Pocket-Size Peek Into the Future : Technology: General Magic today will unveil its ‘personal communicator’ software design, which many see as the next big step in consumer electronics.

MOUNTAIN VIEW —  Backed by a blue-chip roster of U.S. and Japanese electronics companies, a small Silicon Valley firm called General Magic today will unveil software technologies designed to help put “personal communicators” into the hands of almost everyone.

Founded in 1990 by three highly regarded Apple Computer veterans, the company hopes to play a central role in the development of pocket-size devices that will act almost as personal secretaries--sending, receiving and sorting messages, keeping a schedule and address book, and intelligently automating a host of daily tasks.

Many electronics industry observers expect these pen-operated personal communicators--also known as “personal digital assistants”--to be the next big breakthrough in consumer electronics. Several companies, including Apple, Tandy Corp. and a start-up called Eo Inc., have already announced plans to begin selling such machines later this year.

General Magic aims to persuade all manufacturers of such devices to use its software, enabling people with otherwise-incompatible machines to communicate with each other and also with the next generation of electronic information services.

The company has already taken giant strides in establishing one of its two software products, a communications language called Telescript, as an industry standard. Apple, Motorola, Sony, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Philips Consumer Electronics Co. and AT&T; have invested in General Magic and agreed to use Telescript in future products.

In addition, Sony, Motorola and Philips will build personal communicators that use the other piece of General Magic software, called the communicating applications platform, or Magic Cap. It will serve as the operating system for the machines, controlling all the basic functions and providing an easy-to-use control screen operated with a pen-like device.

And AT&T;, a major backer of Eo, will build a new communications service around the Telescript language. Dubbed the Consumer Messaging Service, it will function as an advanced electronic mail system that also provides easy access to news services, on-line shopping, travel reservations and other electronic information services.

“If (General Magic) pulls this off, Telescript will be the digital version of English,” said Richard Shaffer, publisher of the Computer Letter. “It looks like the technology is a solution to an important problem. But the challenge is getting other companies to use it . . . and keeping their group (of partners) together over the long term.”

It remains unclear when products using the General Magic software will begin hitting the market. The company and its partners--who are revealing only the general outlines of their strategy at a New York news conference today--indicated that the devices will not begin to reach the market until the end of this year at the earliest. Initially, prices will probably be in the $500-to-$1,000 range.

Marc Porat, president and chief executive of General Magic, said the company is “geared to the very long run” and that it might take 25 years or more for the personal communicator business to fully develop. Ultimately, he expects the devices to be nearly as ubiquitous as the telephone.

Personal communicators will come in many shapes and sizes, some featuring wireless communications links and others requiring a telephone jack. All will make it easy to send electronic mail or a fax, automatically find phone numbers stored in a directory and allow the user to determine how individual messages are sent and received.

The devices could also be used to navigate the growing mass of information available in electronic form. When planning a vacation, it might be possible to simply enter the date and destination. The software could work like an electronic travel agent, automatically checking flight schedules, hotel availability and weather conditions, then making reservations and sending other useful information.

Clearly, it will take time to develop the interlocking set of products and services that would make this feasible. But analysts say General Magic, with its impressive roster of partners, could play an important role by establishing a vital communications standard.

General Magic’s ability to attract industry support stems in large measure from the reputation of Porat’s fellow co-founders, Bill Atkinson and Andy Hetzfeld, who wrote most of the basic software for the Apple Macintosh.

Even for such legendary software designers, though, it will be no mean feat to get Telescript and Magic Cap to work as advertised.

“Telescript is designed to handle communications over any kind of network--that’s an amazing challenge,” said Denise Caruso, editor of the newsletter Digital Media.

She also noted that Magic Cap will probably have to fight a long war with competing personal communicator operating systems from Apple, Microsoft, Go Corp., Sharp and others.

Indeed, General Magic’s relationship with Apple has been the subject of lively speculation in Silicon Valley. Apple’s much-hyped Newton machine, scheduled to debut later this year, will eventually include the Telescript software, but it will use its own operating system and stands to be a head-to-head competitor with devices using the Magic Cap operating system.