
A time in 1994 when Steve Jobs got to use a device like an iPhone - pr0zac
https://www.cake.co/conversations/6bNY8PD/that-time-in-1994-when-steve-jobs-got-to-use-a-device-like-an-iphone
======
GeekyBear
I'd have to say that the General Magic user interface (Magic Cap) was much
more similar to the user interface in Microsoft Bob than an iPhone.

>Microsoft Bob presented screens showing a "house", with "rooms" that the user
could go to containing familiar objects corresponding to computer
applications—for instance, a desk with pen and paper, a checkbook, and other
items. In this case, clicking on the pen and paper would open the word
processor.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob)

Here's a short overview of a device running Magic Cap and it's user interface
for comparison.

[https://www.microsoft.com/buxtoncollection/detail.aspx?id=37](https://www.microsoft.com/buxtoncollection/detail.aspx?id=37)

~~~
warent
It's always really cool seeing designs like this, just a reminder that nobody
really had any idea what they were doing when building these UIs back then
since it was totally unexplored territory

~~~
PeCaN
If anything, they had a better idea what they were doing than people do now.
Windows 95 is a case study in good design. They got there by testing it and
iterating on it a ton. [https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/designing-
windows-9...](https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/designing-
windows-95s-user-interface/)

~~~
noir_lord
Win95 and Win2k where in my opinion the high water mark of Windows UI,
everything since has mostly been different or worse.

Though with touchscreens I can see why that pattern would have dated badly.

That said, 16 year old me would have zero issues with using Cinnamon how I
have it setup 22 years later.

Well after he stopped pointing at the screen in amazement and trying to get
his head around a laptop with 4x2.8GHz cores and 8 threads.

Hell he’d even recognise a thinkpad in 2018 mostly because 16yo me _really_
wanted one.

~~~
j45
Win 2k really was sharp. Xp eventually was able to get close but by then it
was replaced by Vista, and I switched to Mac.

------
blacksqr
I worked at Motorola on the team building the Envoy GM device.

When GM first proposed the idea of a handheld digital assistant in the
immediate pre-WWW era, e-mail was catching on as the hot new novelty, and GM's
pitch to its partners was that you could go to the store, buy a device and
have an e-mail account by doing little more than turning the thing on. Easy
enough for Grandma to do was the idea.

When I came aboard the project was 18 months along and they thought they were
on the verge of shipping. But the software was buggy and the API unstable, so
partners had a hard time integrating it with their hardware.

Another 18 months went by before devices finally shipped, still buggy. But in
that time AOL had grown exponentially and captured the concept of easy e-mail
access in the minds of the masses. GM had no compelling alternative story they
could replace their original pitch with, and their partners had lost patience
and interest. Motorola put only minimal money into marketing the Envoy device.

That's my recollection of the dynamics that led to GM's failure.

~~~
blacksqr
At the time pagers had hit huge in the consumer market, and Motorola was
making a mint selling them. Motorola had also developed the first practical
wireless modem and was trying to market a sort of super-pager using the modem
to enable two-way comms and longer messages than a pager allowed. But it was
literally the size and shape of a brick and marketing wasn't going anywhere.

Motorola bet on GM as a way to extend their pager winning streak with a more
consumer-friendly device and more savvy marketing. The Motorola Envoy team was
given the mission of miniaturizing the modem enough to fit in a smaller, more
attractive package.

They largely succeeded, but the shipping delays also allowed growth of
miniature cell phones to take hold, and Motorola saw their future there more
than with extensions to the pager paradigm. That contributed to Motorola's
loss of interest in marketing the Envoy.

------
flanbiscuit
This is first time I'm learning about this company. Interesting read.

This part:

"General Magic came to an excruciating end. Tony went on to build the iPhone,
Andy Rubin built Android, Pierre Omidyar built eBay, Megan Smith became VP of
Google and then America’s CTO, Kevin Lynch built apple Watch…I could keep
going."

Reminded me of Jorodosky's Dune and how the team he gathered went on the do
iconic films/art

~~~
mastazi
The Wikipedia page about General Magic draws this comparison between GM and
Fairchild:

> Magic's engineering team is viewed as one of the most talented in the
> Valley's history, and Magic is generally seen as the Fairchild of mobile,
> social and ecommerce—the fountain from which much of today's smartphone and
> online communication and commerce technology sprang, just as Fairchild
> Semiconductor spawned Intel, National Semiconductor, AMD and the rest of the
> Valley's semiconductor industry.

