You
know, about our differences, good ones."
Byron took a thoughtful suck of his pipe and nodded, then
expelled a plume of aromatic smoke.
"So I started thinking," Peter went on, his speech coming
quickly, "that with your experience in big system stuff, and with
what I know about little system stuff, what if we put our heads
together?"
Byron made a gesture with his pipe for Peter to go on.
"Okay. See, I've been thinking about portable computers, and PIAs
- you know, personal information managers. And as much as I think
they are helpful, like the Joey, they're not really as helpful as
the could be. They don't so much help you, not directly anyway,
as serve you, so to speak. I mean, they're really just smaller,
more tightly-integrated computers than real helpers."
"Mm hmm."
"So, what if there was a way to make a portable computer really
help you? To really assist you, by anticipating your next move.
By knowing you better and better the more you work with it?"
Byron took the small metal wind cap off the bowl of his pipe and
checked the tobacco. He leaned over the side of the rail and
tapped it carefully against his weathered palm, spilling the
black ashes into the ocean. Then he leaned against the cabin,
took a long swallow of his beer, and pushed his sunglasses higher
on his nose.
"What you're talking about is agents.
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