General Magic was formed by Marc Porat, Andy Hertzfeld, and Bill Atkinson in 1990. They had been working on an internal Apple project called Paradigm, but convinced Apple CEO John Sculley to spin it off as a separate company. Their idea was called a personal digital assistant in the 90s, but looking at it now it looks a lot like a modern smartphone.
Porat described it as “a tiny computer, a phone, a very personal object… It must be beautiful. It must offer the kind of personal satisfaction that a fine piece of jewelry brings. It will have a perceived value even when it’s not being used… Once you use it you won’t be able to live without it.”
This guide goes through installing a Mac 7 emulator on your favorite OS and then installing the Magic Cap OS inside the Mac emulator (the only way this emulator will work). You can then check out features of portable devices that were 10 to 20 years ahead of everyone else.
DataRover 840 (from Bill Buxton – https://www.microsoft.com/buxtoncollection/detail.aspx?id=37)
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