Magic Cap, from the Magic Hyperlink to the DataRover and the stuff in-between
On my desk is a cellphone, a Rolodex, a reputation card (my desk must know), a notice pad, and a datebook, with a pair issues like stationery and a calculator within the drawers. Within the workplace there’s additionally a clock, an inbox and outbox, and a filecabinet. The online browser hangs on the wall. Does not yours?
If I stroll into the hallway, there are doorways to different rooms the place I can do different issues. This is a library with useful books and a settings panel, and a facet desk I can put different issues in.
If I stroll somewhat additional down the hallway, there is a storeroom for packages, a portray I can change by touching it, and a room for my video games.
In my storeroom I can see all of the packages I opened to make use of, and pack them again up once more. I can get issues from my laptop and unpack them right here too.
And if I ever get misplaced in my own residence, I’ve a listing to inform me what’s there. Happily every little thing is so nicely laid out it does not occur a lot.
If I would like some contemporary air, I can take a stroll downtown to my, um, Web supplier.
There’s guidelines for my E-mail and a kind to enroll.
And my magic lamp tells me different instructions I can do.
However this room is so empty it is a good factor I at all times carry my stamper with me. I can change something in regards to the decor, as a result of that is my world. I can put labels and photos on E-mail or plaster them on the partitions. I’ve entire drawers of them.
And with somewhat thought I may even begin constructing one thing with my magic hat. I believe I am going to drop some music and a change to go together with that smiley …
Welcome to Magic Cap, the oddest but in some way most adorable interface a PDA — and, briefly, Home windows 95 — ever had. In contrast to the Palm OS the place I purchased my first machine model new, I used to be a late convert to Magic Cap, selecting up this wacky machine referred to as a DataRover in 2004 simply to play with. It wasn’t precisely pocket-sized, nevertheless it was nonetheless fairly transportable, and the whimsical audio suggestions and instantly accessible interface drew me in. I found some games and an Ethernet driver and the browser and loved utilizing it as a handheld in my previous condominium.
The truth is, I loved utilizing it a lot that I made a decision I ought to discover out extra in regards to the story. In 2004 the corporate that offered the DataRover had gone below a number of years prior and the corporate that first launched them in 1997 was being liquidated, an odd little company named Common Magic and as whimsical because the environments they made. I discovered a boxed instance of the primary of the Magic Cap line, a Sony Magic Hyperlink, and demonstrated them collectively in 2005 at Classic Laptop Pageant 8.0. Folks favored them there too. The units had been approachable and intuitive. They had been so low cost on the time I ended up grabbing three extra Rovers, one in its authentic field.
However the story was even wilder than what I discovered on the time, and the downstream affect of the corporate’s workers nonetheless reverberates in Silicon Valley right now. There was even a movie made about them, grabs of which I’ve used right here below truthful use. That prompted me to get the DataRover again out once more, nonetheless peacefully charging below the desk with its video games and software program intact, to see what we may do to make Magic Cap and my trusty previous Rover related once more in a contemporary world.
My authentic intention was to do a short introduction to the models after which discuss extra about how one can program one, however there’s a lot historical past right here and a lot we are able to say about these distinctive units that first I will spend this whole entry speaking in regards to the {hardware} (the primary and final entries within the line), the expertise and the corporate. In an upcoming submit we’ll sit down and program one. Buckle up, as a result of it is time for fairly a story.
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Common Magic was based in July 1990 with numerous hoopla and numerous thriller, and particularly Apple’s backing, who was a minority investor and the fledgling firm’s largest company shareholder. Apple CEO John Sculley even took a place on the board of administrators, and its three founders completely got here from Apple, together with Mac luminaries Invoice Atkinson (developer of such minor, inconsequential issues as MacPaint, QuickDraw and HyperCard) as chairman, Andy Hertzfeld (completely unknown for his contributions to the Mac OS and Toolbox) as “software program wizard” and senior VP, and one other former Apple worker, Marc Porat, as president.
Apple even crafted their press launch, wherein they acknowledged their intention to design and develop a brand new class of “private clever communicator” for a future related world, however was intentionally imprecise about additional plans. Apple’s spokesman did make reference to a venture referred to as Paradigm meant to underlie Common Magic’s new expertise, which Apple selected to spin off as a result of it fell “exterior the scope” of Apple’s private laptop enterprise (how issues have modified). Paradigm and the associated miniaturized Pocket Crystal had been truly Porat’s personal analysis initiatives at Apple’s Superior Know-how Group, developed someday round 1989 or early 1990 for a conveyable multifunction machine that might “scan, {photograph}, join [to a Mac] and sort” utilizing a “wand, diskette, compact media [a small CD shown] or good card [a PC Card static RAM card shown, but also later a floppy-like unit]” with eventualities for checking a to-do listing, making a cellphone name, listening to the radio and “hyperlink[ing] info” (some type of messaging). The machine was handheld, with a separate exterior keyboard, and attachments for a probe, a cellphone and a scanner. Josh Carter has photos of the Paradigm concept book.
Most business observers anticipated that the brand new firm would produce their very own cell {hardware}, however what was significantly unusual in regards to the new spinoff was that Apple was already doing the identical factor, and had been doing so in a parallel venture way back to 1987. That was in fact the Newton, a skunkworks venture began by engineer Steve Sakoman with R&D VP Jean-Louis Gassée’s blessing. Sakoman and Gassée’s precipitous departures brought about a company reckoning and led to Invoice Atkinson’s invitation to Hertzfeld, Porat, engineer Steve Capps (then assigned to Newton), the now impartial designer Susan Kare and Apple CEO John Sculley in March 1990 to debate future instructions. Sculley felt that Newton was nearer to his 1987 Knowledge Navigator vision and assigned ATG VP Larry Tesler, previously Xerox PARC, to run it, allowing the spinoff of Paradigm and Pocket Crystal. Apple’s however enthusiastic help for the brand new firm brought about a lot consternation within the Newton unit, significantly after Common Magic’s unsuccessful try to recruit Capps as nicely, and the venture was additional burdened by their authentic alternative of the notoriously buggy AT&T Hobbit as CPU (which might come to hang-out Gassée a second time; the early BeBox had the same problem). Pleasure circulated across the new firm, with echoes of Paradigm in commerce journals of the time; InfoWorld reported in December 1991 that the brand new machine would have pen enter, a 2.5″ CD-ROM, wi-fi connectivity and a GUI interface — intriguingly much like Porat’s authentic idea.
