 Desk at startup | |
| Developer | General Magic |
|---|---|
| Working state | Discontinued |
| Source model | Closed source |
| Initial release | 28 September 1994; 30 years ago (1994-09-28) |
| Final release | 3.1.2j / 2001; 24 years ago (2001) |
| Marketing target | Mobile computing |
| Influenced | Palm OS,iOS |
| Influenced by | Classic Mac OS |
| License | Proprietary |
| Support status | |
| Unsupported | |
Magic Cap (short forMagic Communicating Applications Platform) is a discontinuedobject-oriented operating system forPDAs developed byGeneral Magic.Tony Fadell was a contributor to the platform,[1] andDarin Adler was an architect.[1][2]
Itsgraphical user interface incorporates aroom metaphor, where the user navigates between rooms to perform tasks, such as going to a home office to performword processing, or to a file room to clean up the system files. Automation is based onmobile agents but not anoffice assistant.
Several electronic companies came to market with Magic Cap devices, including theSonyMagic Link and theMotorola Envoy, both released in 1994. None of these devices were commercial successes.
The Magic Cap operating system includes a newmobile agent technology namedTelescript. 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 byAT&T. 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-upmodem speed of 2400 bit/s.[3]
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.[4]
