“Current users of the then-revolutionary, now-exceedingly-bulky personal digital assistants were afraid that a date handling bug would render the devices useless beginning early next year,” Foresman reports. “However, fear no more: a developer has come to the rescue with a patch for the Newton’s OS that lets the device handle dates in 2010 and beyond.”
Newton’s issue “is that the date was encoded using only 30 bits instead of a full 32 bits, meaning that disaster would strike when the clock struck 6:48:31pm on January 5, 2010. Naturally, Newton aficionados were ruing the day they might be forced to buy a portable device produced within the last decade,” Foresman reports. “However, indomitable Newton hacker Eckhart Köppen developed a patch for the Newton OS.”
Foresman reports, “If you are the sort of person who would just as soon have your Newton pried from your cold, dead hand, Köppen’s solution should keep your trusty device in operating condition at least until you or your Newton biodegrades—whichever comes first.”
Full article, with link to the solution, here.
MacDailyNews Take: Newton will outlive us all.
Now if I could only revive my Newton.
I have a Newton I bought on ebay to add to my Antique Apple collection. Can’t believe people still use them, Apple should give those users free iPhones to get them up to date.
It’s the original & deserves the name.
and here I was thinking I’d read another islate article
It was made that way on purpose so they can retire those Newtons for the upcoming xTablet early next year. 
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So it was set to expire right before the iSlate came out?
How diabolical…..
who the hell cares? its a 20 year old worthless piece of archaic technology
@Jbird;
They probably wouldn’t take the new iPhone over their Newtons anyway. Talk about being stuck in time.
@pwntbywombat
Blasphemy!
The Dude abides.
pwntbywombat
Newton owners care. On that note, I don’t think that many people would care for your ‘greater than thou’ attitude.
My my bislaw, aren’t we ever so special. You first project your opinions of the Newton owners onto them as being factaul and then you condemn them for that which you have only assumed.
bizlaw and pwntbywombat were/are both the kind of kid that if Santa didn’t get them the best toys in the store then daddy had to take the toys back and exchange them the day after Christmas.
Then all the other kids in town that didn’t have the best stuff were dorks of course. I had one of those types as a neighbor for most of my growing up life.
@TowerTone, pure genius.
Thank you Eckhart Köppen for the donation of your genius and time to ensure the continued legacy of my great and noble namesake for decades and decades into the future!
Who in the hell still has a newton find me one person that has used one in the past twenty four hours find them and have them sent to retraining camp
If you enjoy it and/or find it useful for your needs, then good for you!
If the Newton were made by Microsoft, my employer would still be using them thinking they were still the latest technology.
Sorry for the rant but sometimes I think Scott Adams is running the place.
Now, on to fix the date on those IBM punch cards.
its garbage…period. how do you even sync it with a mac? something tells me it used ADB. and is it even supported in modern versions of OSX?
The patch was made as there are still users and the odd enthusiast. I’m one, use it every day. It is basically a business device, not a toy. I have never found anything with the degree of sophistication in handwriting recognition.