By 1992, nonetheless, Newton was beginning to hearth on all cylinders: a brand new CPU (ARM), a smaller kind issue (Pocket Newt), and wild new curiosity within the portables sector after the profitable launch of Apple’s PowerBook line. Whether or not this was the unique thought all alongside or not, and the photographs above present {hardware} in growth at numerous factors together with a display and a bodily keyboard, in January 1992 InfoWorld’s Mark Stevens (as Robert X. Cringely) remarked that Common Magic wasn’t doing an end-user product in any respect. As a substitute, the brand new firm was devising an working system and reference design that they might license to Sony, IBM, French Telecom … and Apple. In February 1993 this was formalized at a press event because the Common Magic Alliance, with Apple, AT&T, Matsushita, Philips, Motorola and Sony all taking fairness states within the new enterprise and declaring their curiosity to include the core applied sciences into their future merchandise.
Of those, AT&T’s infrastructure function as what was dubbed the Client Messaging Service was arguably probably the most essential; whereas the {hardware} OEMs had been an enormous deal, the software program and person expertise imaginative and prescient coated extra than simply the interface they ran. Doubtlessly probably the most consequential of Common Magic’s applied sciences was Telescript, devised by Jim White and Wealthy Miller, a programming language for developing “agents” that might remotely transfer from system to system and carry out duties. In an period the place linkages between programs had been a lot decrease bandwidth, the idea allowed a shopper to ship an agent to do work regionally on a vacation spot service and push again simply the specified outputs quite than having the agent working on the shopper and making an attempt to run requests from afar. Brokers might be transmitted by way of a wide range of means, even messages (so-called “good E-mail”), containing a whole execution bundle with the stack, variables and code frozen and able to run. Safety for untrusted international code thus turned a elementary a part of the execution surroundings: Telescript ran in a bytecode interpreter quite than compiled on the metallic (additionally permitting a number of architectures to run the identical agent), RSA signatures recognized the agent and whom they had been working on behalf of (“Telenames”), specific permissions had been required to assets and operations to restrict brokers’ entry to solely what they wanted (“permits”), and Telescript objects carried restricted execution budgets (“Teleclicks”) to make sure they might not overwhelm a busy system. Brokers may even spawn their very own sub-agents to finish duties in parallel. However all of them needed to have someplace to go, and AT&T was to supply that surroundings in addition to connectivity for extra mundane communications like E-mail, fax and voice. White was hopeful that Telescript’s open specification and crossplatform engine would permit Telescript brokers to run just about wherever.
Indicators of what was to return had been current for those who knew the place to look. The cellphone proven above was a 1993 mockup exhibiting the envisioned new working system (from a BBC TV demo). There was no keyboard and even any keys besides presumably for a big pink button. As a substitute, the cellphone was dominated by a single giant display exhibiting icons you could possibly press and a street scene with buildings representing providers.
The 1993 Jurassic Park additionally had a prototype Motorola machine prominently positioned on Dennis Nedry’s desk (presumably by way of Michael Crichton’s affect, who pushed Steven Spielberg to incorporate computing expertise within the movie; Macintoshes are prominently proven, as are Silicon Graphics {hardware} — each used, at completely different instances, to develop Magic Cap). Just like the cellphone, there aren’t any apparent buttons, only one massive show. Motorola deliberate to create an array of wi-fi units for the ARDIS radio community they then owned collectively with IBM and bridge the radio community to mobile for voice and information. The underlying {hardware} could be transportable to a number of working programs, together with Magic Cap, Microsoft At Work and Apple Newton. Total the prototype’s look is suggestive of the 1995 Motorola Envoy.
What struck me most from the movies I scrubbed by way of from these early days of growth (and, sure, the film) is how a lot the management and their builders — termed “magicians” — believed of their mission. That they had some massive names, too. Some acquired larger later.
These grabs alone (from a 1993 update video), from the very seems to be on their faces and the shine of their eyes, present how a lot they had been into it. Particulars mattered — the person interface thought-about sound results as essential as graphics — however they by no means overpassed the large image that enjoyment, nonetheless that is outlined, is as equally important to the person expertise as utility. Actually, it was the magicians’ enthusiasm for the duty, to design a tool that may not solely remodel how individuals accessed and interacted with info but in addition a tool that they would really love and luxuriate in utilizing, that made the corporate extremely fascinating to me. You noticed that type of optimistic imaginative and prescient loads within the earlier days of computing. You do not see it as a lot now, and there are some very darkish patterns right now that go precisely in the other way.
And that rabbit brand? That was Bowser, magician Phil Goldman’s gray dwarf bunny who freely roamed the workplace and left “presents” for different magicians (simply one other workplace perk). He was immortalized in topiary exterior the constructing in Mountain View.
Ultimately the time got here to place up or shut up and in January 1994 the Magic Cap working system was officially unveiled at a press occasion for the primary time.
Whereas a lot of the demonstration was “digital” utilizing a Macintosh runtime (naturally, early implementations had been truly mockups in HyperCard), attendees had been handled to a entrance row seat on the literal Magic Cap desktop, and an intensive journey downtown previous a number of providers.
There was additionally an illustration of Telescript, proven on the Mac emulator. A easy agent was E-mailed in a “frozen” state from Andy to Invoice with the duty of mining Invoice’s “title playing cards” (contacts) to discover a dentist. The frozen state of the agent contained its code, the present state of the decision stack and all of its variables in a self-contained executable bundle.
Invoice was alerted he had acquired an agent from Andy (described by Andy on the message), consented to its execution, and allowed it to look his contacts for dentists and E-mail itself again to Andy with the 2 title playing cards it discovered. All of this occurred over the AT&T community.
Whereas that demo was digital, actual {hardware} did seem, albeit with none markings:
The contour of the show matches a Sony HIX-300 (codenamed Bamboo), technically the primary Magic Cap machine the general public would ever see, however by no means named and by no means launched for business sale as such. Different bits of {hardware} had been additionally seen through the demo, together with a handheld machine Invoice was utilizing and a fax/phone-like unit behind Andy:
There have been additionally mockups of future providers, right here a information service and a digital journey agent.
And on the finish, a contented birthday banner to the Mac, and a shout-out to the magicians within the viewers.
Aside from proof that Magic Cap wasn’t vapourware, the opposite notable output was publicly revealing minimal specs for Magic Cap units: a built-in two-way modem at 2400bps or higher, speaker and mic, minimal 1MB of RAM and 3MB of ROM, a high-speed serial port (the “Magic Bus”) and a minimum of one PCMCIA Sort II slot.
