the same model number, as they only differ in the ROM chip version. (The OMP has OS versions 1.0 to 1.05, or 1.10 to 1.11, while the MP100 has 1.3 that can be upgraded with various patches.)
MessagePad
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Third party licenses
The Newton OS was also licensed to a number of third party developers including Sharp and Motorola who developed additional PDA devices based on the Newton platform. Motorola added wireless connectivity, as well as made a unique two-part design, and shipped additional software with its Newton device, called the Marco. Sharp developed a line of Newton devices called the ExpertPad PI-7000/7100; those were the same as Apple's MessagePad and MessagePad 100, the only difference is the physical design (the ExpertPads feature a screen lid, which Apple added in 1994 with the release of the MessagePad 110) and the naming.
MessagePad
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Other uses
There were a number of projects that used the Newton as a portable information device in cultural settings such as museums. For example, Visible Interactive created a walking tour in San Francisco's Chinatown but the most significant effort took place in Malaysia at the Petronas Discovery Center, known as Petrosains.
MessagePad
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Other uses
In 1995, an exhibit design firm, DMCD Inc., was awarded the contract to design a new 100,000-square-foot (9,300 m) science museum in the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. A major factor in the award was the concept that visitors would use a Newton device to access additional information, find out where they were in the museum, listen to audio, see animations, control robots and other media, and to bookmark information for printout at the end of the exhibit.
MessagePad
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Other uses
The device became known as the ARIF, a Malay word for "wise man" or "seer" and it was also an acronym for A Resourceful Informative Friend. Some 400 ARIFS were installed and over 300 are still in use today. The development of the ARIF system was extremely complex and required a team of hardware and software engineers, designers, and writers. ARIF is an ancestor of the PDA systems used in museums today and it boasted features that have not been attempted since.
MessagePad
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Other uses
Anyway & Company firm was involved with the Petronas Discovery Center project back in 1998 and NDAs were signed which prevents getting to know more information about this project. It was confirmed that they purchased of MP2000u or MP2100's by this firm on the behalf of the project under the name of "Petrosains Project Account". By 1998 they had invested heavily into the R&D of this project with the Newton at the center. After Apple officially cancelled the Newton in 1998 they had to acquire as many Newtons as possible for this project. It was estimated initially 1000 Newtons, but later readjusted the figure to possibly 750 Newtons. They placed an “Internet Call” for Newtons. They purchased them in large and small quantities.
MessagePad
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Other uses
The Newton was also used in healthcare applications, for example in collecting data directly from patients. Newtons were used as electronic diaries, with patients entering their symptoms and other information concerning their health status on a daily basis. The compact size of the device and its ease of use made it possible for the electronic diaries to be carried around and used in the patients' everyday life setting. This was an early example of electronic patient-reported outcomes (ePRO).
A. E. van Vogt
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Alfred Elton van Vogt (/væn voʊt/ VAN VOHT; April 26, 1912 – January 26, 2000) was a Canadian-born American science fiction author. His fragmented, bizarre narrative style influenced later science fiction writers, notably Philip K. Dick. He was one of the most popular and influential practitioners of science fiction in the mid-twentieth century, the genre's so-called Golden Age, and one of the most complex. The Science Fiction Writers of America named him their 14th Grand Master in 1995 (presented 1996).
A. E. van Vogt
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Early life
Alfred Vogt (both "Elton" and "van" were added much later) was born on April 26, 1912, on his grandparents' farm in Edenburg, Manitoba, a tiny (and now defunct) Russian Mennonite community east of Gretna, Manitoba, Canada, in the Mennonite West Reserve. He was the third of six children born to Heinrich "Henry" Vogt and Aganetha "Agnes" Vogt (née Buhr), both of whom were born in Manitoba and grew up in heavily immigrant communities. Until he was four, van Vogt spoke only Plautdietsch at home.
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Early life
For the first dozen or so years of his life, van Vogt's father, Henry Vogt, a lawyer, moved his family several times within western Canada, moving to Neville, Saskatchewan; Morden, Manitoba; and finally Winnipeg, Manitoba. Alfred Vogt found these moves difficult, later remarking:
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Early life
Childhood was a terrible period for me. I was like a ship without anchor being swept along through darkness in a storm. Again and again I sought shelter, only to be forced out of it by something new.
A. E. van Vogt
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Early life
By the 1920s, living in Winnipeg, father Henry worked as an agent for a steamship company, but the stock market crash of 1929 proved financially disastrous, and the family could not afford to send Alfred to college. During his teen years, Alfred worked as a farmhand and a truck driver, and by the age of 19, he was working in Ottawa for the Canadian Census Bureau.
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Early life
In "the dark days of '31 and '32," van Vogt took a correspondence course in writing from the Palmer Institute of Authorship. He sold his first story in fall 1932. His early published works were stories in the true confession style of magazines such as True Story. Most of these stories were published anonymously, with the first-person narratives allegedly being written by people (often women) in extraordinary, emotional, and life-changing circumstances.
