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Casper

Sid's machine - a custom-built iBook - arrives in a week. She's excited: she'll be able to play her own DVD movies on it. She says, 'That way I won't have to touch your thing!' (I assume she's talking about my box but you never know.) Anyway.

When John Sculley was at the helm of Apple, he and an engineer showcased a remarkable product at Moscone called Casper. Remotely akin to the MS Office paper clip, Casper was an 'assistant' built into a high-power Apple. Sculley talked to it. 'Casper do this' and 'Casper do that' and Casper did it and the journalists applauded politely. And when Sculley said 'Casper take a letter' they gave him a standing ovation.

Today's Macs have a descendant of Casper. You can call it 'Casper' if you want - its default name is 'Computer', and you don't have to call it by name at all. Tell it 'check my mail' and it opens your email client and connects to the net and checks your mail. Tell it 'make a new message' and it opens a window where you can compose an email message (you have to do your own typing). Tell it 'send this message' when you've completed the message and it sends the message off into SMTP. Say 'close this window' and it closes the email client window, and if you say 'exit this application' and it exits the application for you.

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