Whereas the Sony and Motorola units had been imagined to emerge in roughly comparable time frames, Sony acquired there first. Rumours swirled repeatedly across the new machine throughout its lengthy gestation: in 1991, they mentioned it could be $700 to $800 with a later value level of $500 “as quickly as doable” and InfoWorld in December 1993 even reported Sony’s new wonderpad was imagined to be in color. The latter was positively not true of the HIX-300, which additionally apparently did not have sufficient ROM, horsepower or battery life to be as much as the duty of Magic Cap 1.0, and neither was true of the machine that rose from Bamboo’s ashes: Cedar, offered because the PIC-1000 Magic Hyperlink.
At $950 for its MSRP (however truly offered at $995, or about $1950 right now) it was in all probability as low cost because it might be whereas nonetheless assembly the minimal specification. The CPU was a Motorola 68349 “Dragon I,” a microcontroller based mostly on the Motorola 68030 (as lots of the Macs used to develop Magic Cap had been), particularly the XC68349FT16V variant on the lowest supported clock pace of 16MHz. The 68349 consists of two DMA and two serial channels, 4K of on-chip SRAM configurable as 4 individually mappable single 1K blocks, and a “configurable instruction cache” with 4 impartial blocks usable as both 1K of L1 I-cache or an extra 2K of SRAM. It is not clear how these are configured on the Magic Hyperlink. The dual 2MB ROMs (whole of 4MB) are on a removable daughtercard and in idea might be upgraded, although a minimum of for the PIC-1000 they by no means had been.
Within the field was the Magic Hyperlink itself and a pleasant little vinyl case it snapped into and closed with Velcro. It additionally got here with an AC adapter, a cellphone twine, a CR123A backup battery, a battery pack and numerous paraphernalia. What was not within the case was a rechargeable battery — the battery pack makes use of six AAAs — nor any type of sync cable for connecting it to a PC or Mac. A ten-hour rechargeable battery pack (Sony NP-500H, however NP-500s had been additionally okay) was a separate choice.
The case is tough plastic however with a soft-touch coating. On the time this was very well-received nevertheless it seems it slowly degenerates and tends to stay to issues (just like the fuzz contained in the case, mud particles, you, and so forth.). This very minimally used unit has already began to mottle barely virtually completely from age.
Once more, assembly the minimal spec on the value level was the order of the day, so there was solely a single PC Card slot. This was principally meant for reminiscence playing cards (positively static RAM as much as 1MB however by no means tried bigger capacities or linear flash), although you could possibly additionally set up a Sony-branded wi-fi card that used the SkyTel paging community for connectivity. SkyTel for Magic Hyperlink primarily offered messaging but in addition had voice mail, fax, information headlines and inventory quotes as choices. At the least initially, nonetheless, its providers had been downlink-only (no sending!), and for those who needed to ask how a lot it price, you already could not afford it. Reminiscence playing cards don’t broaden the inner RAM of the machine per se; quite, they function detachable storage, kind of like floppy disks would have. No different playing cards had been ever supported on this machine.
The pen (stylus) was on the identical facet as the cardboard slot, slid and locked right into a spring-loaded chamber, and popped out with a fast press. There was no handwriting recognition, however provided that the Newton had already develop into the butt of jokes for its personal foibles this was in all probability a clever omission. Ultimately Aha Software program Corp. offered a software for this referred to as InkWriter for Magic Cap ($129), however Microsoft purchased them out in 1996 and killed the product. In any other case, an on-screen keyboard was constructed into the working system you could possibly faucet with the pen.
Other than that, the one different seen controls are two functionally equal OPTION buttons. The choice button could be handled as a key in its personal proper however primarily works like a proper click on for the pen. For instance, for those who faucet on the dump truck, you see its contents with an button to empty it, however for those who option-tap the dump truck, it empties instantly. One other helpful shortcut is option-tapping the magic lamp, which as an alternative of citing particular choices as a traditional faucet would, provides you a quantity slider and a shortcut button to the opposite system settings.
The cellphone jack was for the built-in modem at a — low cost! — dismal naked minimal pace of 2400bps (fax supported at 9600bps). Different ports included an IR receiver/blaster (beams to different Magic Cap units at 38.4kbps, however not IrDA), energy, headphones, an choice port and a serial sync port (“Magic Bus”). The serial sync port supported a $130 exterior keyboard, which was (you guessed it) elective, in addition to the (elective) laptop connector, however the one machine recognized to hook up with the choice port was a headset for cellphone calls (additionally elective, $80). Nonetheless, it did have a built-in speaker and microphone, so the bottom unit may nonetheless make and obtain cellphone calls so long as everybody else did not thoughts eavesdropping, and a few customers discovered they may use a a lot inexpensive Y-adaptor to make and obtain calls as an alternative of utilizing Sony’s bespoke phoneset.
Within the field had been provides from America On-line with ten hours free, AT&T PersonaLink, and SkyTel. These providers had built-in help within the interface as buildings downtown you could possibly enter together with their baseline messaging connectivity; AT&T hawked their Market Sq. digital purchasing storefront whereas America On-line touted inventory quotes, headline information and tech help. All three provided messaging, although once more, for those who had been wire-free you could not truly ship something. Notably, America On-line conspicuously marketed their system’s connectivity with different Web-enabled E-mail providers corresponding to MCI Mail and SprintMail, however what AOL did not conspicuously promote was Telescript help, and neither did SkyTel. We’ll come again to this.
Sony left the desktop connectivity piece to third-party suppliers, although I solely know of 1 that truly delivered a product. IntelliLink’s Magic Xchange (introduced at $80, offered for $100) furnished import/export, backup, printing, software program set up and even utilizing your costly Mac or PC as a keyboard. The required serial sync cable got here within the bundle.
There have been two different locations Sony cheaped out, and these had been massive ones. In broad strokes Magic Cap divides onboard RAM into program and cupboard space (a lot as different cell OSes of the time like NewtonOS and, later, Palm OS). The minimal quantity of supported RAM for Magic Cap is 1MB and that is precisely what you get within the PIC-1000. Roughly half of that megabyte goes to program area, variables, stack, and so forth. — that is 512KB, for these of you protecting rating at house — and the remainder shops your information and any extra apps you load. Even in 1994 that wasn’t loads.
However what uniformly acquired the worst scores from reviewers and customers was the display. Though generously sized at 480×320 and 4 shades of gray at a time when the Newton was simply 320×240 and strictly black and white, the Sharp-manufactured LCD has hideous distinction and no backlight in any respect. It is so dangerous it makes my Knowledge Common One’s horrid display look respectable and even in reasonable oblique daylight proven right here it is badly washed-out. Though I shot at an angle to scale back reflections, I wasn’t making an attempt to make it look dangerous in these images: it simply is.
