Apple Lisa
Summary
Apple released the Lisa 1983; it is considered the first personal computer with mouse and keyboard. The operating system Lisa OS offers a graphical black-and-white interface. The processor is an Motorola 68000, which replaces the 8-bit processors of the Apple II series.
The Lisa sold poorly because of its launch price of 9995 USD, or 30,000 DM in Germany. Yet the London Sunday Times noted that Apple promoted the computer as “user-friendly and revolutionary”, and that in the Lisa’s case this was “actually true”.
The first model series has two 5¼-inch drives, while its successor, the Lisa 2, has a more modern 3.5-inch drive. Apple ProFile is an external hard drive with a capacity of 5 MiB, later 10 MiB.
Despite poor sales, estimated at around 10,000 units, the Lisa paved the way for the technically similar and successful Macintosh of 1984.
In 1989, Apple buried 2700 unsold Lisa computers in a landfill so that it could at least write them off for tax purposes. In an episode of The Simpsons, Lisa Simpson uses an old Lisa made by “Mapple”.
In addition to its own Lisa OS operating system, Microsoft’s Xenix operating system, a Unix variant, can be installed.
Connections in the collection
In the exhibition concept
- Apple Lisa and Macintosh · Area E, Section 1
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