Magic Cap (short for Magic Communicating Applications Platform) is a discontinued

object-oriented operating system An object-oriented operating system is an operating system that is designed, structured, and operated using object-oriented programming principles. An object-oriented operating system is in contrast to an object-oriented user interface or programm ...

for

PDA PDA may refer to: Science and technology * Patron-driven acquisition, a mechanism for libraries to purchase books *Personal digital assistant, a mobile device * Photodiode array, a type of detector * Polydiacetylenes, a family of conducting poly ...

s developed by

General Magic General Magic was an American software and electronics company co-founded by Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld, and Marc Porat. Based in Mountain View, California, the company developed precursors to "USB, software modems, small touchscreens, touch ...

Tony Fadell Anthony Michael Fadell (born March 22, 1969) is an American engineer, designer, entrepreneur, and investor. He was senior vice president of the iPod division at Apple Inc. and founder and former CEO of Nest Labs. Fadell joined Apple Inc. in 20 ...

was a contributor to the platform, Bill Atkinson shows the credits screen on

Magic Link The Magic Link was a Personal Intelligent Communicator marketed by Sony from 1994, based on General Magic's Magic Cap operating system. The Magic Link PIC-1000 was brought to market by Jerry Fiala Sr at Sony. The "Link" part of the name refers ...

device, and Tony Fadell is mentioned in the conversation. and

Darin Adler Darin Adler was the technical lead for Apple Computer's System 7 operating system release. During 1985–1987 he worked for ICOM Simulations as primary developer of the MacVenture game engine which ran Déjà Vu: A Nightmare Comes True, Uninvit ...

was an architect. Its

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

incorporates a room metaphor, where the user navigates between rooms to perform tasks, such as going to a home office to perform

word processing A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consen ...

, or to a file room to clean up the system files. Automation is based on

mobile agent In computer science, a mobile agent is a composition of computer software and data that is able to migrate (move) from one computer to another autonomously and continue its execution on the destination computer. In reality, the mobile agent is the c ...

s but not an

office assistant The Office Assistant is a discontinued intelligent user interface for Microsoft Office that assisted users by way of an interactive animated character which user interface, interfaced with the Office help content. It was included in Microsoft Off ...

. Several electronic companies came to market with Magic Cap devices, including the

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

and the

Motorola Envoy The Motorola Envoy Personal Wireless Communicator was a personal digital assistant initially slated for release by Motorola in summer 1994 but delayed and then available for public sale in February 1995. It was built to run General Magic's Magic ...

, both released in 1994. None of these devices were commercial successes.

Mobile agents

The Magic Cap operating system includes a new

technology named Telescript. Conceptually, the agents carry work orders, travel to a Place outside of the handheld device, complete their work, and then return to the device with the results. When the Magic Cap devices were delivered, the only Place for agents to travel was the PersonaLink service provided by

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...

. The agents had little access to functionality, because each agent had to be strictly authorized and its scope of inquiry was limited to the software modules installed on the PersonaLink servers. The payload carried by these agents was also hampered by the slow dial-up

modem A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by Modulation#Digital modulati ...

speed of 2400 bit/s. The authentication and authorization system of the mobile agents in Telescript created a high coupling between the device and the target Place. As a result, deployment of agent-based technology was incredibly difficult, and never reached fruition before the PersonaLink service was shut down.

References

External links

Archive section and "time capsule" dedicated to Magic Cap
– ''Pen Computing Magazine''
"Making Magic"
– a developer’s introduction to General Magic and Magic Cap by Richard Clark,

Scott Knaster Scott Knaster is an American technical writer who has written many books, mostly dealing with Macintosh programming and using the Macintosh. He has worked for such companies as Apple Inc., General Magic, Microsoft, Danger Inc., and Google. Knast ...

, and the staff of General Magic (from ''Mactech'' 11:5)
Magic Cap Resources
– a combination blog and gallery with links to Magic Cap software, documentation and other information. Also includes a photo gallery of Magic Cap devices. {{Mobile operating systems Computer-related introductions in 1994 Discontinued operating systems Embedded operating systems Graphical user interfaces Mobile operating systems Object-oriented operating systems Personal digital assistant software

Mobile agents

See also

References

External links