Magic Cap Users Mailing List

Friday September 27, 1996

From: Rod Sprattling <rls@WISEWORKS.COM>
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 07:59:41 -0400
Subject: Call for Collabortive Engineering Participants

Dear Magic Cappers,

The Pilot's got one.  The Psion has one.  The Newton's got at least two.
Event the Sony PIC 1000 has one.  But the poor PIC 2000 - ah, there's one
handheld computing device that *doesn't* currently have a financial app
available.  But we can fix that.

If you know how to elide and express system requirements, draft and refine
a system architeture, craft a UI design or simply (!) bash code for Magic Cap
devices, you can join the Magic Cap Financial App Collaborative
Engineering Project.

The general goal of the Project is to, well, draft volunteers into
collaboartively developing a financial app for the Magic Cap platform.
By participating you will be hard pressed not to gain some benefits of
project experience, including but not limited to making new friends
and enemies; learning how to craft good design and bury bad design;
experiencing the hysteric joy of working code delivered on time and
the sheer despair of chasing Heisenbugs at 4 a.m., and feeling that
odd mixture of triumph, relief and chagrin when your responsibilities
have been artfully dispatched.

You join by declaring your intent to the comp.os.magiccap mailing list,
and then by participating in the establishment and operations of the
effort. Although the rules of involvement have yet to be written (by the
participants
themselves), this rule seems evident: sign up for work only if you're
prepared to complete it, and retire only if your work is done or
you're prepared to first find your own replacement.  There's no Boss to
worry about and fix staffing issues, and without dependable resources we
run the risk of dooming the project.  It would help, in fact, for each
participant to determine, before publicly signing up for a task,
what her/his level of commitment can be. Realism helps level the
landscape for all.

Experience suggests that stable teams get the most done, so
participation for this first version of the financial app will close
on 4 Oct.

Regards,

Rod Sprattling

From: "Francis A. Schurtz, Jr." <fas@GATE.NET>
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 09:21:22 -0700
Subject: Re: Windows CE

My concern is not that Windows CE will be better,but rather will SONY &
General Magic give up on the PIC and Magic Cap.  Sony certainly is not very
aggressive in their marketing of the PIC and is not very responsive to
their customer's dilemma in finding needed accessories such as Magic
Xchange & batteries as new users, thereby giving the appearance they don't
really care whether customers help sell their product or not.  Fortunately,
most PIC users do a great job in spreading the word about how innovative
and feature filled each PIC is despite Sony.  With the new management team
and new direction at General Magic, where does Magic Cap stand?  Magic Cap
and the PIC are products ahead of the pack and despite their problems are
outstanding innovations and products.  Lets just hope that we indeed do see
Magic Cap 2.0 and PIC-3000!!!

F. Schurtz
----------
From: Victor Carreon 
To: Multiple recipients of list MAGICCAP 
Subject: Re: Windows CE
Date: Thursday, September 26, 1996 8:46 PM

I've thought about this question a while, which because of the Microsoft
announcement, has prevented me from immediately buying a ML.  I wanted to
know if Microsoft had a better product.  However, I am pretty sure that I
will be getting a ML rather than the Pegasus.  I also don' t think that
Magic Cap would be affected too much.

The main reason is that Microsoft's version of the PDA is not in the same
league as the ML.  I hear that they will be implementing the "clam shell"
style PDA, with a keyboard.  It will be small enough to fit in your pocket.
 These spects are in direct competition with the BOSS, Zaurus, Casio, and
the like.  The ML goes beyond what a "clam style" PDA does...it is a
Personal Intelligent Communicator, not a PDA.

Secondly, the interfaces are distinct. All PDAs can add names, addresses,
notes, maybe spreadsheets...it's how it does these functions and ease of
use.

Thirdly, which PDA comes with MIDI?  Speaker phone? Solitaire :-)?  Not the
BOSS, not Zaurus, not Casio.  Why?  They're PDAs, not PICs.

Bottom line, I guess, is that Magic Link/Magic Cap is in a league all by
itself.  And this is why there will always be a faithful following for the
ML.

I hope that Sony will continue to upgrade this product, and with Magic Cap
2.0 coming (soon hopefully) and third party Magic Cap development on a
Windows based platform, I think Magic Link has great potential.

Keep up the good work, ML!
Vic

From: Wayne Sanderson <whsander@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 11:45:16 -0700
Subject: RFI & WTB: Magic Xchange for Windows

Tommy Thorn writes:
> I'm expecting my ML-1000 any day now, and realize
> I properly wont get
> far without Magic Xchange.  (That Magic Xchange
> is not bundled is a
> scandal.)  There is no way I'm gonna pay $99.95
> for MX, so I'm looking
> for a second hand one.

Yeah, it would have been great if it had been bundled. As for paying $99.95, I
got it for $35.00 at PC Zone. The only Magic XChange product that you will
still have to pay more for (around $60 -$80 if you shop around)is MXChange
Plus, which is an upgrade that you install over Magic XChange that adds
connectivity and support for import and export of data between the
communicator and an expanded number of desktop applications; more spreadsheets
and word processers are supported, etc.

From: Kent Estep <kent@BOSS.COM>
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 19:04:33 -0700
Subject: Rechargeable Battery Pack

Are the any 'cheap' (meaning cheaper than Sony direct)
sources for the PIC-1000 rechargeable batttery ?

-kent

----------------------------------------------------------
BOSS Digital Studios
http://www.pacificnet.net/~estep       http://www.boss.com
estep@pacificnet.net                   kent@boss.com