3 ms·

Here's a developer introduction to Magic Cap from 1995: http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.11/11.05/MakingMagic/index.html http://www.mactech.com/artic

• mwcampbell 11y ago
  So the persistent storage was RAM? How did anyone think that was a good idea? Was flash just too expensive?
  • bigtones 11y ago
    NAND flash was not commercially available at that time.
  • thescriptkiddie 11y ago
    Yes.
  • Gibbon1 11y ago
    My memory (heh) fails me somewhat. But I think the only Flash available in 1995 was NOR Flash. So very slow, expensive, unavailable in reasonable sizes, only limited numbers of writes. When I said very slow I mean glacially slow. I have worked on systems with battery backed RAM. Works fairly well, however a naive reliance on it will result in data corruption and tears. (Hint reset or a program crash can come at any moment)
  • Tloewald 11y ago
    I repeatedly lost data with early Windows CE and Palm devices for similar reasons. The Newton, on the other hand, was persistent even with dead batteries -- I never lost data on a Newton, even the dreadful (and expensive) original Messagepad.
  • protomyth 11y ago
    Flash was later and bubble memory had faded. Magic Cap, Newton, and Palm Did the battery backed RAM. The Newton had two batteries to keep RAM alive (one main battery and a watch battery to handle longer term / main battery switch). The OS was on an EPROM.