EZ2TV: Review and Information Page of J.Y.B.O.L.A.C.

     The EZ2TV adaptor for the Newton 2000 is a creative adaptor that allows the Newton to display its normally green and black 16 "grey" screen on a VGA or TV. This was an improvement from EZShow's EZ2VGA adaptor. (EZ2VGA talked about at bottom of page).
       Getting the rough bits out of the way first, the device can be delicate. The dongle array is a bit of cludge in how you have a heavy brick flopping about at the end of a wire. And to keep from ruining the EZ2TV PCMCIA adaptor you must keep the Newton on the plug-in adaptor at all times when this device is plugged in.
        After a while I learned that if you let the battery pack fully charge first to 100% with the power supply plugged in and THEN plugged in the EZ2TV card, it runs without drain to the Newton for a good while. At till I ran another power hog, like a modem card or something. :)

       But let's face it. Who would have thought the Newton would have ever found it's way into using a VGA monitor? With this device the Newton achieves more of a desktop feel, which is exactly what I was shooting for. Next, you add a keyboard, either through the Newton Connection Utility (PC/Mac), the Newton's keyboard, or even a Atari 800/C-64 (or any computer for that matter) thanks to the "SerialNPut" program (Atari 800's keyboard is my personal favorite) and you definately achieve that fun desktop feel. All you have to get used to is tapping on the Newton while looking at the VGA monitor. I've gotten quite good at it, and the EZ2VGA adaptor displays a small black dot on occation where the pen is located.
      The device (featured top left and going from top to bottom) has a RF (slightly strange design, but what else could it be?), FBAS (casual composite "video", as stored on VHS and Laser Disc), VGA, and S-Video/Hosiden. (Thanks to Oliver Brose for his commentary on the ports)
       The VGA display (featured bottom right) is a very clever implementation of putting the Newton display in the center with a black border. It really makes the display quite clear and crisp on a VGA monitor vs. the green background of the regular Newton monitor.

       Despite having to watch the battery level to make sure it does not K.O. the card, I really like it. Just like how the Audio adaptor adds a whole new realm of sound over the internal speaker, so the EZ2TV adaptor adds a whole new realm of visuals (and a new perspective) to the various Newton apps.
       To me, it really makes the Newton feel like a
computer of it's own. Especially in the area of
Word Processing and E-mail writing.

       (Special thanks to EZ2TV for the picture of the
card and device.   And thanks to Russ for the picture
of the actual EZ2TV being displayed!) And to Mike Dawson for some suggestions on this page.

        Doctor Clu - January 4, 2002

Other referrences to EZShow Cards:

       -EZShow Card Page (Pelicanware) - (No longer active..noted Oct 5, 2005)
                Has a EZshow card driver download and shows pictures of the EZ2VGA.
       -PointPro Viewer 1.0.1 (Pelicanware) -(No longer active.. noted Oct 5, 2005)
                 The PointPro Viewer is an application for viewing and displaying presentations created with PointPro for Newton. It can display presentation on the Newton display or on an external monitor.
        (I left these links to Pelicanware as a tribute to their help in the EZShow cards. I believe I was able to find these programs recently at the Newton archives at Unna.)

       -NewtPower: Other Newton Cards -
                Shows the power used by some unusual Newton cards that have been made.
                As you can see, the EZ2TV uses 350 mA while the EZ2VGA uses 135 mA.
                    In practical use, the Newton will be able to recharge it's batteries even while
                the EZ2VGA card is in use. I have left the EZ2VGA in use for hours.
                    The EZ2TV however, even on a charger, will still loose power. From
                experience, if you let the battery reach 0%, the EZ2TV will continue to
                work, but may not next time you try to power it up. I was able to send my
                EZ2TV back to the vendor and get a replacement. Since they are no longer
                There I advise to be careful.
       -ReadMeForNewton.txt -
                A helpful text file that Mike Lee of EZShow contributed to this site. This is the text file that is sent with the EZ2TV card.


Passing Referrences:
       -MSPUG April News (April 20, 1998)
       -MSPUG May News (May 15, 1998)
       -MSPUG July News (July 22, 1998)

Pictures of the EZ2VGA card in use...   (Aside from the one shown above.)

       Google on Newt's Cape (B&W on VGA monitor.)
       Google Close Up             (B&W on VGA monitor.)
       Bricks Game                   (B&W on VGA monitor.)
       Newton Logo                  (Color displayed by Newton using EZPresenter
       Woman holding butterfly (Color Displayed by Newton using EZPresenter)

Last modified October 5, 2005 by Doctor Clu

     Pictured to the left is my current card, the EZ2VGA.   This is the best picture I was able to find short of taking a picture of my card. The EZ2VGA is less cludgey and bulky for the adaptor, and uses less power, so it can stay on for hours with no damage to the card. A great card to find if you can find it.
     Sorry for the disjointedness of this website, but I have been adding information to this here and there for the past three years as a log to my experience with this card. And I am glad I did. There is some information and pictures on here from the original EZShow site that are long gone. I would love to add more information, and I would absolutely love it if the color drivers to these cards could be written into applications like Newt's Cape to display color through that card. The card is capible of 256 color.
      Just think of the Newton and this card as like any computer with a video card added. Just need the drivers, and next thing you know your computer is displaying more brilliant video.
      Important other things to note:
      - EZ2TV was a later card, and offered two screen resolutions.
      - EZ2VGA offers in contrast only one resolution.
      - NewTendo, the NES emulator, will not display through the EZShow cards since that emulator uses special coding that taps past the Newton script layer and with the hardware itself.

      Other than that, Newton displaying color... I love it! Hope the code for the drivers is found or rediscovered one day for us to add color to the rest of Newton.

Oct 5, 2005 - Doctor Clu