He grabs a table, reaches into one of the seemingly bottomless bags, and produces an array of cords, gadgets and other tech wizardry:
First his laptop. Then a Ricochet modem. Then an eMate, which he lays on the table gently, caressing its translucent green cover.
And finally the piece de resistance -- the reason he's been coming to this cafe every other Tuesday for the past three years.
He reaches into the bag and produces a smaller, blackish-green computer about the size of a paperback book.
"This is a Newton," the recent Stanford graduate whispers, raising the machine as if he's offering it up to a higher power. "We are rabid fans."
Never say die
Tow is president of the Stanford Newton Users Group, or SNUG, a group that gathers every two weeks to pay homage to the machines that Apple Computer Inc. (Nasdaq:AAPL) stopped producing last year.
Apple introduced the Newton OS in 1993 and used it to power machines such as the e-Mate, a portable computer for students, and the Newton MessagePad, which most people refer to as just "Newton."
Newton's demise hasn't snuffed out Tow's group's enthusiasm. Some SNUG members have as many as 10 of them. Nor for that matter, has it prevented devoted developers from creating new programs for the now-defunct machine.
"We have a saying, 'Old Newtons never die. They just get new batteries,'" Tow says.
Brain extensions, secret handshakes
The Newton inspired the products now known as personal digital assistants, or PDAs, digital daytimers that let users keep track of appointments, phone numbers and other aspects of their personal and business lives.
The Newton was the first such machine to use handwriting recognition, translating scribble into characters as users wrote on the screen with a tiny pointer.
To navigate the machine, users point at icons on the screen.
Although innovative at the time of its introduction, the machines were considered pricy, and the handwriting software comically misinterpreted all but the neatest prose.
Life-changing
Still, some, like Glen Raphael, claim Newton changed their lives.
"Before I got a Newton, my system of organizing was to write notes on the back of a business card or scraps of paper," says Raphael, who founded SNUG in 1994. "I would miss appointments, I would lose people's phone numbers."
But now Raphael's a successful executive on the go, recording his life on the Newton.
"It's like an extension of your brain that keeps track of things you don't have time to," says Raphael, who, with his button-down navy shirt, wire-rim glasses and boyish haircut, looks like a Bill Gates-in-training.
Elegance produces zealots
Sure, there are other handheld computers out there -- many of them still for sale -- such as 3Com Corp.'s PalmPilot.
But to these devotees, none compares to the slick dark green machine, which they say now has better handwriting recognition than more popular computers, and more ways for them to enter and manipulate data such as addresses and to-do lists.
The machine also incorporated infrared technology long before the Pilot.
In their heyday, Newton users could zap each other their personal information , instead of exchanging paper business cards -- a sort of secret handshake for the digital elite.
"It's elegant. An elegant product inspires zealots," Raphael says.
A day of infamy
On February 27, 1998, Apple killed the Newton, a day of mourning for SNUG members. They protested outside the company to no avail.
And a link reading "Death of Newton" on the SNUG Web site leads to the Apple press release about the decision.
But newly returned company head Steve Jobs had other plans for Apple. Smaller, simpler machines such as the PalmPilot were outselling the Newton, and Jobs wanted to concentrate instead on desktop computers like the Macintosh.
Bashing Jobs and Apple for abandoning them has become a popular pastime for SNUG members. "We do a lot of that," one says.
Geeky delights
Which they do on this night at Printers Inc., more than a year after the Newton's supposed demise, as more members arrive, and the group annexes tables across the cafe.
Last month, on the group's fifth anniversary, they took over half of the bustling downtown coffee house.
On this particular night, the group grows to seven. All men, they range in age from twenty-somethings to about 60.
One sports shorts, plastic flip-flops, a full gray beard and hair growing well past the shoulders of his Newton sweatshirt. Another dresses in dark brown corduroys and a matching shirt, resembling a professor meeting for coffee with his students.
Raised eyebrows
As more and more members pull out their Newtons, people at nearby tables raise their eyes from their physics and engineering books, studying the crew and their funky machines.
Sometimes such voyeurs end up joining the group.
But tonight, no one bites.
Newton's dead, not Newtonites
The SNUG group is less Newton-focused than it used to be, simply because there's less Newton news to discuss.
Instead, members talk science fiction, Silicon Valley gossip, and other geeky delights.
Against the din of cups on saucers and the whir of an espresso machine, they also swap job leads, show off newly found Newton features, and share underground information about handheld computers in general.
One member talks about a "guy in Santa Clara" who will add more memory to a handheld, for about $150 bucks. Another shows off a local map he installed on his Newton.
Newton-speak to the max
They speak of the latest Newton programs, developed by hobbyists and distributed on the Internet, often for free.
Tow demonstrates software that lets him track the 1999 NCAA Basketball Championships ... though he gave up using it after the first weekend.
"I stopped putting in the score after Stanford lost," he shrugs.
He also has a program on his Newton called Positronic Poetry, which brings the refrigerator-tile word game to the computer.
People can create their own poetry by dragging pictures of tiles across the screen with a pointer to form phrases or sentences. They determine the word selection by picking from a menu of famous poets.
New members, too
Ironically, SNUG has attracted new members in recent months. Because Apple no longer supports the machine, fans have few places to turn for help if they run into trouble.
Peter Mueller, a Silicon Valley atmospheric scientist, drops in for the first time after a friend told him about the group. Veteran members quickly answered his questions about remote Internet access, printing and storing.
"It's really fortunate these guys still exist," Mueller says, adding that he can't live without the machine but wishes he knew all its secrets.
Though the Newton MessagePad has been criticized because it's larger than some handhelds, Mueller likes the size. He traded in another brand of handheld for a Newton.
Bigger is better
"I couldn't read the damn thing. I needed something bigger," says Mueller, who plans to use the machine until it dies.
SNUG members aren't optimistic about a Newton resurrection, even though Apple has hinted at a new move into the handheld market.
Just this week, Jobs said Apple is considering a type of simple information appliance for road warriors.
Instead, they say the Newton spirit lives on through other machines.
Many developers of the Newton OS are now working on the Palm handhelds, and SNUG members cheer every time an old Newton feature appears on a new machine.
Can't live in past
Many SNUG members have added Palms to their growing handheld collection, though they insist they're not replacing the Newton.
"You can only do so much to save it, and afterwards you have to take it in stride and move on," Tow says. "Otherwise, you'll end up living in the past."