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Early life
After a year in Ottawa, he moved back to Winnipeg, where he sold newspaper advertising space and continued to write. While continuing to pen melodramatic "true confessions" stories through 1937, he also began writing short radio dramas for local radio station CKY, as well as conducting interviews published in trade magazines. He added the middle name "Elton" at some point in the mid-1930s, and at least one confessional story (1937's "To Be His Keeper") was sold to the Toronto Star, who misspelled his name "Alfred Alton Bogt" in the byline. Shortly thereafter, he added the "van" to his surname, and from that point forward he used the name "A. E. van Vogt" both personally and professionally.
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Career
By 1938, van Vogt decided to switch to writing science fiction, a genre he enjoyed reading. He was inspired by the August 1938 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, which he picked up at a newsstand. John W. Campbell's novelette "Who Goes There?" (later adapted into The Thing from Another World and The Thing) inspired van Vogt to write "Vault of the Beast", which he submitted to that same magazine. Campbell, who edited Astounding (and had written the story under a pseudonym), sent van Vogt a rejection letter in which Campbell encouraged van Vogt to try again. Van Vogt sent another story, entitled "Black Destroyer", which was accepted. It featured a fierce, carnivorous alien stalking the crew of a spaceship, and served as the inspiration for multiple science fiction movies, including Alien (1979). A revised version of "Vault of the Beast" was published in 1940.
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Career
While still living in Winnipeg, in 1939 van Vogt married Edna Mayne Hull, a fellow Manitoban. Hull, who had previously worked as a private secretary, went on to act as van Vogt's typist, and was credited with writing several SF stories of her own throughout the early 1940s.
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Career
The outbreak of World War II in September 1939 caused a change in van Vogt's circumstances. Ineligible for military service due to his poor eyesight, he accepted a clerking job with the Canadian Department of National Defence. This necessitated a move back to Ottawa, where he and his wife stayed for the next year and a half.
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Career
Meanwhile, his writing career continued. "Discord in Scarlet" was van Vogt's second story to be published, also appearing as the cover story. It was accompanied by interior illustrations created by Frank Kramer and Paul Orban. (Van Vogt and Kramer thus debuted in the issue of Astounding that is sometimes identified as the start of the Golden Age of Science Fiction.) Among his most famous works of this era, "Far Centaurus" appeared in the January 1944 edition of Astounding.
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Career
Van Vogt's first completed novel, and one of his most famous, is Slan (Arkham House, 1946), which Campbell serialized in Astounding (September to December 1940). Using what became one of van Vogt's recurring themes, it told the story of a nine-year-old superman living in a world in which his kind are slain by Homo sapiens.
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Career
Others saw van Vogt's talent from his first story, and in May 1941 van Vogt decided to become a full-time writer, quitting his job at the Canadian Department of National Defence. Freed from the necessity of living in Ottawa, he and his wife lived for a time in the Gatineau region of Quebec before moving to Toronto in the fall of 1941.
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Career
Prolific throughout this period, van Vogt wrote many of his more famous short stories and novels in the years from 1941 through 1944. The novels The Book of Ptath and The Weapon Makers both appeared in magazines in serial form during this period; they were later published in book form after World War II. As well, several (though not all) of the stories that were compiled to make up the novels The Weapon Shops of Isher, The Mixed Men and The War Against the Rull were published during this time.
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Career
In November 1944, van Vogt and Hull moved to Hollywood; van Vogt would spend the rest of his life in California. He had been using the name "A. E. van Vogt" in his public life for several years, and as part of the process of obtaining American citizenship in 1945 he finally and formally changed his legal name from Alfred Vogt to Alfred Elton van Vogt. To his friends in the California science fiction community, he was known as "Van".
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Method and themes
Van Vogt systematized his writing method, using scenes of 800 words or so where a new complication was added or something resolved. Several of his stories hinge on temporal conundra, a favorite theme. He stated that he acquired many of his writing techniques from three books: Narrative Technique by Thomas Uzzell, The Only Two Ways to Write a Story by John Gallishaw, and Twenty Problems of the Fiction Writer by Gallishaw. He also claimed many of his ideas came from dreams; throughout his writing life he arranged to be awakened every 90 minutes during his sleep period so he could write down his dreams.
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Method and themes
Van Vogt was also always interested in the idea of all-encompassing systems of knowledge (akin to modern meta-systems). The characters in his very first story used a system called "Nexialism" to analyze the alien's behavior. Around this time, he became particularly interested in the general semantics of Alfred Korzybski.
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Method and themes
He subsequently wrote a novel merging these overarching themes, The World of Ā, originally serialized in Astounding in 1945. Ā (often rendered as Null-A), or non-Aristotelian logic, refers to the capacity for, and practice of, using intuitive, inductive reasoning (compare fuzzy logic), rather than reflexive, or conditioned, deductive reasoning. The novel recounts the adventures of an individual living in an apparent Utopia, where those with superior brainpower make up the ruling class... though all is not as it seems. A sequel, The Players of Ā (later re-titled The Pawns of Null-A) was serialized in 1948–49.
