30 Years of the Apple Lisa and the Apple IIe

if the apple //e is 30 years old by joeflies · 2013-01-18 05:23 · Score: 4, Funny

that must mean I'm .... really old now.

Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by jythie · 2013-01-18 05:32 · Score: 1

I know the feeling. The //e is what I cut my teeth programming on ^_^
Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by perpenso · 2013-01-18 05:37 · Score: 1

that must mean I'm .... really old now.
But are those elephant floppy disks still good, nothing forgotten?
Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 05:39 · Score: 0

I know the feeling. The //e is what I cut my teeth programming on ^_^
That was my second love, after the II+. Still miss the programming when it was direct and simple.
Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by Black+Parrot · 2013-01-18 05:39 · Score: 1

II+

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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by ColdWetDog · 2013-01-18 05:41 · Score: 5, Funny

Oh great. Now you've done it. All the dinosaurs will wake up and chip in about what ancient and obscure computing platform was in vogue when they became of age. Of course, I would never stoop to such foolishness, except to mention that toggle switches still trigger a brief rush of dopamine in my decrepit brain. Ahh, the blinky lights.

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Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by CosaNostra+Pizza+Inc · 2013-01-18 05:47 · Score: 1

Apple II+ was what I started with, having a whopping 48kB of RAM. The IIe improved to 64kB.
Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by stokessd · 2013-01-18 05:51 · Score: 1

I can still hear the sound of the floppy drives. Man, that's music to these old and tired ears.
The IIe was my first computer I programmed for as well. But the Macintosh was much more magical in what it could do.
Sheldon
Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by c · 2013-01-18 05:54 · Score: 2

All the dinosaurs will wake up and chip in about what ancient and obscure computing platform was in vogue when they became of age.
Would I be off-topic or just not-dinosaur-enough if I said my first computer was an Apple //e?

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Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by Tackhead · 2013-01-18 05:56 · Score: 1

But are those elephant floppy disks still good, nothing forgotten?
Very probably just fine. I last booted my //e a year or so ago. Came up just fine. And yes, one of the disks was an Elephant.
EMS: An elephant never forgets.
Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by CanHasDIY · 2013-01-18 05:57 · Score: 1

The first computer I ever used was a Compaq Portable from about 1984, but the first computer I ever loved was a //e.

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Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by Sponge+Bath · 2013-01-18 06:01 · Score: 1

I remember using my abacus to calculate the profits on 48 million kilts ordered from the planet Skyron in the Galaxy of Andromeda.
Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by JeanCroix · 2013-01-18 06:08 · Score: 1

Mine still boots fine too, and my disks aren't even Elephant. Still the only Apple product I've ever owned.
Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by inode_buddha · 2013-01-18 06:21 · Score: 1

Kaypro 2 with CP/M and GEM in my case... the apples were cool tho.

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Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by bmo · 2013-01-18 06:23 · Score: 1

To be an asshole and a pedant, one uses brackets with the normal Apple ][ computers and slashies with the //c :-D
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Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by anerki · 2013-01-18 06:31 · Score: 1

Or not that old. I'm 28 and have fond memories of it :)

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Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 06:35 · Score: 0

My first computer was a Windows 98se. Bet you feel pretty old now.
Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by jythie · 2013-01-18 06:58 · Score: 1

Bah! Toggle switches? Those new fangled devices?

I had a professsor who used to like talking about programming via touching a nail to a series of contacts, inputting one bit at a time, and the wonderful innovation of a button that would input the whole byte a then *gasp* auto increment the input to the next byte in memory for you.

And to be fair to him, his ability to program in machine code (a hex pad with an enter key) strait into memory and have programs actually work as part of live demonstrations was impressive.
Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by slew · 2013-01-18 07:01 · Score: 2

To be an asshole and a pedant, one uses brackets with the normal Apple ][ computers and slashies with the //c :-D
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BMO
Yes you do, but the Apple //e computer (which followed the Apple ][+ and Apple ][ computers) used slashies before the //c..
I guess as an off-topic dinosaur asshole pedant, my first computer was and Apple ][+ as I held out for the basic in rom and improved color graphics over the Apple ][ model, but all my friends got the Apple //e and I was the one that had to suffer 40 column w/o native lowercase, since I couldn't afford an 80-column card :^(
As a stopgap I "liberated" a 70-column HRG patch that understood the shift-key-mod from a popular word-processor at the time, so all was not totally lost :^P
Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 07:07 · Score: 0

You'd be wrong then. I've seen it as //e.
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/photos/Apple_2e_Logo_s1.jpg
http://www.myoldcomputers.com/museum/comp/picture_pages/apple/apple_pics/iielogo.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIe
And there's also the IIgs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apple_IIgs_001.jpg
Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by swb · 2013-01-18 07:17 · Score: 1