However, in addition to the usual Magic Cap desk set (cellphone, Rolodex, E-mail, calculator, calendar, clock, notepad/drawpad, file cupboard, storeroom and library) Sony offered quite a few pack-in apps together with a pair video games, Intuit Pocket Quicken, PenWare’s PenCell (a spreadsheet suitable with Microsoft Excel and Lotus 1-2-3) and an IR distant management (!). All of those are constructed into ROM and are available prepared to make use of.
I had probably the most curiosity within the IR distant management nevertheless it’s clearly a product of its time. It solely talks to Sony units, in fact, and it solely helps TVs, VCRs (as much as three, as a result of for those who may afford a Magic Hyperlink, you could possibly afford three VCRs), camcorders, CD gamers, MiniDisc gamers, LaserDisc gamers, and DAT and cassette gamers. Each my Sony A/V receiver and Sony DVD participant utterly ignored it.
However I discovered the PenCell spreadsheet to be glorious. Whereas restricted to 128 rows by 64 columns due to the pathetic quantity of working reminiscence, it helps a quite complete set of formulation, exports and imports Excel and 1-2-3, and even does charting.
It did all of that quite slowly, nonetheless, according to the opposite massive grievance from reviewers: the pace. All that interactivity and animation got here at a price and a system that was successfully the equal of a lowest-specced Macintosh II simply could not sustain with it.
But for all its warts the Magic Hyperlink was nonetheless a aggressive product with different modern handhelds just like the HP 100LX, Psion Sequence 3a, Tandy Zoomer and, sure, Apple’s Newton MessagePad 110. Whereas many had been cheaper, most did not include even the fundamental communication choices the PIC-1000 had customary and suffered from their very own reminiscence constraints, the PIC’s built-in software program was greater than comparable in operate, and though there have been extra compact choices none had a display as giant because the Magic Hyperlink’s irrespective of how dangerous it was. The built-in connectivity and intuitive interface proved extremely popular with (affected person) customers, as Steve Wozniak effused here at length in 1994.
In the meantime, regardless of plans in 1994 to be first to market, Motorola’s personal wi-fi unit was lagging badly. In January 1994 inside sources claimed it could haven’t one however two wi-fi modems and two PCMCIA Sort II slots, plus every little thing that the PIC-1000 had and a sooner landline modem too, to emerge mid-1994 on the eye-watering MSRP of $1500 ($2800 in 2022 {dollars}) — plus wi-fi service. The truth is, Motorola was so “all in” on wi-fi that they purchased ARDIS associate IBM out utterly in July. Even at that premium value, nonetheless, it nonetheless provided simply the only megabyte of RAM and had the identical underpowered 68349 CPU. In July 1994 Motorola introduced it could ship by “a minimum of the top of 1994”; it didn’t emerge till February 1995. The Envoy 100 took a step again in a minimum of one respect by truly placing the distinction management in software program (even the Magic Hyperlink gave you a thumbwheel), however the 4MB ROM was flash and upgradeable, it got here with a hardcase, and the ARDIS service was nice for being on the go till you truly acquired the invoice. Though the radio modem ran at 4800bps, the landline ended up simply 2400bps in any case and informed you what Motorola’s priorities actually had been. The unit was nonetheless greyscale regardless of some screenshots allegedly being in color, and early Envoys had been affected by an odd bug after 48 days of uptime inflicting the machine to decelerate drastically. In the event you had the radio modem, the repair was pushed out to you. In the event you did not, you bought to name a 1-800 quantity.
Theoretically Magic Cap may run on any platform, nevertheless it was developed on 68K, the primary two units had been 68K, and the one third-party growth software to help it was CodeWarrior which at the moment compiled 68K. Metrowerks launched Magic/MPW in March 1995, utilizing the Macintosh Programmer’s Workshop because the entrance finish however the Metrowerks C compiler as an alternative of Apple’s. The Macintosh runtime that demonstrated Magic Cap in 1994 advanced into the Magic Cap simulator, however apps ran on the Mac as “native” 68K code (nonetheless, as a result of the simulator required an FPU and the PowerPC Mac 68K emulator emulated a 68LC040, you needed to set up an FPU emulator to make it run on a Energy Mac). The simulator included a built-in Inspector for objects “reside” of their “pure habitat.” Enhancements for MacsBug and the MPW Shell had been included in addition to the ObjectMaker object compiler and the Bowser Professional (there’s that wascally wabbit once more) class and supply code browser for analyzing courses, creating templates and seeing class hierarchies. An extra debugger for Telescript, Telebug, was talked about on the bundle however primarily required the elective Telebug Package to debug packages on a related machine. The compiler got here with a fairly guide which served solely to doc the blindingly apparent.
Later that yr Metrowerks advanced their choices to make use of their very own CodeWarrior IDE, acquainted to Macintosh programmers of a sure age in every single place. A “lite” model that might not add new supply information appeared on the CD-ROM for the one third-party guide on programming Magic Cap I do know of, Barry Boone’s Magic Cap Programmer’s Cookbook from October 1995. Moreover, it solely supported working packages within the simulator and didn’t have amenities for downloading them to a related machine.
Within the forthcoming submit on Magic Cap programming I am going to go into this in additional element, however though Magic Cap is object-oriented, it is written in C, not C++. (The later Rosemary SDK truly builds from C++, however the object mannequin remains to be C-based.) Objects aren’t even structs; you possibly can’t simply take a generic ObjectID or Reference, solid it to a pointer and begin calling strategies — these aren’t truly pointers and the compiler will not allow you to. Lessons are outlined in a separate particular syntax that’s compiled by a particular software to a C header file, making operate dispatch kind of a mix of autogenerated glue code and preprocessor macros. You may outline particular object cases both written out by hand as a textual content file, or inside Magic Cap itself utilizing the Magic Hat (option-tap the Stamper’s title bar) to visually place them after which dump what’s there. The truth is, utilizing the Magic Hat in development mode is the usual approach you’d construct any scene or person interface in Magic Cap.
Now with the primary {hardware} iteration out the door and the beginnings of an ecosystem, the apparent query was … what’s subsequent?
Getting the shape issue smaller had at all times been a part of the thought. In August 1995 Andy Hertzfeld demonstrated a rough Magic Cap phone prototype. Although constructed right into a cumbersome shell and related by a protracted ribbon cable, the machine was actual, and confirmed a dramatically smaller desk scene that might be styled into completely different appearances, corresponding to this button pores and skin:
Whereas this was the cellphone’s solely recognized look, the small-screen Magic Cap idea survived lengthy sufficient to be carried out in a a clamshell prototype called Zodiac utilizing a Sharp Zaurus case and customized electronics.
