response 1 of 108:

Sep 11 07:47 UTC 1994

I've been eyeballing them every time I seem them in a display case
somewhere.  I think your misgiving about their expandability is
a good one, from what I've seen.  But of course, in such a small
package, there isn't much room for expansion.  Connectivity to the
outside world is almost mandatory (so you can upload those ruminations
to your desktop machine and turn them into the great American novel :).
Does the Wizard offer anything for that (like a serial port)?

response 3 of 108:

Sep 15 01:12 UTC 1994

I expect to be including the Motorola Envoy wireless PDA in an executive
package I'm designing for one of my customers.  I understand it has
similar capabilities as other PDAs, plus e-mail, fax, and on-line services.

I'll know if the Envoy will be part of the package in about 2 weeks.  If
I learn anything, I'll post a followup here.

response 5 of 108:

Oct 4 07:50 UTC 1994

Dan, I'm very sorry for not answering your simple question
sooner.  I fell off the system for a week of so.

I paid $500 for my Wizard w/ little fax-modem.  This appears
to be the standard street price for the model I got.  I know
you can get it w/o the modem for less (not sure how much) and
that you can get the OZ-9500 (less memory, otherwise the same)
for about $360.  I got it at Circuit City in Washington, D.C.

However (this is the important part) after getting my third look
a Newton, and talking to it's owner for a while, I packed my
Wizard up & sent it back.  The Newton 110 can be had for about
the same price, does everything the Wizard does, and is just
outrageously cool.  It definately isn't a little PC, like the
HP200, but than neither was the Wizard.  I'f you don't 
absolutely need to carry around a little PC, I highly recommend
finding a Newton and checking it out.  Best to find someone
who can really show you how it works.

Interestingly, I've read at least two or three magazine colomns
lately all saying the same thing.  That some hardware/software
improvements, and changes in people expectations, and the
growing body of shareware make the little machine worth a
serious look, despite its initial poor reviews...

End of evangelizing.  Hope nobody bought a Wizard while was
spacing out...

response 7 of 108:

Oct 16 23:01 UTC 1994

I've been looking at the Newton pretty hard since the 110 came out.
I think I will weaken early next year when the 120 comes out.
  
...or I might wait until the 120 with the 2.0 ROM appears.
   
That's the thing about computers, wait a bit and things get better.

response 9 of 108:

Oct 17 10:22 UTC 1994

Yeah.  A comic in the FP last week or so pictured an ad for a computer
guaranteed not to become obsolete for at least 2 hours after sale (or
something like that).  How true!

response 11 of 108:

Jan 10 14:51 UTC 1995

(Damart has the Wizard OZ 9500 for $300 (free s/h) and the OZ-8200
for $150, fwiw.)

I was thinking of one of these devices for taking surreptitious notes in a
classroom situtation, noting the contributions (or lack thereof) of
students during free-form discussions. It can't be done on paper as the
students nearly break their eyeballs trying to see what you are writing. I
thought a "spreadsheet" with coded axes for students and categories, with
the possibility of entering codes for good/better/best contributions,
would work. Do any of these devices permit operations like this? 

response 13 of 108:

Jan 10 18:19 UTC 1995

I wanted to "spreadsheet" to accept but not show my entry. And a 
touch-screen input. I could just touch the +/- in the cell to enter
it into memory. 

response 15 of 108:

Jan 11 02:44 UTC 1995

I've looked at Wizards, but the ones I've seen have had really tiny
keyboards to do the input with, and I think they would be hard to type on.
I have been seriously considering getting a Newton.  The 100s are now down
around $200, and since they are operated by a pen they don't have the
keyboard size problem.  I still think a notebook would be easier to do
work on, but they aren't as portable.

response 17 of 108:

Jan 11 07:04 UTC 1995

Ouch...  I guess that I never realized that teachers actually paid
that much attention to students when in group discussions.  Maybe I
should actually start paying attention during them.  (And I always
wondered why I got better grades in large lecture classes...)

Rane & Kent,  Thank you for enlightening me!  <grin>

response 19 of 108:

Jan 11 14:51 UTC 1995

I meant to also ask, will the Newton do what was described in
#s11-13? (Touchscreen entry of codes into a spreadsheet)?

response 21 of 108:

Apr 16 21:30 UTC 1995

Will a Newton do something like a ansi or vt100 emulation and be able to
Grex?  If it will, with some way to enter the occasional response, then
I'm about sold after seeing it at the potluck.  Way cool, but if the
handwriting recognition is even OK, then it has to be better than my
touch-typing on a tiny keyboard.  I'm starting to hit the practial 
boundary of my paper Dayrunner for updating the address book etc.

response 23 of 108:

Apr 17 02:53 UTC 1995

I bought a Radio Shack Zpda around Christmas $400 + $120 for null modem cable
and Lap Link software.  I was disappointed in handwriting recognition and
resorted to using the tty-grid touchscreen for most input.  Speed was also
a dissapointment, as I waited several seconds for ramdisk accesses.  (Seemed
to run as slow as a floppy drive.)  Although AOL was included, I was supprised
to discover there was no basic terminal program unless I paid another $300 for
a modem w/cable & software.  The final disappointment came when I tried to
maintain a common data base (my principal need) on both PDA and desktop systems
There was no way to update from either system without overwriting intrim 
updates on the other system.  I guess the designers saw it as merely a backup
device.

I took it back.