Didn't most people populate Slot 0 with a 16k RAM card on the ][+?
Mine (er, the one my parents bought us in 1982...) had one, and I'm pretty sure they weren't pimping it for my benefit.
It was less common on the vanilla ][s because they had Integer BASIC in ROM and used Slot 0 for AppleSoft Basic cards, and I think if you put a 16k card in the ][ you had to load AppleSoft basic from disk.
The irony being that the 16k card wasn't ordinarily useful because it shared the memory pages with AppleSoft on the ][+ and it took assembly to use the memory, as paging it in to make it accessible, you lost AppleSoft until you flipped the page switch again. I wrote one simple program (AppleSoft) with an assembly routine to use the memory and remember rebooting a number of times because I would exit back to my AppleSoft program without flipping the paging switch and crash because the entry point to get back to my AppleSoft was just garbage in the 16k pages, not AppleSoft.
Third party software made better use for it because the better programs were written in assembler and didn't need the ROMs paged in and could make use of the "whole" 64k (minus the memory mapped text and graphics regions).
Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 07:33 · Score: 0

All the dinosaurs will wake up and chip in about what ancient and obscure computing platform was in vogue when they became of age.
Would I be off-topic or just not-dinosaur-enough if I said my first computer was an Apple //e?
The Apple //e is part of the topic of this Slashdot post, so you're not off-topic. However, I would be off-topic if I mentioned my old Atari 800, so I won't.
Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by Bill_the_Engineer · 2013-01-18 07:45 · Score: 1

Hush. I remember the original Apple ][. Imagine how I feel.
I remember playing with the Lisa (perhaps Lisa 2 it was '84) in a computer showroom. Later when the Macintosh came out, I was surprised by how much smaller it was.

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Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by MightyMartian · 2013-01-18 07:48 · Score: 4, Funny

Christ pal, you coulda just yelled "Get off my lawn!"

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Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by operagost · 2013-01-18 07:49 · Score: 1

I think the original Apple II also had Integer BASIC in ROM. You had to press RESET while the system was trying to boot DOS from the diskette. Of course, once the Plus came out everyone wanted Applesoft BASIC which you had to load from diskette or cassette.

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Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by bmo · 2013-01-18 07:51 · Score: 1

>Apple //e computer ... used slashies before the //c.
>anon coward's pics
I.... I forgot...
I'm going to have to claim old timer's disease.
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Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by operagost · 2013-01-18 07:54 · Score: 1

Oops... correction, you had to press RESET on the II+, the II went right into Integer BASIC, unless you had the Applesoft BASIC on a plug-in card I guess. We had it on diskette at my school.

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Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by Creepy · 2013-01-18 08:31 · Score: 1

Yes, most ][+ users added a 16k card. The //e was much more expandable memory-wise - I think my moms had 768k. The big expansion for the //e was the 80 column card which enabled double hi-res graphics with a whopping 16 colors.
The first computer I ever used was an 16k Apple ][ with tape drive at my elementary school. It was a real pain to load or save data on it. The next year (or maybe it was 2 or 3 years later, but still elementary school) the school got 4 48k Apple ][+s with Disk ][ drives and those were far and away superior. The old machine got put in a corner and I doubt it was ever used again.
Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by JazzLad · 2013-01-18 09:14 · Score: 1

TRS80 Model 1 here ...

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Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by Lisias · 2013-01-18 09:52 · Score: 1

>Apple //e computer ... used slashies before the //c.
>anon coward's pics
I.... I forgot...
I'm going to have to claim old timer's disease.
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BMO
Relax. That old computers from Apple were not famous for having a great memory! =P

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Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by postbigbang · 2013-01-18 10:13 · Score: 1

Remember your PR#6 to boot the floppy from Applesoft in ROM. Cloads were for cheapskates ;)

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Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by sconeu · 2013-01-18 10:24 · Score: 1

6 CTRL-P, if you were in ROM monitor.

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Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 10:44 · Score: 0

Kids these days.
When i got into this, we had to take a manufactures data-book and build our own.. then write the bootstrap, and o/s for it.. Just getting the damned thing to light up without letting out the smoke was an accomplishment many didn't achieve.
Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by JohnFen · 2013-01-18 12:34 · Score: 1

PDP-11
Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by slew · 2013-01-18 12:57 · Score: 1

Oops... correction, you had to press RESET on the II+, the II went right into Integer BASIC, unless you had the Applesoft BASIC on a plug-in card I guess. We had it on diskette at my school.
As I recall, on the initial board revs of the ][, there was no power-on-reset meaning you had to hit RESET which dropped you into the monitor ROM, although later board revs added power-on-reset. Even with power-on-reset, on the ][ there wasn't autostart code in the rom so you had to get into BASIC and type PR#6 (assuming that almost every plugged their floppy controller into slot#6) to boot the floppy. Applesoft BASIC could be loaded from the floppy (or cassette) into main ram (assuming you had enough), or on to the "language-card" ram extension. I don't recall any Applesoft BASIC rom card.
On the ][+, no-reset key was required. The boards shipped with the power-on-reset circuit and the default ][+ rom had autostart code that looked for specific signatures in plug-in-card address space rom space and jumped to the intialization code which allowed the floppy drive controller rom (or other boot device) to load the bootsector from the floppy w/o user intervention. If no rom signatures were detected, or if the floppy rom didn't detect a bootsector, it would just drop you into (Applesoft) BASIC. In the ][+ rom, the old integer BASIC was replaced by Applesoft BASIC (sadly, this also meant the demise of the assembler and sweet16 interpreter to make space). Of course you could break-out of the autostart sequence by hitting the RESET key, and typing the PR#6 to boot the floppy, but it wasn't required.
Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 17:15 · Score: 0