Making a much bigger Magic Cap was a risk too: magician Steve Perlman, whose curiosity in combining computing and tv began in highschool when he hacked a TV to be his text-based house laptop’s graphic show and later together with his work on QuickTime, needed to construct an interactive TV set utilizing Magic Cap as the idea. Certainly, at that time it appeared like something might be a doable candidate to run it. (Perlman left Magic Cap in 1994, and in July 1995 joined fellow magicians Bruce Leak and Phil Goldman and his bunny in a brand new startup to commercialize the idea: WebTV.)
However additional iterations on the small or massive display ideas by no means noticed the sunshine of day as Common Magic proceeded with a distinct frontier for Magic Cap: the desktop. Strictly talking Magic Cap already existed for the Macintosh within the type of the simulator, nevertheless it was oriented virtually solely in the direction of developer debugging and was hardly appropriate as an end-user utility. Nonetheless, though GM needed to carry Magic Cap to Microsoft Home windows (being developed by an outdoor contractor) due to the doubtless giant workplace userbase, GM had already signed an settlement with Apple in 1991 that the Macintosh model could be first.
Someway or one other Apple was placated, as a result of the one commercially offered desktop model of Magic Cap was certainly for Home windows 95 (the above is from an previous eBay public sale; I haven’t got a bodily bundle). A pre-release emerged in 1995.
Magic Cap was formally offered as a product for Home windows 95, however will run on Home windows 3.x with Win32s.
Regardless of the bigger display actual property, nonetheless, the desk remains to be a set 480×360 and you may’t resize the window, and whereas formally color for the primary and solely time solely seems in dithered shades (Digital PC was working this in Home windows 98 on an emulated 1024×768 show with 24-bit color).
I did like the colors within the hallway, although.
Contained in the AT&T PersonaLink constructing downtown. Though at the start offered as a self-contained full messaging answer, Home windows Magic Cap was however a full runtime and will even load packages (presumably compiled for x86), although I am not conscious of any that had been ever launched nor any publicly accessible desktop instruments that supported constructing for it.
However on prime of all that, it solely labored with a modem. This did not appear to be an excellent time in a company surroundings the place LANs had been beginning to develop into extra frequent — and company prospects would probably have been extra within the product than a house person though Common Magic priced it competitively at $49. Lastly hitting the market in October 1996, it fizzled like an expired Alka-Seltzer.
Common Magic was additionally engaged on an up to date working system and {hardware}, additionally targetted for 1996. Apple had begun the transition to the Energy Mac and business observers anticipated the brand new system would run on PowerPC as nicely, although the corporate suggested second-generation functions may not be suitable. New distributors eager about growing their very own {hardware} had been informed to attend, however Common Magic’s timelines stored slipping, and inquirers acquired chilly ft as different early PDA producers (notoriously EO) began to fold.
Within the meantime an incremental launch as Magic Cap 1.5 was launched with sooner droop and a snappier interface, which Sony added to their new PIC-2000 Magic Hyperlink (“Oak”) in November 1995 together with an additional megabyte of reminiscence, a second PC Card slot, an upgraded 14.4Kbps fax/information modem and (eventually!) a backlight. It was quite higher acquired however did not promote in numbers and the PIC-2000 was the final Magic Cap machine Sony would make. Motorola’s replace was extra modest, providing Magic Cap 1.5 to present Envoy house owners for $29, and releasing the Envoy 150 with a better-reflecting display as an alternative of a backlight plus help for Microsoft Mail and Lotus CC:Mail. The ARDIS service was nonetheless seen as extra expensive than it was value, nonetheless, and whereas Motorola would not launch gross sales figures analysts estimated solely round 25,000 Envoys had been offered on the time the Envoy 150 got here out in April 1996. Motorola discontinued the Magic Cap Envoys in December and offered off ARDIS completely in 1998, turning into right now’s DataTAC, which remains to be used for legacy paging programs as a consequence of its extra forgiving decrease speeds and higher penetration in buildings. The Envoy model title itself was later recycled for different merchandise.
Issues weren’t a lot better within the C-suite: Common Magic had gone public as GMGC in February 1995 and its inventory practically doubled the identical day, however simply 4 months later in June the corporate was posting a $6.5 million loss on gross sales of solely $1.9 million. Along with the delays with the following era {hardware} and the Home windows model, AT&T acquired out of the PersonaLink enterprise in June 1996, eliminating the solitary business service the place Telescript was supported. Invoice Atkinson, burned out, went on leave in 1995 and never came back; Andy Hertzfeld offered his shares in 1996 and stop as nicely. The corporate began shifting extra in the direction of software program because the {hardware} facet floundered, together with advertising Lively Paper’s Presto Mail shopper and Presto Hyperlinks Net browser to facilitate connecting units to company intranets in April 1996, transport a software program modem implementation (SoftModem) for Pentium MMX and numerous embedded chipsets like MIPS in July 1996, and releasing the Magic Web Package in September, an SDK replace enabling TCP/IP, PPP and Ethernet help without spending a dime obtain or as a part of CodeWarrior 10 Gold, which nonetheless supported Magic Cap growth. Telescript was repositioned right into a Java-like product that now may run as an agent on Internet sites (“Tabriz”), however there was nonetheless little curiosity in infrastructure for code transferring from system to system, and Java’s specific write-once-run-anywhere mentality and heavy help from Solar finally eclipsed the older platform.
Underneath new CEO Steve Markman, changing Marc Porat, the corporate began doing extra work with voice interfaces and telephony. Their preliminary product, code-named Serengeti, acted as a voice-driven assistant over the cellphone — finally, the person’s personal 1-800 quantity. It was deliberate to synchronize with Outlook, Web Explorer and Netscape Communicator in addition to Home windows CE and WebTV units, although the Serengeti screenshot above clearly reveals a mockup file working from a developer’s arduous disk. After posting one other $12 million loss in October 1996, Common Magic lower workers by over half and spun off the SoftModem product as AltoCom in March 1997, which notched wins within the Philips Nino, Compaq C-Sequence and Samsung InfoMobile handheld units and later in set-top bins.
