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How the Lisa Changed Everything

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the just-a-nothing-boring-sunday dept.

Sabah Arif writes "The Lisa, started in 1979 to provide an inexpensive business computer to Apple's lineup, enjoyed little success. With its advanced object oriented UI and powerful office suite, the computer was priced well above the means of most businesses. Despite its failure, the Lisa influenced most user interfaces, and introduced many features unheard of in earlier systems (like the Xerox Star or VisiOn). Read the story of the development and demise of the Apple Lisa at Low End Mac."

1 of 194 comments (clear)

  1. I disagree with the conclusion by AshPattern · · Score: 5, Informative

    My father, an early adopter-type, had a Lisa for his office, and it was the Lisa that I first learned how to program on.

    One of the most maddening things about programming the Lisa was that you couldn't make programs that integrated well with the Lisa office suite. Why? Because there was no API for the GUI. None. If you wanted a window drawn, you fired up QuickDraw and drew it yourself. Want a scroll bar? Do it yourself. Menus? Right.

    I ended up only using the development environment's console for my programs' interfaces. The development environment was also console based, probably for the same reasons. A couple of years later, Apple released the Lisa Toolkit that had all that stuff, after they had announced they were going to discontinue it.

    So in my opinion, it was the lack of software that killed the Lisa, not its high price. I mean, people were paying for it, and they wanted more. The ability to use proportional fonts was the killer feature to end all killer features.

    It's worth noting that Apple learned its lesson about making developers happy - the developer support program for the Macintosh has been one of the best.