I wrote a version of my first game ChipWits for the IIe. Wrote it in FORTH.
http://www.channelzilch.com/doug/images/ChipWits%20028%20x1000.jpg
Re:if the apple //e is 30 years old by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 20:29 · Score: 0

Blinky lights. I remember the card puncher we used to write our programs in. I remember when they replaced them with ones with 80 chars of memory and a digital display. With the old ones if you forgot what you punched you could look in and see where you left off, with the new ones you had to remember or start over.

Another silly name by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 05:24 · Score: 0, Troll

I read it as "Apple Lie". Silly marketing people.

Re:Another silly name by Black+Parrot · 2013-01-18 05:38 · Score: 1

I read it as "Apple Lie". Silly marketing people.
Heh. Me too. I thought this was going to be a fun diatribe+flamefest.

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Re:Another silly name by Jeng · 2013-01-18 05:44 · Score: 1

I know it sounds childish to say Derp Derp, I thought it said Apple Lie, but no seriously I had to re-read it also.
I never would have made that mistake 6 years ago.

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Lies? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 05:25 · Score: 0, Troll

Who else initially read the title as "30 Years of Apple Lies" ?

Re:Lies? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 08:12 · Score: 0

Who else initially read the title as "30 Years of Apple Lies" ?
That's called a Freudian slip you only read the title that way if you have an irrational hatred of Apple.

Poor Lisa, she never had a chance by NixieBunny · 2013-01-18 05:27 · Score: 1

The Macintosh was such a superior machine in nearly every aspect that the unsold Lisas had to be hauled off to the landfill.

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Re:Poor Lisa, she never had a chance by CosaNostra+Pizza+Inc · 2013-01-18 05:54 · Score: 1

Nowadays, it makes a good fishtank for those waxing nostalgic
Re:Poor Lisa, she never had a chance by DickBreath · 2013-01-18 06:09 · Score: 2, Informative

Don't forget about MacWorks. The floppy disk that let your Lisa emulate a Macintosh. Slowly due to 5 MHz vs 8 MHz processor. And with weird display due to 1.5 to 1 rectangular pixels instead of nice square pixels.

Anybody remember having to use a Lisa to develop for the Mac? Cross compile. Put it on floppy disk. Then test it on a Mac. And every step was painfully slow. Compilers. Linkers. Inserting a floppy disk. Copying the file. Ejecting the disk.

Inserting the disk into the Mac had a much shorter delay before you could launch your program. (Assuming the Mac was booted and you had a 2nd floppy drive. Or you used a Corvus drive connected by Omninet.)

My how things have improved.

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Re:and thus began by Rockoon · 2013-01-18 05:27 · Score: 0, Flamebait

apple's 30 year (and counting) history of un-innovation (unovation?), copying other people's ideas, and claiming them as its own.

Oh come on, the Lisa was very innovative in getting a number of large corporations and state institutions to shell out large amounts of money on extremely sub-par hardware.

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love the apple IIe by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 05:27 · Score: 0

Don't forget there was even a graphics tablet for the IIe, back in those days I hex editted appleworks from the IIc (my dad's apple) to my own IIe
i might unpacks the IIe again to use it with contiki for modern day usage :)

Re:love the apple IIe by TXG1112 · 2013-01-18 05:45 · Score: 1

I remember the digitizers. My school had some Koala Pads. I had a //c and though the computer is long gone, I still have a box of floppies for the nostalgia.

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The Lisa was a flop by onyxruby · 2013-01-18 05:32 · Score: 3, Informative

The Lisa had a mouse and was pushed by Apple management due to the high price tag. The Apple IIe was much cheaper, had visicalc, supported a certain level of commodity hardware and wasn't pushed by Apple management.

The Apple IIe outsold the Lisa 20 to 1.

/subby, thank you for not claiming Apple invented the mouse and giving credit where credit is due....

Re:The Lisa was a flop by ColdWetDog · 2013-01-18 05:36 · Score: 1

Imagine that. A computer priced at around $2000 outselling one priced close to $10000. I guess it wasn't all gold paved sidewalks, peace and free love back then.

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Re:The Lisa was a flop by pauljlucas · 2013-01-18 05:58 · Score: 4, Informative

[T]hank you for not claiming Apple invented the mouse and giving credit where credit is due...

Except he didn't give proper credit. While Xerox had the first commercial sale of the mouse, it was invented by Doug Engelbart.

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Re:The Lisa was a flop by DickBreath · 2013-01-18 06:12 · Score: 3, Informative

Also remember that performance wise, the $2000 Apple IIe ran circles around the $10,000 Lisa. You could boot up VisiCalc and create a spreadsheet before the Lisa finished booting.