Throughout this chaotic interval, growth on the following era machine and the following main launch of Magic Cap continued. In December 1996 the corporate gathered developers to debate Rosemary, the following launch of Magic Cap. Common Magic would not say who was growing the {hardware} or who would promote it, solely that the brand new machine could be MIPS-based utilizing a 32-bit R3000-class processor. It will have a built-in software program modem and TCP/IP help (by incorporating the Magic Web Package) together with E-mail and an online browser, however as a result of Rosemary would transfer to C++ with a brand new API, functions would not be backwards suitable with out porting work and a recompile. (Because it occurs, Rosemary and suitable apps are written in C++, however the Magic Cap object mannequin used remains to be C-based.)
In actuality there was no firm eager about constructing the following overpriced doorstop, so Common Magic determined to do it themselves utilizing Oki because the OEM. The brand new machine began life as Sputnik, crammed into PIC-1000 shells painted pink with the identical hideous display, then into the purple Apollo prototype, and eventually the completed product and the final publicly launched Magic Cap machine, the DataRover 840 introduced in December 1997 working Magic Cap 3.1.
The DataRover 840 was the one Magic Cap machine to bear the Common Magic title explicitly, although with a brand new brand. The place the Magic Hyperlink a minimum of had pretenses of being a client machine, nonetheless, the DR840 was all enterprise, meant for vertical functions and area work. I imply, simply take a look at the stinking field: the again of it reveals a kind for coming into bother tickets on mild poles, and the entrance has a kind for writing visitors citations!
It is also notable what the field does not point out: Telescript. By now it was good and lifeless. Not even a single parenthetical reference exists within the 340-page person information.
A smaller DataRover was additionally developed in a clamshell kind issue with the same-sized display (to keep away from the software program points with Zodiac), however no slots. This was the DataRover 440, codenamed Gemini, nevertheless it had many design flaws and {hardware} bugs and ended up unreleased whereas Common Magic was haemorrhaging money. The 840 was the one member of the DataRover household to make it to business sale.
This boxed unit is among the 4 DR840s I personal (two used, two new). Whereas the outer a part of the field was thrashed after I acquired it, virtually every little thing inside was pristine. It got here with the machine itself, a CR123A backup battery, the primary Li-ion battery, a spare stylus, a phone twine, the AC adapter and two manuals. I additionally preserve my spare sync cable on this field though it did not initially include one.
Regardless of Oki being the producer, the included rechargeable Li-ion battery remains to be a Sony camcorder battery. Sony badged it because the “GMB001” (Common Magic Battery, presumably), nevertheless it’s actually only a common NP-520 (7.2V/1350mAh), and in reality many Sony and Sony-knockoff batteries will match within the chamber so long as they’re 7.2V and have the identical charging factors. I presently use a Wasabi Energy clone of the NP-F550 (their half# is BTR-F550-JWP) which is a good match however practically doubles battery life at 2600mAh. Though Common Magic billed the unique battery nearly as good for “over 8 hours steady use,” clearly that use did not determine within the backlight.
The DataRover itself, with Bowser nonetheless badged on the nook. Let’s dimension up its contemporaries. The HP LX collection remained robust sellers presently (I personally had a 95LX earlier than I acquired my Palm m505) however had been greatest thought-about very small DOS laptops quite than PDAs, and aside from the distinctive GEOS-based OmniGo 100 didn’t use pen enter. Within the extra conventional kind issue, the unique Pilot 1000 and 5000 had come out in 1996 however the Palm III wouldn’t emerge till March 1998, they usually nonetheless used a 16MHz 68030 spinoff just like the Magic Hyperlink did in 1994 (I am going to discuss in regards to the DR840’s CPU in a second). Microsoft themselves had simply launched the Palm-size PC refurb (Home windows CE 2.0) after the comparatively tepid response to the 1996 “Pegasus” programs, however the first of the brand new line would not emerge till round mid-year.
In order that left actually just one machine within the DR840’s dimension and energy class on the time of its launch, and naturally that was the Newton, newly (November 1997) accessible because the top-of-the-line MessagePad 2100. Just like the DataRover could be, it was the final of its form. And actually, the units are fairly comparable bodily: each of them have flip-up display covers and huge contact backlit LCDs, and whereas the DR840 will not be fairly so long as the MP2100 it’s kind of thicker and somewhat wider, though the MP2100 can be barely heavier (1.4lb/0.64kg versus 1.15lb/0.52kg). So far as total portability goes the comparability might be a wash. Additionally they each had two PC Card slots and a choice of ports.
Within the DR840’s case, these ports included a brand new Magic Bus serial port on the identical facet because the playing cards (incompatible with earlier sync cables; an elective serial keyboard — truly a Palm machine with a converter — related right here), in addition to the built-in cellphone jack and an IrDA-compatible infrared transceiver within the show cowl’s hinge notch. The modem was now V.32terbo 19.2kbps with 9600bps fax functionality. (Bear in mind how I discussed Common Magic had developed a software program modem? Maintain that thought.) Headphones and the AC adaptor additionally related on the again and the backlight was managed with a devoted bodily change you could possibly flip with a fingernail. The facility change and distinction management are on the opposite edge not proven right here.
The display remains to be 480×320 and 4 gray shades; the MP2100, in the meantime, had upgraded to the identical decision however now sported 16 greys. However the DR840’s display distinction is superb and its backlight is approach higher than any Newton’s, together with the flagship MP2100’s — a minimum of, for so long as it really works (learn on).
Common Magic (and later Icras, however we’ll discuss them in a while) progressively marketed a variety of peripherals and accessories as suitable with the DR840 corresponding to barcode scanners, modems, Ethernet playing cards, printers, mag-stripe readers, WiFi (however no encryption, not even WEP), a serial keyboard, a automobile mount, a gentle case and a digital digital camera that wrote photos to ATA flash playing cards.
I solely have one in every of these equipment to indicate off, and that is the embossed leather-based case with a shoulder strap good for, uh, writing parking tickets or scaling streetlights, although kidding apart it is quite a pleasant case for carrying it round. Nonetheless, it has two massive deficiencies: there is no apparent place to place the stylus (I slip it below the strap on the again), and whereas there are cutouts for the microphone, speaker, energy adapter, IR, headphones, cellphone jack, distinction and energy change, and even a Velcro door for the Magic Bus and card slots, the choice buttons are utterly coated up.
What was not a supported Common Magic choice was the miniature gooseneck lamp I clipped onto the facet: the backlights on these items, a minimum of earlier models, burn out sooner than they should. The unit within the case is my 2004 authentic and its backlight went out utterly way back, whereas the opposite used unit’s backlight is right down to about 60%. That is an issue as a result of with their reflective screens it is arduous to view it with out the backlight in lots of lighting situations and the gooseneck lamp is just a really imperfect mitigation.
