General Magic was a company by Bill the Atkinson, Andy cycle per second field and Marc Porat was based and with the development of portable date entry terminals was concerned. The enterprise developed that personal intelligently communicator, a forerunner of the PDA.

The first project began 1990 with Apple. Marc Porat held the conviction, that the future of the EDP in the integration of classical computer functions (spread-sheet analysis, text processing), communication systems (E-Mail, portable radio) and Consumer so mentioned electronics (cameras, play computers) would lie. Finally it could win Apple CEO John Sculley for the idea, to which the development of such devices approved in the context of the paradigm project in such a way specified. The project ran some months with Apple, the management showed for it however only little interest and pursued the project therefore only with small priority. Finally they suggested to Sculley out-creating the work in a separate company which also happened in May 1990.

At the beginning of the enterprise general Magic provisionally mainly striking the boost stood. In the year 1992 could be won some considerable enterprises of the electronics industry (e.g. Sony, Motorola, Matsushita, Philips and AT&T) as partner, also the appropriate financial power along-brought. Regardless of its again the development of portable computers began also with Apple, at whose end Apple Newton stood. Without evident reason general Magic of Apple was sued, the process ran in the sand, the relationship between both enterprises thereby was however lastingly disturbed. In February 1995 general Magic went to the stock exchange, the share quotation still doubled himself on the same day.

The concept of the general liking IC system consisted of distributing the computing load of typical applications over several devices. Them was clear, which portable devices could not reach due to their size and the power supply the achievement of normal PCs. It was thus impossible to take over the functions of a Destop PC simply 1:1. Instead the devices were equipped only with a minimum operating system - calls Magic Cap -, in which all necessary basic functions and a user surface were integrated. The organization of the surface oriented itself not at the this very day common desk metaphor, but at a space metaphor in such a way specified. Meant, which applications of offices were to be found such as E-Mail and directory in the "“office"”, plays for example in the "“living room"”.

Applications were programmed generally in Objective C, and were based on the program libraries, which the Magic Cap operating system made available. The installation of the programs took place in packages (packages), which could be flexibly up-played and removed again. Thus was considered to as efficient a use of the limited storage location as possible.

A further programming language was Telescript, whose emphasis was on communication. Similarly as with Java Telescript programs in platform-independent byte code were compiled. By means of Telescript the concept of the distribution of load were converted. Thus for example on the equipment an application was called, which started a further Telescript program then on a server. The server program took over the main load of the necessary arithmetic performance, so that the Handheld equipment functioned only in principle as terminal.

The goal of general Magic was it. To make surface covering available Telescript programs. First above all selected junctions (e.g. servers for mobile Telefonie) should be equipped with it, later then also Desktop PCs, which should make applications available by Internet. Thus surface covering mobile agents should be brought to 1994 to the employment. Magic Cap devices by Sony, AT&T and Motorola on the market were brought. As processor Motorola 68300 Dragon one used. Contrary to other Handheld devices, which came at the same time on the market, the Magic Cap system knew no handwriting recognition and came therefore very fast into the Hintertreffen.Des further one was also the infrastructure (i.e. the Telescript servers) hardly present. The portable radio operators had installed up to then still not one Telescript application to their system, so that the actually planned use possibility was void.

With general Magic were very applicable foreseen the developments of the computer market (e.g. the spreading of E-Mail or mobile telephones). The error was however the acceptance that all this on basis prop. guessing eras of a network (in the possession of Docomo, at&T/NTT cloud - "“the cloud"” mentioned) one happened. The rising World Wide Web and the Mosaic Browser - both freely available - ensured in the long run for the fact that could not intersperse itself the general liking IC devices.

The sales figures were so bad that production was soon stopped. General Magic undertook still several attempts to revive its concept last 1999 as Voice Message system.

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