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Re:The Lisa was a flop by davester666 · 2013-01-18 06:15 · Score: 1

Oh, it was all gold paved sidewalks, peace and free love back then.
Only the price of gold was MUCH much lower.

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Re:The Lisa was a flop by tgd · 2013-01-18 06:53 · Score: 1

Imagine that. A computer priced at around $2000 outselling one priced close to $10000. I guess it wasn't all gold paved sidewalks, peace and free love back then.
Even more significantly -- that's about $24k in 2012 dollars.
Re:The Lisa was a flop by cashman73 · 2013-01-18 08:33 · Score: 1

And the iPad 4 Retina doesn't have a mouse, has 10 times the screen resolution of BOTH Lisa and IIe combined, 20 times the processor power of BOTH combined, a much lower price tag, and has already outsold both by a factor of 100. Combined.
Re:The Lisa was a flop by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 08:59 · Score: 0

Imagine that. A computer priced at around $2000 outselling one priced close to $10000. I guess it wasn't all gold paved sidewalks, peace and free love back then.
And who was the guy in charge that OKed this decision that almost bankrupted Apple?
Re:The Lisa was a flop by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 09:42 · Score: 0

no one cares
Re:The Lisa was a flop by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 09:45 · Score: 0

iPad 4 Retina has ... 20 times the processor power of BOTH combined
Wow, 120MHz! ... or were you talking about kFLOPs?

Lisa oh Lisa by hhawk · 2013-01-18 05:35 · Score: 1

The Apple IIe was my first computer. At Bell Labs I also used the Lisa, which was interesting and a bit buggy but also the first "fun" computer to use.. but I had more fun using TROFF.

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Apple ][ note: schematics included by mveloso · 2013-01-18 05:38 · Score: 3, Interesting

If I remember correctly, my Apple ][e included all the board schematics, which made it easy for everyone to make cards/etc. A few years ago I found my AppleSoft basic tutorial, which was pretty neat.

Ah, the good old days. Too bad nothing's beaten Wizardry when it comes to RPGs.

Re:Apple ][ note: schematics included by Sponge+Bath · 2013-01-18 06:07 · Score: 1

The Apple 2 red book had schematics, timing diagrams, and source listing for the system monitor. The tattered thing still sits on my shelf. The Commodore 64 had schematics as well. Those were the days.
Re:Apple ][ note: schematics included by mark-t · 2013-01-18 06:26 · Score: 1

You're thinking of the ][+. The //e (note, //e, not ][e, and yes, I'm being pedantic) was not quite as open.

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Re:Apple ][ note: schematics included by plate_o_shrimp · 2013-01-18 06:45 · Score: 1

You're thinking of the ][+. The //e (note, //e, not ][e, and yes, I'm being pedantic) was not quite as open.
So the Enhanced //e was not as open, but how about the original (unenhanced) ][e? (I'm being even more pedantic. ;-) All my 8-bit Apple lit is packed away and hard to get to, else I'd go look. Mine came as a ][e but I converted it to a //e....
http://www.apple-history.com/aiie
http://www.apple-history.com/aiiee

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Re:Apple ][ note: schematics included by mark-t · 2013-01-18 07:03 · Score: 1

The logo on it still said "Apple //e". This is what the one I owned looked like, and that was in 1984. The link you refer to says that the ][e was renamed to the //e when the //c came out, but the //c did not come out until 1985.
I also remember the splash startup logo on my //e saying "Apple //e" at the top of the screen, which differed distinctly from "APPLE ][+", which I had been used to seeing previously at school.

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Re:Apple ][ note: schematics included by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 07:31 · Score: 0

So the Enhanced //e was not as open, but how about the original (unenhanced) ][e? (I'm being even more pedantic. ;-)
Try harder... the 'e' stands for "enhanced"!
Re:Apple ][ note: schematics included by plate_o_shrimp · 2013-01-18 07:34 · Score: 1

The logo on it still said "Apple //e". This is what the one I owned looked like, and that was in 1984. The link you refer to says that the ][e was renamed to the //e when the //c came out, but the //c did not come out until 1985.
I also remember the splash startup logo on my //e saying "Apple //e" at the top of the screen, which differed distinctly from "APPLE ][+", which I had been used to seeing previously at school.
The early machines said ][ in the splash screen; the laters said //e. That was one way to know which ROM set you had.
http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/apple2/faq/01-010-What-is-an-Apple-II-The-Apple-e.html

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Re:Apple ][ note: schematics included by mark-t · 2013-01-18 07:57 · Score: 1

Well, I had a revision B motherboard (something I specifically requested, because of certain features I wanted to experiment with), and the extended 80 column adapter, which expanded my system memory to 128k (bank switched, since only 64k was addressable), but the CPU in my system was definitely not a 65c02.
My system also did not have the MouseText characters that came out with the //c, so by the link you are referring to above, I had an unenhanced Apple //e. Nonethless, both the logo on the case and the startup logo said //e, not ][e.
This website refers to a model that was discontinued in 1985, and is right beside an image that looks exactly like the model that I had. Note that it has the //e logo on the case cover. It's entirely possible that it was called the ][e for a very short time after launch, but I had never seen it... and I was practically living in a computer store near my place at the time, when I was preparing to get my own system.

