This article is part of a series on forgotten technology.
Motorola Envoy, a Magic Cap device with built-in wireless.
Before the PalmPilot and Apple Newton, there was Magic Cap. It was a PDA operating system with the communications at its heart, a focus on object-oriented distributed computing… and an interface that was a total woozy.
Magic Cap started out as an internal project at Apple called Paradigm. In 1990, it was spun out as an independent company called General Magic. The OS was licenced to hardware manufacturers like Sony and Motorola, who produced several models.
Magic Cap devices were PDAs, with functions such as address book and calendaring. They were also built for communications from the start, with fax and email functions as standard. Later models would feature web browsing as well.
The devices were pen operated, but featured an onscreen keyboard for typing. Two later prototypes had a physical chicklet keyboard, but these were never released.
Wireless networks were in their infancy in the early 1990’s. Some models like the Motorola Envoy could do wireless email – at an extreme cost. Others would actually plug into a phone line for connectivity.
Metaphors and objects, oh my!
The interface is heavily laden with metaphors.
The Magic Cap UI was based on a desktop metaphor, but it was carried much further than in for example the Macintosh. The system showed an actual cartoon desktop, with objects like a rolodex and paper pad on it.
Drawers, shelves, rooms and and buildings were used as metaphors for different levels of the system. There was even a tote bag which you had to use to carry objects from one place to another.
Email allowed in annotation and graphic stamps – if the recipient also had Magic Cap.
Real-world methaphors were found in unusual places. For example, when sending a message, you had to choose how it was delivered: email, fax or pager. Instead of using a menu, users affixed different kinds of stamps to a postcard which represented the message.
Cloud computing in the nineties
On the programming side, Magic Cap was built around the idea of software agents, popular in the early 1990’s. The agents didn’t appear as actual characters, although that would have been in line with the Microsoft Bob -like interface.
The idea was that agents written in the proprietary Telescript language could be started on the device, travel onto an outside server to do work and then return with data.
Internet Center, Magic Cap's connection to the famed Information Superhighway.
Telescript was an object-oriented language which with an ahead-of-its-time cloud computing flavor. It was specifically designed to run on distributed server systems. The only service actually available, though, was PersonaLink from AT&T.
The aftermath
Like most pen-based projects of its age, Magic Cap never really took off. It may have been the clunky hardware, lack of network services or cartoony interface. In any case, the devices were never a financial success.
General Magic eventually went in different directions, developing speech-recognition telephony services and automotive assistance systems. Magic Cap was spun off once again in 1998 as a company called Icras, but that company faded away soon after.
There was an effort by some Magic Cap developers to get the system released as open source, but this was not successful. Still, the developer documentation remains online for those interested in this bit of PDA lore.