The eMate 300 was a personal digital assistant

Personal digital assistant

A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...

 designed, manufactured and sold by Apple to the education market as a low-cost laptop running the Newton operating system

Newton OS

Newton OS was the operating system for the Apple Newton PDAs produced by Apple from 1993-1997. Newton OS was written entirely in C++ and trimmed to be low power consuming and use the available memory efficiently...

. The eMate was introduced March 7, 1997 for US$

United States dollar

The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

800 and was discontinued along with the Apple Newton

Apple Newton

The MessagePad was the first series of personal digital assistant devices developed by Apple for the Newton platform in 1993. Some electronic engineering and the manufacture of Apple's MessagePad devices was done in Japan by the Sharp Corporation...

 product line and its operating system on February 27, 1998.

Features

The eMate 300 featured a 480x320 resolution 16-shade grayscale display with a backlight

Backlight

A backlight is a form of illumination used in liquid crystal displays . As LCDs do not produce light themselves , they need illumination to produce a visible image...

, a stylus pen

Stylus (computing)

In computing, a stylus is a small pen-shaped instrument that is used to input commands to a computer screen, mobile device or graphics tablet...

, a full-sized keyboard, an infrared port

Infrared

Infrared light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength longer than that of visible light, measured from the nominal edge of visible red light at 0.74 micrometres , and extending conventionally to 300 µm...

, and standard Macintosh serial

Serial port

In computing, a serial port is a serial communication physical interface through which information transfers in or out one bit at a time...

/LocalTalk

LocalTalk

LocalTalk is a particular implementation of the physical layer of the AppleTalk networking system from Apple Computer. LocalTalk specifies a system of shielded twisted pair cabling, plugged into self-terminating transceivers, running at a rate of 230.4 kbit/s...

 ports. Power came from built-in rechargeable batteries

Battery (electricity)

An electrical battery is one or more electrochemical cells that convert stored chemical energy into electrical energy. Since the invention of the first battery in 1800 by Alessandro Volta and especially since the technically improved Daniell cell in 1836, batteries have become a common power...

, which lasted up to 28 hours on full charge. In order to achieve its low price, the eMate 300 did not have all the features of the contemporary Newton equivalent, the MessagePad 2000. The eMate used a 25 MHz ARM 710a RISC processor and had less memory than the MessagePad 2000 which used a StrongARM

StrongARM

The StrongARM is a family of microprocessors that implemented the ARM V4 instruction set architecture . It was developed by Digital Equipment Corporation and later sold to Intel, who continued to manufacture it before replacing it with the XScale....

 110 RISC processor and was more expandable.

Expansion

Unlike the MessagePad line, the eMate 300 features an internal memory expansion slot. It is located in the hatch under the battery door, next to the ROM card. Both cards fit into both slots, but the ROM card is larger. The expansion card is on the left. Companies like Newertech produced cards for the eMate. Most cards expanded the data bus from 16 bits to 32 bits, as well as providing additional DRAM (program memory), and flash (storage). When one of these cards is installed, the internal DRAM is disabled, but the internal flash RAM is combined with the flash on the card. For example: If a memory card were to have 4mb of DRAM and 2mb of flash, the newton would report having 4mb of flash, and 4mb of DRAM, not 5mb of DRAM.

In addition to the expansion slot, the eMate also features a single non-CardBus PCMCIA slot. It can be used for a number of different cards, including modems, ethernet cards, wireless cards, bluetooth cards, and flash memory (linear and ATA/Compact Flash).

Design

The eMate 300 featured a green-colored translucent durable case designed for intense use in classroom

Classroom

A classroom is a room in which teaching or learning activities can take place. Classrooms are found in educational institutions of all kinds, including public and private schools, corporations, and religious and humanitarian organizations...

s. The eMate 300 featured a dark green-colored keyboard

Computer keyboard

In computing, a keyboard is a typewriter-style keyboard, which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys, to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches...

 similar to that of PowerBook

PowerBook

The PowerBook was a line of Macintosh laptop computers that was designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1991 to 2006. During its lifetime, the PowerBook went through several major revisions and redesigns, often being the first to incorporate features that would later become...

s of the same era. Purple, clear, red, and orange colored eMate prototype

Prototype

A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...

s were produced for show only and were never put into mass production

Mass production

Mass production is the production of large amounts of standardized products, including and especially on assembly lines...

.

iBook

The eMate's unusual design eventually influenced the first iBook

IBook

The iBook was a line of laptop computers sold by Apple Computer from 1999 to 2006. The line targeted the consumer and education markets, with lower specifications and prices than the PowerBook, Apple's higher-end line of laptop computers....

 series, which also featured durable plastic casing with a handle. However, the iBook featured a broader range of features and used the Mac OS

Mac OS

Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...

, enabling it to run more software. The original iBook series, introduced in 1999, featured 300 MHz PowerPC G3

PowerPC G3

The PowerPC 7xx is a family of third generation 32-bit PowerPC microprocessors designed and manufactured by IBM and Motorola . This family is called the PowerPC G3 by its well-known customer Apple Computer...

 processors compared to the 25 MHz ARM 710a RISC

ARM architecture

ARM is a 32-bit reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by ARM Holdings. It was named the Advanced RISC Machine, and before that, the Acorn RISC Machine. The ARM architecture is the most widely used 32-bit ISA in numbers produced...

processor used in the eMate.

External links

• Everymac.com – eMate 300 Specifications
• The Apple Museum – Newton eMate 300
• Applefritter – eMate 300
• IGM – eMate 300 review
• Compare the eMate and iBook
• Overclocking
• "Apple Gets An 'A'" at BusinessWeek
• Salon.com's review
• STREETtech.com's review
• Retrospective review at the-gadgeteer.com
• Byte Cellar: Newton eMate 300 As A Serial Terminal