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Re: Apple ][ note: schematics included by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 08:13 · Score: 0

Bzzzzt! See the link ending in "iiee"
Re:Apple ][ note: schematics included by plate_o_shrimp · 2013-01-18 08:26 · Score: 1

Well, I had a revision B motherboard (something I specifically requested, because of certain features I wanted to experiment with), and the extended 80 column adapter, which expanded my system memory to 128k (bank switched, since only 64k was addressable), but the CPU in my system was definitely not a 65c02.
My system also did not have the MouseText characters that came out with the //c, so by the link you are referring to above, I had an unenhanced Apple //e. Nonethless, both the logo on the case and the startup logo said //e, not ][e.
This website refers to a model that was discontinued in 1985, and is right beside an image that looks exactly like the model that I had. Note that it has the //e logo on the case cover. It's entirely possible that it was called the ][e for a very short time after launch, but I had never seen it... and I was practically living in a computer store near my place at the time, when I was preparing to get my own system.
It's all pedantry anyway. But sounds like you had what could be called a "partially enhanced" machine:
http://mirrors.apple2.org.za/ground.icaen.uiowa.edu/MiscInfo/Empson/iie.vers

If you are able to turn the machine on, the easiest way to identify an
enhanced IIe is to look at the machine name printed on the top line of
the startup screen:
Apple ][ indicates an unenhanced IIe
Apple //e indicates an enhanced IIe
The catch is that you might have a machine which has been partially
enhanced: it is possible for the CPU, video ROM and firmware ROMs (CD
and EF) to be updated independently (the firmware ROMs must be a
matching pair). Looking at the chips would be safest bet.
I remember engaging in many online (BBS & Usenet) discussions where the common shorthand was to use ][e for unenhanced, //e for enhanced (for times when it mattered.)

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Re:Apple ][ note: schematics included by mark-t · 2013-01-18 08:41 · Score: 1

Well, as I no longer have the machine, I can't look inside to make sure. I do remember what it looked like on the outside very vividly however (being my first computer of my very own), as well as the startup page (because it was different from what I was used to at school).. Also, this was before the //c came out (I don't remember exactly how much time went by before the //c, but it wasn't long.... probably less than a year).
And yeah... pedantry. Still, a fun trip down memory lane.

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Re:Apple ][ note: schematics included by Creepy · 2013-01-18 08:51 · Score: 1

That's right - the rev B motherboard. That was required for double high rez with the 80 column card. I was lucky my mom got a rev B because I had no idea, nor should I have had any idea at that age. Not sure what other features the rev B had though. I do know it was also expandable to about 1.5MB of memory using every slot (we used 4 slots and had around 768k, but I think only Appleworks really took advantage of it).

Re:and thus began by arth1 · 2013-01-18 05:39 · Score: 1

Oh come on, the Lisa was very innovative in getting a number of large corporations and state institutions to shell out large amounts of money on extremely sub-par hardware.

No, I think Sperry Rand can claim prior art on that one with their ridiculously overpriced/underperforming Univac near the end of the Univac cycle...

BYTE by ihatewinXP · 2013-01-18 05:41 · Score: 5, Interesting

For an amazing read look up the BYTE magaxine review of the Lisa. The article takes you on an amazing trip where the writer is trying to describe for the first time so many things we dont even think about.

IIRC he describes the 'pointing device' (mouse) as "about the size of a pack of cigarettes that moves a point on the screen - The screen then uses small pictures of common tasks to represent your actual desk top.

Watching them describe 'the desktop metaphor' when they dont know what it is a crazy reminder of just how fast this all happened...

--
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.

Re:BYTE by anerki · 2013-01-18 06:37 · Score: 2

And the actual review of the Lisa on BYTE magazine: http://blog.modernmechanix.com/a-behind-the-scenes-look-at-the-development-of-apples-lisa/

--
Life is great! (as told by Lady Susan)
Re:BYTE by anerki · 2013-01-18 06:40 · Score: 5, Informative

Actually the review is here: http://blog.modernmechanix.com/the-lisa-computer-system-apple-designs-a-new-kind-of-machine/

--
Life is great! (as told by Lady Susan)
Re:BYTE by temcat · 2013-01-18 06:55 · Score: 1

Do you have a link to that review? Would love to read it!