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Method and themes
At the same time, in his fiction, van Vogt was consistently sympathetic to absolute monarchy as a form of government. This was the case, for instance, in the Weapon Shop series, the Mixed Men series, and in single stories such as "Heir Apparent" (1945), whose protagonist was described as a "benevolent dictator". These sympathies were the subject of much critical discussion during van Vogt's career, and afterwards.
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Method and themes
Van Vogt published "Enchanted Village" in the July 1950 issue of Other Worlds Science Stories. It was reprinted in over 20 collections or anthologies, and appeared many times in translation.
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Method and themes
In 1950, van Vogt was briefly appointed as head of L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics operation in California. Van Vogt had first met Hubbard in 1945, and became interested in his theories, which were published shortly thereafter. Dianetics was the secular precursor to Hubbard's Church of Scientology; van Vogt would have no association with Scientology, as he did not approve of its mysticism.
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Method and themes
The California Dianetics operation went broke nine months later, but never went bankrupt, due to van Vogt's arrangements with creditors. Shortly afterward, van Vogt and his wife opened their own Dianetics center, partly financed by his writings, until he "signed off" around 1961. From 1951 until 1961, van Vogt's focus was on Dianetics, and no new story ideas flowed from his typewriter.
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Method and themes
However, during the 1950s, van Vogt retrospectively patched together many of his previously published stories into novels, sometimes creating new interstitial material to help bridge gaps in the narrative. Van Vogt referred to the resulting books as "fix-ups", a term that entered the vocabulary of science-fiction criticism. When the original stories were closely related this was often successful, although some van Vogt fix-ups featured disparate stories thrown together that bore little relation to each other, generally making for a less coherent plot. One of his best-known (and well-regarded) novels, The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950) was a fix-up of four short stories including "Discord in Scarlet"; it was published in at least five European languages by 1955.
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Method and themes
Although Van Vogt averaged a new book title every ten months from 1951 to 1961, none of them were entirely new content; they were all fix-ups, collections of previously published stories, expansions of previously published short stories to novel length, or republications of previous books under new titles and all based on story material written and originally published between 1939 and 1950. Examples include The Weapon Shops of Isher (1951), The Mixed Men (1952), The War Against the Rull (1959), and the two "Clane" novels, Empire of the Atom (1957) and The Wizard of Linn (1962), which were inspired (like Asimov's Foundation series) by Roman imperial history; specifically, as Damon Knight wrote, the plot of Empire of the Atom was "lifted almost bodily" from that of Robert Graves' I, Claudius. (Also, one non-fiction work, The Hypnotism Handbook, appeared in 1956, though it had apparently been written much earlier.)
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Method and themes
After more than a decade of running their Dianetics center, Hull and van Vogt closed it in 1961. Nevertheless, van Vogt maintained his association with the organization and was still president of the Californian Association of Dianetic Auditors into the 1980s.
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Return to writing and later career (1962–1986)
Though the constant re-packaging of his older work meant that he had never really been away from the book publishing world, van Vogt had not published any wholly new fiction for almost 12 years when he decided to return to writing in 1962. He did not return immediately to science fiction, but instead wrote the only mainstream, non-sf novel of his career.
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Return to writing and later career (1962–1986)
Van Vogt was profoundly affected by revelations of totalitarian police states that emerged after World War II. Accordingly, he wrote a mainstream novel that he set in Communist China, The Violent Man (1962). Van Vogt explained that to research this book he had read 100 books about China. Into this book he incorporated his view of "the violent male type", which he described as a "man who had to be right", a man who "instantly attracts women" and who he said were the men who "run the world". Contemporary reviews were lukewarm at best, and van Vogt thereafter returned to science fiction.
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Return to writing and later career (1962–1986)
From 1963 through the mid-1980s, van Vogt once again published new material on a regular basis, though fix-ups and reworked material also appeared relatively often. His later novels included fix-ups such as The Beast (also known as Moonbeast) (1963), Rogue Ship (1965), Quest for the Future (1970) and Supermind (1977). He also wrote novels by expanding previously published short stories; works of this type include The Darkness on Diamondia (1972) and Future Glitter (also known as Tyranopolis; 1973).
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Return to writing and later career (1962–1986)
Novels that were written simply as novels, and not serialized magazine pieces or fix-ups, had been very rare in van Vogt's oeuvre, but began to appear regularly beginning in the 1970s. Van Vogt's original novels included Children of Tomorrow (1970), The Battle of Forever (1971) and The Anarchistic Colossus (1977). Over the years, many sequels to his classic works were promised, but only one appeared: Null-A Three (1984; originally published in French). Several later books were initially published in Europe, and at least one novel only ever appeared in foreign language editions and was never published in its original English.