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The Magic Cap demo MIDI songs

The DataRover 840 device was one of the systems which used the Magic Cap software platform.

In January 1994, at the MacWorld Expo, Bill Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld did a demo of the Magic Cap software platform, which was produced by General Magic and designed for use on handheld digital devices. The Magic Cap platform incorporated metaphors in the form of such items as a notebook and an office inbox and a desk. Users could travel through a virtual "hallway" to access locations such as a game room outside of their office. The Metrowerks CodeWarrior Gold 10 development environment supported software development for a number of different platforms, including Magic Cap, and among the software and other material included was a number of MIDI audio songs that were used in the 1994 Magic Cap demo. Some of the songs, such as "Chopi Op. 35" and "Deck the Halls", appear to be versions of familiar songs. At the same time, many of the songs, such as "I'm Sorry" and "Curious George Finds a Banana" and "Thank you & Goodnight" seem unfamiliar and may have been written in-house or specifically for the "Gala Intro" Magic Cap demo.

Even though the songs are in MIDI format and some of them are of short duration, they cover a variety of music and some are quite good, particularly "Walkin'" and "Wake Up!" According to the information that was included with the General Magic MIDI songs on the CodeWarrior Tools CD-ROM, the Magic Cap platform had support for MIDI and a quantity of Roland sound canvas format MIDI songs were included on the CD-ROM for individuals who were interested in how MIDI songs were laid out for use on the Magic Cap platform. There was also a note of thanks to "Zarkø" for having provided the MIDI-related material. Among the persons who worked at General Magic was Zarko Draganic, the principal Magic Cap developer. (Tragically, Mr. Draganic passed away in 2014.) Michael Kanellos mentioned that General Magic discontinued operations in 2002, though Tony Fadell, who had worked at General Magic, has become known as the "father of the iPod". Another General Magic employee, Andy Rubin, later became a co-founder of Android.

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