Lisa by Brickwall · 2013-01-18 05:44 · Score: 1

I worked on an Apple Lisa in Ottawa just after it was introduced. Like a lot of Jobs' ideas, it was a good concept that needed better, faster CPU's and denser, cheaper RAM. Think of the Newton - what is the iPhone but the Newton repackaged into a smaller form factor with superior hardware and telecoms added? I still think, if it hadn't been for Jobs and the whole Lisa/Mac lineage, I'd still be staring at c:>

--
What was once true, is no longer so

Re:Lisa by fermion · 2013-01-18 06:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

Which was the problem with Xerox machines as well. The thing about Apple is that they are selling stuff that sometimes isn't quite ready, from a commodity point of view, to be sold yet, or does not ultimately fit into the way we use computers. Here is what was wrong with the Newton. It was sold as a stand alone device. Some may disagree, but I used both models for a long time. They were very useful. They allowed my to do a lot of things. I could plug it into my network with a standard cable and work.
Here is what they got wrong. It was not a stand alone device. It really required a bigger more powerful machine to work well. That is why I move to the much less powerful, useful, rugged Palm V. At the end of the day, a partner was more useful than a competitor.
Apple has gotten that right now. Data can be viewed across a range of devices. Entered anywhere viewed anywhere. Which is the critical difference between the iPhone and Newton. Data Compatibility between the software. Google is also doing a very good job at this using Google Drive. MS still seems to be focused on making sure they receive a license payment for each individual box.

--
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Re:Lisa by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 08:21 · Score: 0

Steve Jobs was kicked off the Lisa project 1982. His only involvement with the Newton was to kill it after Apple reverse-bought NeXT

Lisa was better than most people realize by ChrisC1234 · 2013-01-18 05:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

The Lisa was ahead of its time, and many people don't know that. I grew up with a Lisa (later upgraded to Macintosh XL). For YEARS, my dad would complain how the Lisa could do more than the Macintosh operating system. Even the difference in desktop paradigms (where the Lisa was a document centric system, and the Mac is an application centric system). However, my dad's investment in the Lisas and their quick demise led him to curse Apple and Steve Jobs for a long time. We've still got 1 or 2 systems sitting in an attic somewhere. And I recall a few years ago having come across the whole set of system manuals for the original Lisa (with Twiggy drives).

Re:Lisa was better than most people realize by NJRoadfan · 2013-01-18 05:48 · Score: 2

You do realize that all that is now worth quite a bit of cash? That being said, Lisas haven't aged very well. Many of them need extensive repair and restoration. The worst problem is battery leaking acid all over the boards.
Re:Lisa was better than most people realize by Maximum+Prophet · 2013-01-18 05:57 · Score: 1

AFAIR, the Lisa had automatic versioning of files. When you saved a document, you didn't overwrite the previous versions. Of course, on a 5MB hard drive, you'd run out of space quickly.

--
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Re:Lisa was better than most people realize by cpt+kangarooski · 2013-01-18 06:58 · Score: 1

It was also, to my understanding, much nicer for hardware technicians. The case opened up easily, and everything was handy to get at. Certainly in comparison to the original Mac (and many of the later models too) which required weird screwdrivers and had exposed high voltage parts. No one who's accidentally touched a flyback transformer in a Mac ever forgets it.
The slide-out reference cards under the keyboard were also a good idea, and were present on the Mac during prototyping but never shipped. Too bad, or was a great idea. You can see them here: http://www.guidebookgallery.org/extras/spotlights/lisa/photos/keyboardreferencecards
But it wasn't all perfect. IIRC, the Lisas all had GUIDs which they would write to install disks as a standard, built in copy protect scheme.

--
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.

85 Years... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 05:49 · Score: 0

... of the Model A Ford.

Seriously, what's with the headline making like we're celebrating something that has been in continuous use? How about we celebrate the horse and buggy, or the flint and tinder?

Lisa was better, its price was the killer ... by perpenso · 2013-01-18 05:52 · Score: 5, Interesting

The Macintosh was such a superior machine in nearly every aspect that the unsold Lisas had to be hauled off to the landfill.

I don't know about the Mac being superior. I had the chance to use both, the Lisa had many advantages over the original Mac.

The problem with Lisa was the $10K price tag. That just put it out of reach of many Apple II developers so a market never really materialized, unlike the Mac which was affordable by such developers.

Prior to the first native Pascal, and later C compilers, friends and I were actually using 68000 coprocessors for Apple IIs to write Mac software in assembly. A Microsoft Basic program running on the Mac would read the binary from the serial port, poke it into RAM and jump to it. I am not saying this was cost effective compared to buying a Lisa for Mac development, but we had time and no money. One of my friends actually completed a strategy game port from PC to Mac in this manner. I'm not sure but I think it was one of the SSI games. Its not as crazy as it sounds. Core non-UI code could be debugged to a degree on the Apple II's 68000 coprocessor.

