DataRover 840

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › DataRover 840

skidisk

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#4818 30-Aug-2005 17:03

Through the miracle of google plus some idle searching by my son, I saw that in January, there was a question about the DataRover 840. I'm the founder and CEO of DataRover (R.I.P.).
I was also General Manager and VP at General Magic for seven years.
If you still have any questions about the Datarover, I'd be happy to answer them.
I even still have a few in my house. \Steve

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
79314 posts

Uber Geek

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Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#19343 30-Aug-2005 17:09

Hello and welcome to Geekzone... Thank you for offering to answer any questions here. You can also participate in other threads if you feel so inclined.

Candygogo

87 posts

Master Geek

#19368 31-Aug-2005 02:02

Sent you a pm, but like freitasm said, welcome! There's a few of us sprinkled around that either had the Datarover for years, or just picked one up (Like i did). I used to have the Sony Magic Link 1000 and got a bit nostalgic.

skidisk

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#19524 2-Sep-2005 09:28

Yes, the software technology in the Magic Link and DataRover was way too far ahead of the market. With today's hardware, it would be kick-ass. Oh well. It's too bad that Myrvold sucked up the IP even though he doesn't care about Magic Cap (he just wanted the Telescript stuff). If the founders had their way, they would have made Magic Cap open source and that might have been quite interesting. They tried to pry it away from him and he said he would, but in the end, he wouldn't.

Jama

1420 posts

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#19538 2-Sep-2005 16:51

Wow... looks cool. I don't have one of those in my PDA collection... Might have to try eBay.

Candygogo

87 posts

Master Geek

#19553 3-Sep-2005 01:19

Jama: Wow... looks cool. I don't have one of those in my PDA collection... Might have to try eBay.

Make sure you can get accessories with it. I haven't priced Sram cards in a few weeks, but when I got my Datarover, I almost passed out at the prices on ebay! I remember years ago when Sram cards (the only pcmcia card that required a coin battery) were extremely expensive. I'll check again.

skidisk

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#19567 3-Sep-2005 10:24

I have a few left, along with SRAM cards. I can sell you one for not very much.

Candygogo

87 posts

Master Geek

#19573 3-Sep-2005 13:11

skidisk: I have a few left, along with SRAM cards. I can sell you one for not very much.

Expect a PM soon ;)

Sharesies

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

lfcohen

3 posts

Wannabe Geek
Inactive user

#19650 5-Sep-2005 14:29

Hi Steve!

What a privilege to have you here. I found those pages while searching for some info on DataRover and software/hardware available.

I got a brand new one and received it this past Friday. As a heavy Apple Newton 2100 user, I think the DataRover is a very nice device.

Any chance that it is compatible to standard 802.11b Wireless card for Internet access ? Also, where can we get apps for Magic Cap other than the built in ones ?

Thanks a lot!

Leonardo Cohen

skidisk

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#19651 5-Sep-2005 16:03

sigh. Gosh, we did have them working with both standard 802.11 and Metricom. But now Metricom is dead and I don't know if the drivers work with current 802.11 cards.

This is like talking about a seemingly perfect marriage that is now dead and gone -- I'm getting sad just thinking about all the great work people did, all the hundreds of person years of effort and hundreds of millions of dollars that went into inventing all this totally cool stuff that was just way too early to market. But it's all gone now, and everyone has scattered.

There are still a couple of us who have apps; we were talking about posting them somewhere so you could download them -- though I'm not even sure how we'd do that. Maybe we have to mail around SRAM cards. You should at least have scramble -- that game rocks. Especially if you beam it to friends and play together.

lfcohen

3 posts

Wannabe Geek
Inactive user

#19758 6-Sep-2005 12:35

Hi again!

Thanks for your time to reply! Well, it is really not everyday that we see / read a CEO of such a great pair of companies on those forums! I remember following up on General Magic almost since it's first days, until it split into a new Hardware company (DataRover) and General Magic's amazing software and voice recognition services!

Shame they are all gone! I still refuse to use Palm's inferior system (compared to Newton and now to Magic Cap) and as a Mac user, I would never use a PocketPC devide.. imagine, having a monster-windows-baby on a palmtop!

Anyway, it is really very hard to find info on Magic Cap software and hardware on the Web! The few websites that I found have very limited software!

One thing I am really looking is a compatible Wireless 802.11b card, even it I need to get an used on on eBay! So, basically, it there anyone here that knows the brand and exact model of the ones that work with the DataRover 840 ?

Again, thank you for your time on those subjects!

Leonardo

skidisk

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#19759 6-Sep-2005 14:47

Thank you for the kind words. I'll ask one of the amazing Magic Cap Magicians to read this strand and offer what help he can regarding 802.11 cards, if any.

joshcarter

1 post

Wannabe Geek
Inactive user

#19791 7-Sep-2005 03:49

Hi all,

I wrote the Lucent WaveLAN (802.11) driver for Magic Cap. I know it works with the WaveLAN Bronze and Bronze Turbo cards, but this was before the Silver (WEP-enabled) cards came out, so it doesn't support WEP. (Turns out WEP isn't so hot anyway, and people are moving to WPA and whatnot.) I'm not sure what other cards might work with it. Unfortunately, I had the driver posted on my spies.com site, and that got nuked several months ago. I'm sure I have a backup somewhere, but I haven't yet dug through my 100 or so backup CD-Rs to find it.

I'd suggest that all Magic Cap users subscribe to the MC mailing list. There are several of us on there who are more than happy to answer questions. I'm also sure someone there has a copy of the WaveLAN driver and could mail it to you. Subscribe or browse the archives here:

http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/magiccap.html

Also, I have a number of resources on my web site here:

http://multipart-mixed.com/magiccap/">/a>

Best regards,
Josh

lfcohen

3 posts

Wannabe Geek
Inactive user

#19792 7-Sep-2005 04:34

Hi Josh,

Thank you very much for the tip.. I will try to get my hands on one of those Lucent cards....

Also, thank you for such a great website that you have, basically, everything that I have now on my DataRover 840 I downloaded from there! :-)

Any clue on where we can find apps other than games for the DataRover ? PIM's, Financial, etc etc I have my "GameRoom" full of apps, but all other areas just the basic Magic Cap default apps!

Thanks!

Leonardo

Ps. And yes, I subscribed to that nice ML!