[HN Gopher] Magic Cap, from the Magic Link to the DataRover and ...
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Magic Cap, from the Magic Link to the DataRover and the stuff in-
between
Author : classichasclass
Score : 27 points
Date : 2023-01-22 16:14 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (oldvcr.blogspot.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (oldvcr.blogspot.com)
| gumby wrote:
| I loved the ideas of these kinds of products and always hated the
| metaphor when using them. They were valuable when the general
| public was trying to understand what the hell all that computer
| stuff was, but really they got in the way.
|
| It reminds me of those old "mall" or "map" efforts to get people
| online (eWorld, the Playstation online environment, even, at an
| extreme, Second Life). The fact is nobody _wants_ to "walk" from
| shop to shop; they want to be in gap and then be in See's
| candies. On the web you can click from one to the other; in real
| life you can't so you walk. Trying to reproduce these meatspace
| metaphors merely unnecessarily implements meatspace limitations.
| Even now I prefer to use the command line on my mac because the
| friction of dragging the mouse around for routine action is
| annoying...but getting better.
|
| Apple got this right with the iphone. They started out with
| metaphors that reflected experiences skeuomorphically to teach
| you how to use the touch interface (e.g. scrolling "wheels" to
| select numbers) then phased them out relatively quickly as
| everybody internalized them.*
|
| Failure to comprehend this is one of the many issues killing VR.
| They need to exploit the new affordances of the new technology,
| with a small number of onramps.
|
| * Whether they continued this phase out for too long is another
| question
| manv1 wrote:
| I still have my two Magic Links, a bunch of SRAM cards, and a
| bunch of shrink wrapped software. Lost my telebug cable years
| ago.
|
| GM is where Andy Rubin learned how to leverage carrier
| partnerships. He took that knowledge to Android and the rest is
| history.
|
| Also, Pierre Omidyar of eBay worked in GMDTS.
|
| They were a bunch of Really Smart Guys over there. Good Times.
| joshu wrote:
| Megan Smith and Tony Fadell too
| dboreham wrote:
| John Giannandrea
| classichasclass wrote:
| (author) What software did you have for them?
| bitsavers wrote:
| I worked with a bunch of them at Apple, like Zarko (RIP) and
| Phil (RIP). Hung out there a little bit, got to meet one of my
| PARC heroes (Ed Satterthwaite) Andy went from there to
| Artemis/WebTV, Danger, then Android.
| bane wrote:
| Oh man, the madness of desktop literalism in GUI design in the
| mid-90s. The more "subtle" metaphors of files and folders blown
| far past skeumorphism and into immediately literal graphic
| representations of a "desk" with a "phone" and a "rolodex". These
| guys went full-in and represented buildings and cities.
|
| It was such a transitional time, people who had never had
| personal access to a computing device suddenly trying to figure
| out how nested file structures work, saving documents, and
| running software all were mind-blowing concepts for the average
| adult moving from a world of paper. The term "paperless office"
| was tossed around as a far future goal.
|
| For those who never worked in an office in the 80s or 90s, the
| amount of paper and paper handling tools needed to function at
| even a basic level was absolutely unreal.
| https://weare.guru/office-life-in-the-1980s-vintage-photos/
|
| Ignore the computing tech in the pictures and look at the tons of
| fire-hazard ready paper literally everywhere.
|
| It didn't die in the 90s either. I remember getting a demo from a
| vendor in the early 2000s for a chat system that used a very
| literal city metaphor to organize chat rooms. Because of course
| the word "room" was used and that implied they had to reverse out
| from their into buildings, and city blocks, and cities. So
| navigating to different rooms involved all kinds of clicking
| around town. We, habitual corporate IRC users, were not
| impressed.
| bitsavers wrote:
| http://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2023/01/bringing-tls-to-magic-cap...
| bitsavers wrote:
| "It is issued without the permission of Intellectual Ventures
| Management LLC"
|
| Certain GM staffers won the IP bid during the bankruptcy, but I
| Vultures still managed to acquire it.
| classichasclass wrote:
| (author) It was a lot of work to get those dev tools running
| again!
| joshu wrote:
| i have a magic cap and an eo440. amazing artifacts from another
| time
| bitsavers wrote:
| Like Scott said, pretty awesome data dump on GM.
|
| Telescript is a whole story in itself.
|
| I remember being in a meeting where Marc was pitching Pocket
| Crystal to Al Alcorn at Apple.
|
| The dark side was the company was peak ex-Apple rock star
| programmer ego.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| That, most of all, is what comes across in the GM movie --
| there were no adults in the room, at any point. So they built
| things that were cool that people didn't want.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| I did actually briefly use a Magic Cap device back in the
| mid-90's. It was neat. But it felt like a crippled version of
| the internet as imagined by HyperCard stack authors circa
| 1987.
| twoodfin wrote:
| Agree. They needed someone laser-focused on capital-P
| Product.
|
| I wonder if the ex-Apple folks had failed to appreciate that
| having been an essential part of Jobs' role.
| joezydeco wrote:
| This is a great anecdote too. Porat explaining his agent
| concept to Thomas Dolby (yes, the musician) while Bill Gates
| listened in and blew a fuse:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17667776
| bitsavers wrote:
| since the original was from 2018... "Microsoft came out with
| a competing technology in that timeframe called 'Microsoft
| Pen Computing' as a direct response to the hype around
| General Magic."
|
| It was actually put out to kill Go/Penpoint, not GM
| simne wrote:
| Would be cool, to make simulator, to touch so different interface
| on modern hardware.
|
| I think, 10 years old android phone will run it.
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(page generated 2023-01-22 23:01 UTC)