Re:Lisa was better, its price was the killer ... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 09:05 · Score: 0

I don't see why you couldn't do Lisa dev with that 68k coproc. Unless, of course, it was exactly the 68k and not available with other 68k-series processors.
The Mac used the cheap, already-in-production 68k. The Lisa used the 68010 with proper memory protection built in.
This is why the Mac was a terrible hack until OSX. The Lisa had a real operating system before such things were a marketing bullet-point. Lisa OS and BSD were the first of their kind: operating systems that enforced boundaries between running applications. Various other Unixii (A/UX, anyone?), NextStep, OS/2, Linux, Win95, WinNT, and OSX all followed from that original first step. The original iterations of Windows and all variations of Macintosh System/MacOS (not Mac OS X, note the spacing!) lacked this ultimately-necessary feature.
Re:Lisa was better, its price was the killer ... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 09:06 · Score: 0

One correction: Lisa OS and BSD were the first of their kind on non-mainframe/minicomputer hardware. They were the first to bring that feature to a personal computer.
Re:Lisa was better, its price was the killer ... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 09:32 · Score: 0

That better security on the Lisa that you mention would probably prohibit "poking" values in arbitrary memory locations, as was done to transfer of the binary to Mac. Plus if one had access to a Lisa for testing why not just use it for development? Even with limited access programming the Lisa natively in Pascal would be a hell of a lot more efficient than the coprocessor route.
Re:Lisa was better, its price was the killer ... by dfghjk · 2013-01-18 13:57 · Score: 1

Memory protection was not invented on a PC so your history lesson is way off. Also, Windows/386, which not only predates Win95 but Windows 3 (it was a Windows 2.1 variant) was protect mode.
Microsoft offered Xenix on the 286 and IBM offered TopView starting back in 1985. Both had protected memory.
Sorry, but the Lisa was not the "original first step" for protected memory. It does fit nicely with Apple lore though.
Re:Lisa was better, its price was the killer ... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-19 18:48 · Score: 0

> Microsoft offered Xenix on the 286 ...and on the Lisa, don't forget!

(sigh) memories by mark-t · 2013-01-18 05:52 · Score: 2

The Apple ][+ was the very first computer I ever really programmed on to any significant degree, which I used at school, and I had a //e at home myself in 1984.

To date, it remains the only computer that I ever worked with which I felt I understood thoroughly. I had a reference book "What's Where in the Apple" which documented all of the Apple's i/o memory location/blocks, zero-page addresses, and practically every ROM procedure entry point, which I ended up practically memorizing.

I have many fond memories of writing for that platform, and I doubt I'll ever forget it.

Heck, I still remember some of the hex opcodes for 6502 instructions: EA was NOP, 4C was JMP, 20 was JSR.... and 60 was RTS.

I remember I was sad when Woz decided to leave Apple, because I knew, even then, that meant that Apple was probably not going to take the Apple // line any further.

--
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'

6502 assembly ... by perpenso · 2013-01-18 06:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

I know the feeling. The //e is what I cut my teeth programming on ^_^

That was my second love, after the II+. Still miss the programming when it was direct and simple.

I am so glad that I learned assembly language on a 6502. If I had started on an x86 I probably would have had a bad attitude towards assembly like most who did start on x86. To be fair, x86 became a whole lot better once it went 32-bit. However 68000 remains my favorite. Learned it via coprocessor boards in our Apple //e systems. PowerPC was OK, it had its moments.

Re:6502 assembly ... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 06:09 · Score: 3, Insightful

The manual that came with my II+ had a section on 6502 Assembly that I believe was actually written by Steve Wozniac. I learned assembly in third grade just from that manual.
Could you imagine a kid nowadays putting down Angry Birds to figure out assembly code on his Intel i7 core-whatever? I don't know how kids today or in the future are going to learn the basics like we did.
(And get off my lawn!)
Re:6502 assembly ... by joeflies · 2013-01-18 08:36 · Score: 1

The only reason I learned 6502 assembly was because of the articles in Hardcore Computist, a quasi-legit hacking magazine for the Apple II
Re:6502 assembly ... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 10:23 · Score: 0

+1
I learned assembly on the IIe and it it was the same as the IBM mainframes in college. Yes, I'm a (younger) dinosaur.
Re:6502 assembly ... by flargleblarg · 2013-01-18 12:00 · Score: 1

Could you imagine a kid nowadays putting down Angry Birds to figure out assembly code on his Intel i7 core-whatever? I don't know how kids today or in the future are going to learn the basics like we did.
I dunno. I had access to tons of Apple ][ games when I was a kid, and although I spent a good amount of time playing them, I still spent as much time learning assembly language, BASIC, and writing my own games. Things haven't changed that much in 30 years. Games are better now, but not necessarily more potentially distracting. It's really the person and not the situation.
Re:6502 assembly ... by dfghjk · 2013-01-18 13:44 · Score: 0

"If I had started on an x86 I probably would have had a bad attitude towards assembly like most who did start on x86."
There's an idiotic generalization. What you really mean is that you're pleased with your prejudices.
Re:6502 assembly ... by dunng808 · 2013-01-18 14:13 · Score: 3, Interesting