Source:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Magic#Legacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Magic#Legacy)

------
laser
Interesting timing for this article and documentary to emerge, while a modern
company with so many parallels, Magic Leap, is apparently releasing their
device in the coming days. As General Magic was an ambitious and visionary
precursor to the iPhone, so it seems Magic Leap may be the ambitious and
visionary precursor to a mainstream spatial computing headset of the not-too-
distant future.

With recent leaks of the 40 degree FOV and headset footage, it seems that
Magic Leap, like General Magic, has not yet been able to deliver the
technology necessary for widespread appeal. This time around, at least Magic
Leap has raised a war chest so large, perhaps they can move forward with a far
improved version 2 and continue operations and development, given only modest
sales.

Hopefully Magic Leap can learn a lesson here and avoid becoming a General
Magic (although, if it does, it was still a worthwhile effort to push the
field forward, as General Magic did).

~~~
ipsum2
I don't see how Magic Leap and General Magic have anything in common besides
the name and the eventual failure. Magic Leap hasn't innovated anything new
compared to the HoloLens or other AR devices (see Leap Motion's AR device),
while General Magic seemed to have pioneered portable touch screen
communication devices.

------
vardump
Nokia 9000 is another old smartphone from 1996. Features a web browser, email
client, telnet, etc. Grayscale 640x200 display.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_9000_Communicator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_9000_Communicator)

~~~
js2
The 9000 was part of our "on-call kit" in my SA team at the time. I remember
being out on a hike in Atlanta one weekend when I got paged while I was on
call and trying to use it to ssh in to fix an issue. It worked, but barely. I
wish I could remember the exact details, but all I recall is that I was able
to fix the problem and didn't need to end my hike early.

The wiki page doesn't say anything about ssh, but I'm almost certain it had
it. This may have been around 98 or 99 though.

~~~
Sharlin
Well, the first version of SSH was released in 1995, so it probably wasn't
widespread enough to be included in the first Communicator. Even though they
are both Finnish inventions.

~~~
ansible
Indeed. We were commonly using telnet in those days.

Slightly amusing side story. Some of the guys had gotten those Motorola
Timeport pagers with the screen and qwerty keyboard. One of them had rigged up
some scripts so that he could send a text message with a Unix command, and his
workstation would text him back the output of the command.

Hilariously insecure, but a pretty cool demo at the time.

------
et-al
Sidenote: the author of the post (Chris MacAskill) is also the co-founder of
SmugMug which recently acquired Flickr. And apparently he also runs
[https://advrider.com/](https://advrider.com/). Quite the renaissance person.

[https://www.cake.co/users/Chris](https://www.cake.co/users/Chris)

------
AlphaWeaver
A new book came out recently about the history of Silicon Valley called
"Valley of Genius: The Uncensored History of Silicon Valley". I've been
working my way through the audiobook and it tells the story of General Magic
in there. Would 100% recommend- it filled me with the same excitement as
reading Steven Levy's original "Hackers".

~~~
malshe
I also bought this audiobook and just started it. Finished the first chapter.
I found it a bit difficult to follow the format with so many quotes though. Is
the rest of the book structured like the first chapter?

