The Motorola Envoy Personal Wireless Communicator was a

personal digital assistant A personal digital assistant (PDA), also known as a handheld PC, is a variety mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. PDAs have been mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of highly capable smartphones, in part ...

initially slated for release by

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorol ...

in summer 1994 but delayed and then available for public sale in February 1995. It was built to run General Magic's

Magic CAP Magic Cap (short for Magic Communicating Applications Platform) is a discontinued object-oriented operating system for PDAs developed by General Magic. Tony Fadell was a contributor to the platform, Bill Atkinson shows the credits screen on Magic ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...

, and it combined wireless, telephone, and

infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...

modems in a single PDA package.

Andy Rubin Andrew E. Rubin is an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. Rubin founded Android Inc. in 2003, which was acquired by Google in 2005; Rubin served as a Google vice president for 9 years and led Google's efforts in ...

led development of the Motorola Envoy. Personal digital assistants (i.e. PDA's) were electronic handheld organizers that were used in the 1990s to communicate via email, manage calendars, store contact information, and manage files. Examples of PDAs include the

Newton MessagePad The MessagePad is a discontinued series of personal digital assistant devices developed by Apple Computer for the Newton platform in 1993. Some electronic engineering and the manufacture of Apple's MessagePad devices was undertaken in Japan ...

released by

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

in 1993 and the

Palm Pilot The PalmPilot Personal and PalmPilot Professional are the second generation of Palm PDA devices produced by Palm Inc (then a subsidiary of U.S. Robotics, later 3Com). These devices were launched on March 10, 1997. Accessories and pricing Pa ...

released by Palm Inc. in 1996. The Motorola Envoy was a particularly notable PDA in view of its built-in wireless communication capability and its well-received

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

, thus referenced by some to be a predecessor of the modern day smartphone. The hardware of the Motorola Envoy included a Motorola Dragon I/68349 microprocessor, 4 MB of

read only memory Read-only memory (ROM) is a type of non-volatile memory used in computers and other electronic devices. Data stored in ROM cannot be electronically modified after the manufacture of the memory device. Read-only memory is useful for storing sof ...

(ROM), 1 MB of random access memory (RAM), and an LCD display. Of particular interest were the wireless communications capabilities of the Envoy. Its built-in communication components included a radio modem capable of 4,800 bits per second communication, a fax and data modem, and an infrared

transceiver In radio communication, a transceiver is an electronic device which is a combination of a radio ''trans''mitter and a re''ceiver'', hence the name. It can both transmit and receive radio waves using an antenna, for communication purposes. Thes ...

capable of 38.4 kbit/s of data transfer. The Envoy also included a PCMCIA interface to expands its communications or other capabilities. The housing had dimensions of 3.5 cm (height) x 17.3 cm (width) x 14.4 cm (depth) and weighed about 0.77 kg. The Motorola Envoy was one of the first PDAs to operate the Magic CAP software, which made extensive use of the built-in wireless communications components of the device. The main screen of Magic CAP displayed a desktop having a phone icon, Rolodex icon, Postcard/writing instrument icon, notebook icon, and calendar book icon, thus simulating real-world productivity tools used by many people. Similarly, a clock, an inbox, an outbox, and a filing cabinet were shown behind the desk, and a control bar provided access to other features of the device. Several of these tools provided simple access to communication features, such as text messaging and addresses, which are widely used by modern smartphones. The Motorola Envoy provided a convenient way to utilize communication data without a wired connection but, ultimately, the Envoy was held back by its high cost of ownership. The Envoy device had a price tag of about $1500 at launch, and an early-adopter reported a bill for one month of usage of about $400 from the ARDIS network for data communication. Motorola reused the name for at least one previous product. It is also a UHF tone and vibrate paging receiver produced in the mid-1980s that responded to two-tone sequential encoding, including GE type 99, Quick Call II & 1+1, REACH* and 5-Tone Sequential.

References

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Envoy Envoy or Envoys may refer to: Diplomacy * Diplomacy, in general * Envoy (title) * Special envoy, a type of diplomatic rank Brands *Airspeed Envoy, a 1930s British light transport aircraft *Envoy (automobile), an automobile brand used to sell Br ...

Personal digital assistants