• One of the first members of the Newton team, formally transferring to “Special Projects” under Steve Sakoman on 9/2/’87
• Responsible for implementing the portable hardware platform that met the project goals of “a computer that did everything you needed when you weren’t at your desk”, and a “computer you could trust”.  The initial Newton design center had more in common with the early iPad than a PDA.
• After extensive industry survey selected the AT&T Hobbit as the microprocessor for the battery operated Newton.  Established joint development with AT&T to develop Hobbit to Apple’s specifications.  In 1987, asking a processor vendor “what is your performance/Watt?”, and “do you have a cycle accurate simulator I can integrate into my system simulation framework?, and “can I stop the clocks?”, and “will it run at 3.3V?”  were very alien questions to them.
• As Apple’s Hobbit microprocessor development program manager, delivered working chips on budget and on schedule.
• Drove Newton slate hardware architecture, including requirement for wireless local area network and multi-CPU support
• Likely first extensive use of Verilog at Apple for ASIC and systems development.  Developed cycle accurate full systems simulation framework capable of booting the OS which incorporating all ASICS, memory, the display, and the processor.  This included close cooperation with AT&T to modify and integrate into the Verilog system simulation AT&T’s cycle accurate C model of the Hobbit microprocessor.
• Developed the TRIMBUS for Newton for expansion cards, a precursor to PCMCIA.   Began relationship with SUNDISK (which became SANDISK) to supply memory cards for Newton, before SUNDISK had first prototypes, which culminated in a development contract.
• Designed suite of ASICs for Newton Motherboard – Newton System Control ASIC, TRIMBUS control ASIC, ROM interface ASIC, Video Display Controller, and specifications for the RF LAN interface ASIC.
• Engaged AMD to develop Ethernet chip compatible with Newton system architecture.  Managed the program for Apple.
• Created extensive power aware architecture methodology, including first 3.3V system design at Apple, CPU external clock halt capability (the Hobbit CPU was fully static),  and aggressive use of sleep signals to system ASICs, and other techniques.

The Apple Newton PDA is featured at a Swedish “Museum of Failure” – “a collection of interesting innovation failures” .    The interested reader can check out the museum here:  MUSEUM-OF-INNOVATION-FAILURES  How is it that Pete came to work on such a product? – well in fact I didn’t.  The Newton I poured my heart and soul into was a very different vision with a very different design from the PDA that emerged in 1993 after 6 years of gestation.

I have quite a bit to say about the genesis of Newton and the first three years of the project from August ’87 till July ’90, when Newton was more of an iPad precursor and before the product definition and the team was pivoted to a much more limited PDA design center by the Apple exec staff.  As I started reviewing my notes and documents and talking to friends and fellow Newton team members I quickly assembled enough material that a number of collaborators suggested I write a book.   There were a lot of political undercurrents. other related projects (and failures), etc that all had a bearing on what happened at Newton that I think is a story not told that would make for interesting reading.  Not much of Apple’s history has been recounted by those who played a principal role in hardware and systems definition and implementation – the narrative has generally been steered by software and marketing types.  Until I decide whether or not to write this book this section shall remain a summary.

However  almost always what one remember best, and usually what is most important at the time, is the team one is a part of – and the Newton team was among the best I have ever had the privilege to know and work with – including senior leaders Jean Louise Gassee and Steve Sakoman, and teammates Steve Capps, Bob Welland,  Jerome Coonen, Larry Kenyon, Walter Smith, Mike Culbert, Sue Booker,  Rob Franzo (of AT&T), Jim Lovette, Ernie Beernink, Glenn Adler, Michael Tibbott, Cory Van Arsdale, George Janac, and others.    I had previously known Capps, Coonen, Kenyon, and Beernink from our time together in the Bandley 3 building during the original Mac I development.

Why did I leave Apple in August 1990 after 3 years at Newton and 7+ years at Apple?   With the firing of Jean Louis Gassee earlier that year, and the almost immediate collateral damage departure of Steve Sakoman (the founder of the Newton project) – the carpetbaggers descended.  The Newton I had helped create and had been passionate about – that vision, mission and functionality were radically changed, and I was disgusted and exhausted by the process that unfolded.  There was I felt an appalling lack of trust and a disregard for the vision and judgement of veterans on the team who had historically conceived and delivered great product at Apple.   All of the hardware and systems design decisions (including industrial design), vendor relationships and contracts, design work, etc were discarded.   For the software team the pivot was not nearly so devastating.

The team felt that customers, particularly business customers (and especially with the addition of an wireless local area network) – would be willing to pay a premium for mobility, for quality, for aesthetics, and for capability.  After all, the original 128K Mac was introduced at $3.3K in equivalent 1990 dollars.  However John Sculley the exec staff apparently did not agree, and Larry Tesler, who took over the group, seemed to feel that all that really mattered was the software.

The period of March and April of 1990 was one of great angst as the group tried to divine what the exec staff wanted, and grapple with what kind of portable computer could be built in 1990 for a BOM (Bill of Materials) of $175 (not much as it turns out).  The team was so shell shocked that even the stalwart Steve Capps threw in the towel, asking Alan Kay at a team meeting at the end of March to go to Sculley and say “John, we have a stylus, its the future – tell us what you want us to build.”

I did not believe in the PDA product that ultimately emerged – I found the resulting level of functionality, the form factor, and the industrial design uninteresting.  Our beautiful Newton, a product I believed was “insanely great”,  had been directed to be diminished into a dreaded “tweener”.  I never was to own a Newton PDA.

My time at Apple as an early member of the Macintosh IC Technology group and the experience I had acquired with all aspects of IC development provided me with a quite marketable skillset – and I left to Apple to join SuperMac Technology, a startup in the Macintosh peripherals ecosystem:  SUPERMAC-TECHNOLOGY