~~~
AlphaWeaver
The book format is definitely unorthodox with it being constructed from quotes
(the whole book is indeed all quotes, like the first chapter.) I found the
change in style odd at first, but I found it easier to follow as I continued
to listen. I actually really fell in love with the format after a few
chapters.

~~~
nervousvarun
So basically it's an oral history of SV? Sounds awesome I'll check it out
thanks.

------
post_break
I love the part about telling Steve that Sculley owned the same Mercedes.
That's pro level trolling right there.

------
qubex
I had one of these SONY-branded devices, in Italy, gifted to me by an American
relative when I must’ve been 13 or 14. I absolutely loved it even though it a
bit less functionality than my PSION 3a. Ultimately it met a gruesome end when
a school bully purposefully smashed its screen in an act of jealous spite.

~~~
mrexroad
Ouch, that’s rough. But dropped in to say I still think fondly of the last
PSION I owned m, the PSION Revo.

~~~
ptman
Have you seen Gemini PDA?
[https://www.planetcom.co.uk/](https://www.planetcom.co.uk/)

------
protomyth
Having owned one, the Magic Cap OS is nothing like an iPhone. Plus, it crashed
a lot. I loved the idea and Telescript is an under-copied language, but the
Newton with the cellphone (Motorola Marco) was a better attempt at what the
iPhone would be.

------
mattkevan
Thomas Dolby [0] has a great anecdote about meeting Marc Porat and Bill Gates
in his autobiography ‘The Speed of Sound’

“Marc Porat and I were eyeball-to-eyeball as he continued to fill me in about
his company. Marc didn’t notice, but across the table, Bill Gates was ignoring
the sycophants to his left and right, and straining to eavesdrop on Marc’s
jargon-laden elevator pitch. Gates seemed to be getting more and more
agitated, and was poking at his beef Wellington. As Marc explained his
technology in more detail, Gates began rocking nervily back and forth in his
chair.

“You’ll have these intelligent agents, as I call them,” said Marc quietly,
“scouting and negotiating on your behalf, pulling in data from all over the
Net. Eventually you won’t really need a PC, because all your work will be in a
sort of cloud.”

Suddenly there was an explosion from across the table. “MARC, THAT’S FUCKING
BULLSHIT AND YOU KNOW IT!” It was Gates.

His tie was too tight and the veins were bulging on his neck. In the wake of
this high-decibel outburst, a deadly silence descended on the room. Startled
faces at both tables turned our way. Even the waiters froze, silver ladles in
their hands. Amid the hush that had fallen, Marc Porat visibly shriveled in
his seat, looking like he wished a hole would swallow him up.”

The whole book is worth a read.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Dolby](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Dolby)

~~~
cmacaskill
Fascinating! I didn't know that. Telescript was the networking software and
it's not even mentioned in the movie. I thought it was crazy when I worked
there. It had the structure of a virus.

~~~
dreamcompiler
Telescript was an amazingly cool idea. I almost quit a very good job to go to
work for GM and work on Telescript. In retrospect, it was indeed a language
whose purpose was writing [benevolent] viruses but it had no security
whatsoever (or at best very little).

------
nemild
FYI, the cofounder of this website/product (Cake) is also the author of the
post. So this has some similarities to content marketing.

~~~
rgrove
Hi, I also work for Cake.

For what it's worth, we were surprised to see this hit HN today. None of us
submitted it, and we don't know the submitter.

~~~
pr0zac
I don't know you guys either! Just thought it was an interesting post to
share.

------
IntelMiner
Throwing it out there for those who aren't aware of it

Clint of "LazyGameReviews" did a fascinating retrospective on General Magic a
while back

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opcuy-8VO64](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opcuy-8VO64)

------
martin1b
I really enjoy hearing what really happened behind closed doors of what is, to
me, one of the most interesting times in computer history.

What a gift to be a part of it! Keep these coming Chris!

------
patrickg_zill
I had one of the Sony backlit devices. It was a poor purchase decision,
perhaps, but it was quite advanced.

AT&T pulling support for it was my first experience with "the cloud giveth and
the cloud taketh away".

Paired with a more modern cpu and battery though with some updates, it could
be quite useful even today, though...

------
hammock
Interesting story, but comes off as self-obsessed and a little bit not
credible as a result of comments like these:

"...to what they called the cloud,"

"Placing a thumbs-up icon on a message to show that you liked it felt like
something which could catch on"

"My favorite was maps from StreetLight that gave you turn-by-turn directions.
Oh my God. That felt like an app everyone would love"