One different trick the DR840 may do this the MP2100 could not was fold into its personal stand, because the boxed unit demonstrates. The again of the unit has a flip-down face that the hinged entrance cowl can hook into and works nice on a desk. In the event you needed a Newton like that, you in all probability needed an eMate 300 as an alternative.
Oh, sure: what about specs? Each the MP2100 and the DR840 have 8MB of ROM and 4MB of RAM, although the MP2100 additionally has an extra 4MB of on-board flash for person storage whereas the DR840 wants a card. However, whereas each have IrDA, serial and the 2 card slots, the MP2100 lacked a modem or rechargeable battery out of the field.
That leaves the CPU, which Common Magic nonetheless refused to explain as something aside from a “MIPS R3000 RISC.” Neither the field nor the information sheet says precisely which R3000 it’s, nor something about its pace or cache; the MP2100, in contrast, is the quickest Newton with a really environment friendly StrongARM SA-110 at 162MHz with 16K cache every for instruction and information. Let’s discover out what the DR840 is definitely packing.
Apollo’s specification is described as three fundamental chips, Dino (the CPU we’re on the lookout for together with a serial port controller [one to IR, one to the Magic Bus], MMU, RTC and LCD controller), Glacier (PC Card controller) and Betty (touchscreen digitizer, modem and sound enter and output). Excluding Glacier, nonetheless, Apollo was truly based mostly on an off-the-shelf design. The codenames Betty and Dino (i.e., the Flintstones) are defined in an abandoned 1997 patent application from a small UK firm referred to as the Eden Group that sought to make use of the identical chipset in a desktop system. On this diagram and in Eden’s patent documentation, Betty is specified as a Philips UCB1100 “single chip built-in combined sign audio and telecom codec” meant to be wired instantly into the cellphone jack, mic and speaker, whereas Dino is specified as a 32-bit 40MHz R3000A-derived Philips PR31100 “Poseidon” core with 4K of instruction and 1K of information cache working the softmodem and working system (however do not cease studying but). Philips introduced gross sales of the two-chip Betty and Dino system as early as May 1996.
Our aim might be to determine all three of those chips as we undergo the board. Happily these machines are very easy to work on, particularly being transportable units. You may open it simply by simply eradicating screws and little or no of the innards is glued in. Take that, Apple (even Palm used adhesive with their batteries).
The bottom of the logic board is right here, dominated by the PC Card cage and a layer of insulating materials below it. The INV-TH-205(1) half within the higher left with a date code of fifth week 1998 is the inverter for the NEC-manufactured electroluminescent backlight. Nonetheless, a lot of the remainder of what we see are discrete elements and nothing right here seems to be clearly just like the CPU, so we’ll must proceed the hunt and switch the logic board over. To try this we’ll take away some extra screws in addition to the adverse wire pole of the backup battery (which is hooked up to the screw on the prime left), disconnect the speaker cable (the red-black cable going below the backup battery compartment) and pull the connector out of the ability daughterboard (between the backup and fundamental battery compartments). We additionally disconnect the small ribbon cable on the decrease left alongside the precise fringe of the primary battery compartment in order that the board can flip up and over to the precise and never disturb the cables related there.
Turned over, we see two RAM chips right here (each Hitachi 51W16160TT-6 16-bit 1MW models, yielding our 4 megabytes), two chips with Bowser silkscreened on them, after which a smaller chip on the prime left. This smaller chip is Betty, labeled as a Philips UCB1100BE.
The “Bowser chips” are literally twin Glaciers, every labeled © GMI JAPAN GLACIER-01 F840276. These had been customized designs Common Magic did themselves. There may be one for every slot.
That covers Betty and Glacier, however the place on earth is Dino? There’s just one place to look left, and that is below the PC Card cage. We launch it on this facet of the board by eradicating the 4 screws (do not lose the washers below them!).
With the screws out, we flip the board again over and pop the small edge connectors for the cardboard cage out with a nylon spudger.
That leaves the insulating materials tacked onto the board, which we peel away.
Eradicating the insulating materials reveals three new chips. Two are the separate halves of the system ROM, right here odd 4MB masks ROMs labeled OKI PIC31H — it is nonetheless a PIC — and OKI PIC31L. There are two DataRover 840 variants, the 840F and the 840, with the precise variant marked on the plate on the underside (the 840s additionally lack the phrases “Common Magic” below the Bowser brand on the entrance, however the title nonetheless seems on the backplate). The 840F is definitely the sooner of the 2 based mostly on serial quantity comparability and each of my used models, notably with the fading backlights, are 840Fs. Within the 840F (F for “flash”) the system ROM is saved in flash reminiscence and could be overwritten, although since they each run the final Magic Cap model 3.1.2j there’s nothing to improve to. My two new models together with the board listed below are the later “simply 840” wherein the ROM is mounted.
The third chip is an enormous 208-pin Toshiba QFP labeled TMPR3902U with a date code of 4th week 1998. Hey, we have lastly discovered Dino!
Dino, a minimum of because it seems within the DR840, is most positively not a Philips core. Toshiba introduced their very own R3000-derived core, the R3900, in February 1995 with the first-cut “Southern Cross” TMPR3901F topping out at 400mW at 50MHz. Additionally with 4K instruction and 1K information cache, the TMPR3902U right here is definitely downclocked to 36.864MHz (from the 9.216MHz oscillator above it which the chip multiplies by 4), presumably for energy consumption causes.
Aside from the ISA they implement, the R3900 and PR31100 cores don’t have anything in frequent. The truth is, Toshiba claimed efficiency on par with the desktop R4000 partially from their proprietary quick multiply-add, which brings us again to Common Magic and their MIPS-compatible SoftModem product. Naturally, GMGC used SoftModem for telephony within the DR840 and the customized TMPR3902U Toshiba fabricated for Common Magic as a drop-in substitute enabled the DSP routines to run reliably at 19.2kpbs whereas the Philips core may solely handle 14.4kbps. The PR31100 total went poorly for Philips, who merely determined to desert the hassle and license the R3900 from Toshiba for his or her PR31500 and PR31700 cores which (Betty in tow) had been rather more standard with early Home windows CE OEMs.
Nonetheless, a 36MHz R3000 — even a quick R3000 — does not sound all that scorching in comparison with a StrongARM clocked over 4 instances sooner, so I can see why Common Magic selected to not discuss it to keep away from direct comparability. And, nicely, provided that each had MSRPs of round $1000 ($1730 in 2022 {dollars}, $999 vs $1095 for the DR), the DR840 would have come out on the dropping finish for obvious worth. Nonetheless, they in all probability did not truly compete head-to-head out there anyway as by now these had been each mature product traces that folks purchased based mostly on ecosystem quite than {hardware}. In common use, the DataRover actually does not really feel gradual. Magic Cap was such an environment friendly working system from its a number of years in 68K purgatory that the interface could be very swift on the 840, though the clock pace was solely double and alter extra as in comparison with the Dragon.
