[NTLK] "New" MP2.1K

From: Will Hartung (willh_at_msoft.com)
Date: Fri Apr 05 2002 - 13:46:06 EST


Hi all!

I just got my brand spanking used MP2100 from Gem Enterprises last night. I
had no problems with my transaction. I sent them a personal check, and while
they said they'd wait 10 days for it to clear, they shipped on, like, the
sixth day.

It's, umm...BIG. I didn't realize it was this big. I remember my MP120, but
I guess this one is mostly wider moreso than longer.

It's in good shape, the screen appears clean. There are some minor scuff
marks on the outside and some "stuff" from something stuck to the case. I
couldn't say whether the backlight is bright or not, but it seems to work
well. If I ever get to one of those LANUG meetings, I can compare it to
others.

Has anyone tried something like "Goo Gone" to remove the sticky stuff? Does
it adversely affect the "grippy" surface?

Do I need screen protectors for this thing, and if so, which ones should I
get?

I plugged in the charger into the newt and started playing with it. A few
minutes (like 15 or so) into playing with it, a slip showed up saying that
my battery was hosed. So, I put the machine down and let it charge for an
hour or so, and the battery seems to hold at least some charge. It lasted
several hours last night with the backlight running.

It came with the infamous Dongle, and I happened to have my older MP120
cable, and that Just Worked.

I downloaded the NCU from UNNA, and managed to get it backed up. I also
backed it up to the 32MB card that came with it. The first backup failed,
the Newt and my PC seemed to drop the connection. I'm running W98 on a
400Mhz Celeron. But, the second backup appeared to work.

Took its sweet time though.

I saw a blurb about the Serial57000 to make transfers faster, but haven't
downloaded it.

Is connecting with Appletalk to a Mac version of NCU any faster? I thought
Appletalk ran at 240Kbps. I have an aged 8100 that I may be able to plug it
in to.

I tried to download the Newton Tool Kit from UNNA for Windows, but the
archive appears corrupted. Does anyone have a working version? Or is the Mac
a better platform to work with Newton code?

Finally, for laughs, I downloaded the Project Gutenberg ERB "Princess Of
Mars", wrote a quick script to convert it to HTML, opened in Explorer,
Select All, Copy, Pasted into WordPad, Save As RTF, and loaded THAT into
NewtonPress to make a book.

I was STUNNED to find that the package it created was about 850K for a 350K
text!!!! Egads!

Is there a more efficient way of making Newt books?

I appear to have a version of Nethopper on the machine, is there a way I can
download an HTML file to be read with Nethopper?

I was very disappointed when I opened the book I made, switched to landscape
mode, and found that the book reader didn't adapt well (i.e. expanding the
screen). Perhaps I'm missing something there as well.

Anyway, that's all for now. No doubt more fun and excitement ahead.

Thanx!

Best Regards,

Will Hartung
(willh_at_msoft.com)

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