~~~
rory096
>"My favorite was maps from StreetLight that gave you turn-by-turn directions.
Oh my God. That felt like an app everyone would love"

This is interesting, since Elon Musk has claimed to have written the first
ever point-to-point directions software at Zip2, founded in 1995:

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1005596879848030209?lang...](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1005596879848030209?lang=en)

>At Zip2, I wrote entire V1 of software for drawing vector maps & calculating
point to point directions anywhere in US (first ever company to do so), as
well as white pages & business listings w reviews (an early Yelp). Also wrote
V1 of classifieds, autotrading & real estate apps.

~~~
donaldihunter
Didn't Nextbase Autoroute released circa 1992 have point to point directions
and vector maps?

~~~
rory096
Apparently released way back in 1988! Thanks for that, TIL.

[http://www.laptopgpsworld.com/3562-history-autoroute-
streets...](http://www.laptopgpsworld.com/3562-history-autoroute-streets-
trips)

[https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-ditches-two-map-
sof...](https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-ditches-two-map-software-
products-favor-bing-maps)

------
sp332
Here's an earlier thread about the movie
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16897690](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16897690)
and an article apparently inspired by the release of the movie
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16897690](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16897690)

------
guiomie
How can I see the documentary referenced at the end? The trailer is 2 years
old, there are some reviews but not rental options ...

~~~
vilen
The documentary hasn't been released yet. I was at the West Coast premiere of
it in California Theatre in downtown San Jose last week. Maybe Netflix, Amazon
or Hulu will get the rights for distribution soon until then I'll have to wait
to watch it again.

------
notadoc
Why is this particular presentation format better than a good old fashioned
blog post?

~~~
vilen
I enjoy reading in this format since the story can be told over time and
through separate posts. Each post is like a mini story of its own. Also it is
nice to see a discussion referencing specific posts. It is different, but I
like it.

~~~
saagarjha
Except in this particular case each post was barely a minute apart.

------
sytelus
I'm curious about what was the hiring process at companies like General Magic
and Paypal. What do they do (from interview questions perspective) that they
end up with so many game changing folks?

------
cmacaskill
A film was made about General Magic that was a pretty big hit at this year's
Tribeca Film Festival. There was a showing in a big theater in San Jose last
week but it sold out. They have another showing at the Computer History Museum
in Mountain View this Friday. Let's hope it gets on Netflix.

~~~
spilk
The CHM event on Friday is also sold out.

------
fzzzy
Hmm, Steve Jobs also killed the Newton, which did many of the same things, and
was released in 1993.

------
pjmlp
Programed in Telescript.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescript_(programming_langua...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescript_\(programming_language\))

------
minikites
The YouTube channel LGR has a great video on General Magic:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opcuy-8VO64](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opcuy-8VO64)

------
nickpsecurity
Bill Fallon in the article responded in the comments with this:

"Chris: There were probably some hard feelings a couple of decades ago but
none lingering, not even those that may have been there wouldn't have been
squarely aimed at you.

Since you were in charge of dealing with 3'd party developers I think I always
realized you had a hand in the onboarding of AOL, though until I read your
post I always assumed the idea originated with Sony. In the end it didn't
really matter - the presence of AOL on SONY MagicLink's did not generate
device sales any more than our name did, and ultimately AT&T PersonaLink was
utterly dependent on device sales and unlike AOL, spent a fair amount of money
to actually attempt to actually generate device sales. As you'll see in point
2 below we saw an urgent need to diversify into a PC application about a year
before the MagicLink launched, but as we both know that idea died a slow,
agonizing death.

There are two somewhat related points that I don't recall if we discussed or
not which could have possibly (though not probably) reversed the fortunes of
at least our part of the General Magic universe.

