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Apple Brings Back Lisa Veteran

Posted by chrisd on from the is-it-soup-yet dept.

Anonymous Coward writes "eWEEK reports on a memo from Steve Jobs announcing that Apple's education sales and marketing have been combined under the direction of John Couch. Couch was the vice president and general manager in charge of Apple's Lisa project and was frequently at loggerheads with Jobs before exiting the company in 1982."

25 comments

  1. John Couch by p4ul13 · · Score: 0

    The Lisa was a flop. Couch has probably done some better things since then to be invited back to Apple to head a division. Anybody know what?

    --
    Paul Lenhart writes words!
    1. Re:John Couch by poiuyt23 · · Score: 1

      Lisa was a flop because Apple announced the Mac about the time that the Lisa went on sale. The Mac had a faster processor and 4 times the ram for about a third the price. This was more the fault of the marketing department letting out too much info about a product that the Lisa project teams fault.

    2. Re:John Couch by Analog+Penguin · · Score: 1

      I thought the Lisa came with a full meg of RAM, plus an internal hard disk. As I recall it, the prices were proportional to the hardware you got. The Lisa, IIRC, was not compatible with Mac programs (because of disagreements between the two teams), and also, $10K was waay too much for any system, hard disk or no.

      Read Stephen Levy's "Insanely Great" for a really interesting retelling of the story.

    3. Re:John Couch by poiuyt23 · · Score: 1

      You're right, the Lisa wasn't as much of a screw as I remember it being. However, the hard drive was external (5 meg) and the ram was only 512 k. I was thinking of the mac SE specs - almost 2 years later. That said the mac was 2500 - a quarter the price.

    4. Re:John Couch by jcr · · Score: 3, Informative

      The Mac had a faster processor and 4 times the ram for about a third the price.

      No, the Lisa had 1 Meg of RAM, and the Mac had 128K.

      IIRC, the original Mac had an 8Mhz 68000, but I don't recall the Lisa's processor speed.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    5. Re:John Couch by benwaggoner · · Score: 2

      Being a Big Fat Geek, 5 MHz immediately popped into my head. My long-retired Palm Pro put it to shame.

      Y'know, we need a term, measuring the time between when a personal computer comes out, and an equally powerful handheld comes out.

      Y'know
      Apple IIc -> Some HP calculator
      Mac SE -> Palm Pro
      AMD K6 -> iPaq

      The gap is getting smaller. Wonder when my phone will have a 500 MHz G4.

      --

      My video compression blog
    6. Re:John Couch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A "palmsec"? (from parsec)

    7. Re:John Couch by otuz · · Score: 1

      The Lisa had a 5Mhz 68000

  2. Who is "Lisa Veteran"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Am I the only one who's never heard of her?

    The story doesn't seem to give us much about her, so it wasn't much help.

    1. Re:Who is "Lisa Veteran"? by alacqua · · Score: 1

      Apparently she's friends with "Lisa Catera".

      --

      Move on. There's nothing to see here.
    2. Re:Who is "Lisa Veteran"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm afraid I don't know who "Lisa Catera" is either.

  3. Lisa V. by EyesWideOpen · · Score: 2, Funny

    Apple Brings Back Lisa Veteran

    Being someone not too familiar with the older Mac projects (the new ones either for that matter) my first reaction was, "Who is Lisa Veteran?!". I thought maybe she was some high up office type that was let go and brought back or something.

    --

    As with the sun's light
    My mom was magnificent
    Unquestionable
    1. Re:Lisa V. by Kris_J · · Score: 2

      Where's Fark's "Dumass" tag when you need it?

  4. Couch Potato by wizbit · · Score: 1

    Hopefully Couch has gone on to do bigger and better things before Apple courted him again - maybe Jobs is just trying to assemble a group of old-timers with low Employee ID's. The Lisa, as mentioned in just about every "History of Apple" book, website, etc, was a tremendous flop, horrendously overpriced (pricetag ~$10k anyone?), and eventually eclipsed in value and raw power by the Macintosh. I equate the Lisa to Apple's failed "Apple ///", a too-little, too-late addition to their CPU family at a time when Apple and Education were synonymous.

    I'm glad Couch has a legacy within the corporation, but does it really have to be for the Lisa? That's not saying much for his managerial prowess. :)

    1. Re:Couch Potato by Duck_Taffy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yeah, actually, the Lisa started at $15,000 and later dropped to $10,000. Although it was always far more powerful than the Mac during it's lifetime - much more memory, and better expansion capabilities. In fact, with some minor installations, you could turn a Lisa II (which was a free upgrade from an original Lisa) into a Macintosh VX.

      --
      Karma: Ran over your dogma.
    2. Re:Couch Potato by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know it's irrelevant, but I believe it was called Macintosh XL, not VX.

    3. Re:Couch Potato by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Couch is a good guy and honestly cares about education. I know for a fact that he'll do all he can (and is presently doing all he can) to bolster Apple's presence in the education market and make a difference.

    4. Re:Couch Potato by clarkgoble · · Score: 1

      The Lisa had a 5MHz clock while the Mac had a 8MHz clock, didn't it? Yeah the Lisa had more RAM, but that speed difference is pretty hefty.

      (Ah - for the days when that seemed fast!)

    5. Re:Couch Potato by Duck_Taffy · · Score: 1

      The original Lisa probably did, but I thought tha the Lisa II used the same 8MHz Motorola 68000 processor as the original Macs.

      --
      Karma: Ran over your dogma.
  5. He still around? by anarkhos · · Score: 2, Funny

    I thought they buried him along with the Lisas

    --
    >80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
    >life
  6. Not the only Apple Vetren making a come back by mach_5 · · Score: 3, Informative

    go to http://www.thinksecret.com see their article on Jag, look for the screenshot of the keyboard menu in Jag, you'll see clarus the dogcow is working at Apple again.

    1. Re:Not the only Apple Vetren making a come back by Huge+Pi+Removal · · Score: 2

      Boo Woo! Moof!

      I was really upset (well, quite upset) at the demise of Clarus... hope he's still there in the final release :)

      --
      - Oliver

      The right to bear arms is only slightly less stupid than the right to arm bears...
  7. Lisa by geethree · · Score: 1

    The Lisa technology was certainly eventually eclipsed by the Macintosh... but, those of us old enough to remember know that even after the Mac took off, you needed a Lisa to write applications for it. A Lisa, 5 meg ProFile, and developers kit.

    So you see, the Lisa was no flop. It was the beginning of the "Macintosh Way", much in the way that Henry Fords "tin lizzie" was the first mass produced auto.

    Don't diss the Lisa. She was the very first Mac.

  8. Lisa Catera by JCMay · · Score: 1

    Apparently she's friends with "Lisa Catera"


    Obviously not many people like low-end Caddys, do they?