The DR840 began transport in February 1998 together with a speedy types growth equipment for utility help, and vertical market agreements with well being care and utility firms secured promising preliminary gross sales (increasing later to prescription drugs and, sure, public security). Nonetheless, administration felt the long run lay in telephony and never in tablets, so in October one other spinoff was so as: DataRover Cell Programs, led by {hardware} division VP Steve Schramm, wherein Common Magic retained a 49% curiosity and to whom they licensed their IP and logos which nonetheless appeared on the person models, bins and documentation.
Though few native apps had been extensively distributed for the DataRover, and understandably given the usual Magic Cap desk set was absolutely ported and the 840 wasn’t actually an end-user product though some end-users purchased them, a smattering of video games and community shoppers finally surfaced together with the promised DataRover-specific Net browser (image taken from my “60% backlight” 840F):
I am not utilizing the modem right here however quite a 3Com EtherLink III PC Card for which DataRover drivers are available. The DataRover browser does not do PNGs or SSL, nevertheless it does do tables, JPEG and GIF photos (together with animation), and it even can do old-school ’90s-level JavaScript. Pages are literally rendered as self-contained scrollable paperwork which could be individually discarded into the trash truck. Sadly very giant pages weren’t solely arduous on the modem but in addition on its use of working reminiscence; Magic Cap 3.1 solely boosted it from 512K to 768K. Configurable guidelines for the browser set web page dimension limits not solely to preserve information but in addition to keep away from freaking out the working system if it runs out of reminiscence (flip the ability change twice to forcibly energy it down and as soon as extra to set off a heat begin to get well; information is preserved).
In 1998, although, this was in all probability greater than enough for primary work, and the corporate was happy with it. Each one in every of my 4 DataRovers from a manufacturing unit reset has an inbox message “signed from” Steve Schramm, “VP & Common Supervisor, Common Magic” (dated January 1, 1998, previous to the DRMS spinoff) to “Get your Net Browser.”
Apparently, the shopper was delivered over E-mail from an automatic handle. The “Getting Began” button in the identical message triggered a wizard to step you thru opening the Getting Began assist ebook within the Library. In spite of everything that work on making E-mail the centre of the Magic Cap universe, they weren’t going to step away from it now!
The DataRover was nicely acquired by customers. Pen Computing raved about it in 1998 and mentioned the 840 was “in contention for one of the best PDAs on the market today,” citing its dramatically sooner pace even over the PIC-2000 and the improved stability of the brand new model of Magic Cap. The Computerworld article above from Might 1999 cites its choice over Palm and Home windows CE by a Bay Space house builder as a result of the corporate’s inspectors wanted a pen-based system that was sufficiently highly effective and straightforward to make use of. The inspectors entered information right into a bespoke utility developed with a 3rd celebration advisor, precisely the type of utilization initially envisioned.
In March 2000 DRMS renamed itself to Icras (“EYE-kraz”), allegedly derived from the Latin root for “tomorrow” to signify “the corporate’s speedy enlargement to supply vanguard end-to-end wi-fi information options for business prospects.” Doubling down on their vertical markets technique, Icras began transport Ricochet and Nortel Merlin modems as out-of-the-box wi-fi choices and emphasised distant information entry extra strongly, transforming the speedy growth software because the Distant Functions Package and enlisting new third celebration middleware authors to create customized DataRover-based shoppers for buyer backends. There was even discuss a future main launch of Magic Cap.
Nonetheless, Palm and handheld Home windows CE units had been getting extra succesful and extra accessible (and Microsoft below Steve Ballmer was getting extra aggressive), and the virtually unique use of DataRovers in extremely specialised company settings meant just about no client ecosystem to backstop it. Moreover, as a result of Rosemary units weren’t backwards-compatible, they may run not one of the 68K Magic Cap functions that also existed. A U.S. Air Drive technical report (PDF) on handheld computing units for distant entry summarized the DataRover as “restricted to be used in [handheld computing devices] inside tight vertical markets in that it has little or no third celebration help,” and additional noticed that “Magic Cap, which had been considered [sic] among the finest [handheld computing device] working programs, has virtually disappeared from the market.” The Air Drive report was publicly launched proper in regards to the time Icras folded, in January 2001.
Common Magic itself fared little higher. Serengeti turned the Portico product, launched August 1998, which supported E-mail, scheduling, contacts and information over voice instructions (licensed from Nuance) and the Net. It was modestly profitable with a number of distributors and as much as 2.5 million customers at its peak; Microsoft invested $6 million within the firm in return for entry to the corporate’s IP. The voice interface to Portico itself, named Mary after Mary McDonald-Lewis who voiced it, turned the idea of different merchandise together with the primary iteration of Common Motors’ OnStar (i.e., the different GM). Nonetheless, GMGC’s inventory value plunged once more on weaker earnings by 1999 and a lot of the Portico magicians subsequently left or had been laid off, leaving solely a skeletal staff to do additional growth. The corporate ceased operations in September 2002. Of the three main items of Common Magic solely AltoCom, the 1997 software program modem spinoff, survived lengthy sufficient to be acquired by Broadcom in August 1999 for $170 million.
The applied sciences and concepts launched all through all the line had been far forward of their time — what number of of those ideas, as radical as they had been within the late Nineties, are actually commonplace? Sadly, Magic Cap will in all probability by no means be open-sourced, which means issues like abandonware copies of the Home windows runtime and the simulator, and naturally any remaining actual units, are the one approach you may expertise it now. As a part of GMGC’s liquidation in 2004 the IP portfolio (Icras by no means owned the marks or patents; they had been at all times licensed) was offered primarily to former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold for his patent troll racket Mental Ventures. Myhrvold was mainly within the patents underlying Telescript brokers, however regardless of Andy Hertzfeld’s greatest efforts, Myhrvold positioned so many restrictions on Magic Cap’s eventual utilization that Andy gave up. As a poor substitute, let me regale you with a serenade as an alternative:
Magicians went far and extensive from Common Magic all through all of expertise and one in every of them even ended up in a U.S. Presidential administration. Pop quiz: are you able to title these individuals? What else did they do and the place are they now?
In our upcoming second Magic Cap submit, we’ll do some platform programming, and possibly even see what we are able to do to punch up the DataRover’s modern-day Web mojo. Keep tuned.