Peter said the name faster. The Joey Plus asked him to repeat it once more, slowly this time, so that it knew three slight variations on of its own name, thereby making recognition more accurate.
"Pip?" Byron asked.
"Sure," Peter said. "Pip. Like in Dicken's "Great Expectations."
One of my all-time favorite characters."
"Then Pip it is," Byron laughed. "Let's give it a try."
Peter repeated the test and the Joey Plus, a.k.a. Pip, pulled off the scheduling task without a hitch.
"Well done," Peter said, congratulating Byron.
"That's nothing. We got the net lookup voice stuff working too."
"Hey, come look at this," Paul Trueblood said, appearing from behind one of the partitions used to divide the huge room.
Peter had contacted his two favorite engineers, Paul Trueblood and Rick Boardman, after he and Byron had relocated the project to California. During a dinner Peter had arranged, Byron had talked about the ISLE vision, providing the engineers the opportunity to get to know him. Both were excited by what they heard, and the very next day both engineers resigned from Wallaby and returned to Peter's home, ready to dive into the project.
In one hand Paul held a short stylus pen, and in the other a flat display unit that connected to another Joey Plus portable computer. With the stylus he began "writing" directly on the display. As he scribbled, the computer converted his script handwriting into clear text.