NewtonTalk.net August 2009 archive: Re: [NTLK] MagicCap and Newt

From: Ed Kummel <tech_ed_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Tue Aug 18 2009 - 15:45:37 EDT

OK...I'm putting on my way-back thinking cap here...
The Newton came first...Then there was some guy at Apple with a french name (phillip gasper? Or something like that) who was championing a different kind of operating system and was the pushing force behind magic cap...He later left Apple and formed his own company to develop his main OS that utilized a database as the OS...For the life of me, I can't remember his name *OR* the OS he designed...it became quite the hit amoungst the home hobbiest people!
Magic Cap, unfortunately, required you to think too differently. The UI while unique and super easy to use was too simple and in my opinion, this limited its functionality.But easy to use was the name of the game...my mom with no technical prowess at all could easily send a fax using the Sony PIC1000 that I brought home once.
But if I remember correctly, the OS had a serious memory leak that would cause it to lock-up eventually...this was eventually fixed, but like the word translation on the Newton doomed it, this memory leak doomed the Magic Cap.
*BUT* if you want to have some fun, go ahead and download a version of it from my server:
http://www.tek-ed.com/magic_cap.zip
It's three disks worth of installation (sorry, Windows only).
I've never installed it on XP, so I don't know if it will work or not..

But download it and see what all the fuss was about!
Ed
web/gadget guru
http://newton.tek-ed.com (download Newton packages)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

By Richard Feynman, Physicist, Nobel winner (1918-1988)

"There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers."

--- On Tue, 8/18/09, MoonMan <moonman272@gmail.com> wrote:

From: MoonMan <moonman272@gmail.com>
Subject: [NTLK] MagicCap and Newton
To: newtontalk@newtontalk.net
Date: Tuesday, August 18, 2009, 12:50 PM

Im a bit confused. Does anyone know how MagicCap and Newton are
related, or if they are at all?

according to wikipedia, the newton began development in 1989, and was
released in 1993

MagicCap began life at apple in 1990, but was spun off as GeneralMagic
in may of that year, got a bunch of corporate partners, and
eventually ended up being absorbed by windows CE.

I am just a bit confused, how a whole other platform was developed and
spun off while the newton was developed.

Anyone remember anything?

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Re: [NTLK] MagicCap and Newton