1\. AT&T spent all that money developing what we would today call a cloud
based platform for "communicating applications using General Magic's
Telescript technology." Our deal with General Magic obligated us to be the
first to develop any application that had anything to do with Telescript, and
that was the GM/PersonaLink messaging application. If all General Magic wanted
was a then current state of the art e-mail network, we could have made that
available a week after our initial meeting with Marc Porat, Rich Miller and
Bill Atkinson when they first visited us at a Bell Labs facility in NJ. No, it
had to have Telescript.

To my recollection no 3'd party apps were ever developed using Telescript,
including AOL's. In truth there wasn't much Telescript in the PersonaLink Mail
application - I think it was primarily tied to authenticating users and
providing a rather clever user directory, but it was a start, and again, a
core contractual item we were obligated to meet.

While AT&T certainly had an issue with AOL, we never quite understood why
General Magic didn't have an isssue with it (at least when we thought it was
all Sony's doing), as it substantially compromised the value of it's whole
Telescript proposition, which, despite various public pronouncements to the
contrary, was obviously a distant second in importance internally to MagicCap.
Various Magicians have indicated their disdain for John Sculley and Apple for
upstaging General Magic's device - can you see the similarity AT&T saw for the
introduction of an AOL messaging app on MagicCap devices to Apple's action? We
had a similar reaction to Motorola's tie up with an outfit named RadioMail.
Perhaps you were involved with that one also.

2\. We campaigned long and hard for a MagicCap for PC's sofware app as it
became apparent that Sony's $800+ device wasn't likely to fly off of store
shelves and Motorola's $1500+ device might not ever make it to market, along
with the phantom devices of other alliance members Panasonic and Philips. Rich
a company as we were, AT&T could not afford to dole out Sony MagicLink's for
free or very little to tens of thousands of customers, but we easily could
have and would have distributed software to millions of customers for free,
which we believe would have put tens of thousands of users on the PersonaLink
network, generating revenue for both AT&T and General Magic, and perhaps
providing a "tandem" device-computer solution that would have benefited device
partners - which was ultimately the architecture that won that generation of
handheld devices.

Our requests went nowhere for quite awhile, and were ultimately undertaken by
a too little, too late internal effort at General Magic that never produced a
viable product."

------
j45
Interesting to learn what inspired the Apple Newton - it ironically focused a
lot more on handwriting recognition, which Palm would do a much better job
with Grafitti in terms of day to day use.

~~~
fzzzy
The Newton came out before the Magic Cap OS.

~~~
j45
General Magic might have released after the Newton but appeared to be under
development prior?

The article referenced this:

"Steve’s nemesis had made General Magic possible by allowing Marc Porat to
spin it out of Apple. Sculley served on General Magic’s board. He had been
considered a marketing genius when the Mac regained momentum after Steve was
forced out.

He became General Magic’s villain too when he surprised us and released the
Newton, which competed with us and discredited the category."

~~~
fzzzy
Interesting. I knew General Magic had many ex-Apple employees, but thought the
Newton had been in development since before General Magic existed. Sculley’s
Knowledge Navigator video was from 1987.
[https://youtu.be/hb4AzF6wEoc](https://youtu.be/hb4AzF6wEoc)

Pretty weird that he was on the board of a company that he went on to compete
with. He must have had inside info about General Magic’s schedule that allowed
the Newton to beat it to market. Pretty scummy.

~~~
j45
I forgot about the knowledge navigator. Makes a little more sense that so many
core Apple employees left to start General Magic.

------
StanAngeloff
/rant Interesting story, however the format is horrible. It's my first time
coming across posts like this and it was a struggle to read till the end (much
like Twitter threads are a mess). The whole story will make for a great blog
post.

~~~
rgrove
Hi! I work on Cake.

This is fair criticism. Cake currently only allows one photo per post, so
splitting the story across multiple posts is one way people can tell a story
with multiple photos. We have more advanced multi-image support on our
roadmap, we just haven't gotten to it yet.

~~~
shim2k
I actually found this format refreshing so keep doing a good job!

~~~
rgrove
Thanks! I appreciate the positivity. :)