My first computer was an Ohio Scientific. 6502, 4k RAM. I added 4K (maxed the MB) and purchased the assembler. Loved coding up assembly code, wrote my own terminal emulator, had to wire in the RS232 interface. Shunned the Apple ][ because OSI did lower case and had graphic gliphs in upper 128 bytes of character generator, great for writing games. Apple ][ only had solid colored blocks, but could do hi-res graphics (cough) if you could afford 48k RAM. My second computer was an IBM Portable Computer (sewing machine case luggable) used for work. Third computer was an Apple Proforma, last of the 68020 family. My kids loved that one. Several fruit colored iMacs, skipped the basket ball version, have a couple flat screen iMacs, MacBooks, you name it. But I prefer my Fujitsu running FreeBSD.
I was working at a retail computer store when the Lisa came out. I recall sales falling through the floor with no new product, customers flocking to the new IBM PC (sold exclusively at IBM stores). Our store had to hire and train a Lisa specialist. He would spend an hour prepping for a demo, setting up a word processing window and a spreadsheet window to show how cool cut and paste was. He did not set that up in front of the client because of how long it took to load those two programs. I think he sold one.
The //e was introduced with the slogan "Apple II forever!" I doubted it then but was impressed by the longevity of the e and the c. Pleasantly surprised that the Lisa and Mac survived adolescence. Many Apple retailers did not, as they lacked the cash reserves Apple had amassed.

--
Gary Dunn
Open Slate Project
Re:6502 assembly ... by chriscappuccio · 2013-01-18 19:24 · Score: 1

bullshit. the situation and the person -combined- drive the outcome.
Re:6502 assembly ... by oatworm · 2013-01-18 19:51 · Score: 1

To be fair to kids, assembly really isn't the "basics" for their computing world anymore. I guarantee you kids interested in computers these days know more about markup and scripting languages than most greybeards knew about them back in the early '80s, which is as it should be - the only thing most kids in the '80s knew about punch cards, if they knew anything about them, was that they made excellent bookmarks. You also didn't see a lot of kids picking up COBOL, either.
Re:6502 assembly ... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-19 07:02 · Score: 0

DTACK?
Re:6502 assembly ... by perpenso · 2013-01-20 06:49 · Score: 1

DTACK?
Yes, I loved it! DTACK Grounded was also a fun read.

Re:and thus began by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 06:04 · Score: 0

Apple spent YEARS developing Macintosh from 1979 through 1984 before releasing it. They did not just steal the GUI & mouse from XEROX and go.

For example, the Inside Macintosh programming manuals describe how to cut and paste text cleanly. Cut the highlighted words *including one of the adjacent spaces* & paste the word to the *side opposite that space*. Otherwise, the words have the wrong number of spaces & an extra space is left in the old position.

There are many stupid GUI errors left in MS Windows & X-windows TODAY that the original Macintosh team planned to do right.

Thirty years ago... tomorrow by GrumpySteen · 2013-01-18 06:06 · Score: 1

Wouldn't it have made more sense to post this tomorrow, which is actually the 30th anniversary of the press release, rather than the day before?

Re:Apple best EVAR by DickBreath · 2013-01-18 06:15 · Score: 1

Back in the day, Apple rocked.

I can understand your bashing. Apple is not the same company anymore. But the topic is about the old Apple. Before it became as evil as Microsoft. Probably as evil as Google will one day become.

--

I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.

//e + Mockingboard, skyfox, ultima, music const by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 06:16 · Score: 2, Informative

Anyone a Mockingboard fan?

I cut my teeth too on BASIC and 6502 assembly back then when I was 11 years old in junior high school.
The mockingboard had excellent info w/ assembly examples etc. for working with the sound chips.
Used to use the 6522 interrupts on the mockingboard to do different things not always related to sound!
Huge ultima fan especially with mockingboard.
Music Construction Set -- landmark interface from child prodigy Will Harvey
Anyone wire up their non-maskable interrupt to jump into the monitor to aid cracking games? remember those days? The Pirate bay.
Also wrote BBS software w/ dialup modem and floppies to store BBS message base / user base / e-mail prior to internet e-mail.
Many hours in front of the apple hacking away.
Such nostalgia...
Hard Hat Mack, Cannonball blitz, getting ready to fire up an emulator!

Jobs Fired by AllanL5 · 2013-01-18 06:17 · Score: 1

I'm surprised they don't mention Steve Jobs being kicked out of the company by John Scully in 1986, the decline in the company's fortunes from 1992, and Jobs coming back to save the company in 1996.

The problem with the Lisa was that it was built by a bunch of ex-HP engineers, to whom a $10,000 price tag wasn't extraordinary -- it's not like they bought their own equipment, the company did. But that was dramatically different from the Apple II+ customers, to whom $1500 was affordable. The Macintosh used the same processor (68000) and better disks, and a simpler GUI OS to fit in the more limited space. This made a much more successful, if more limited product, at a $2500 price point Apple customers could afford.

Re:Turtles by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 06:17 · Score: 1

I like turtles

I like Turtle Graphics.

Slow? by Zedrick · 2013-01-18 06:30 · Score: 1, Informative

How was 5MHz slow in 1983? I had a C64 clocked at 0.985MHz (PAL) around that time and it was more than enough + better (in every way) than any Apple.

Re:Slow? by Jmc23 · 2013-01-18 08:17 · Score: 1

Really? So you're saying the C64 had higher resolution than Apples? The syntax easier? More programmable both hardware and software?
Tell me, how did you jump over to our timeline?

--
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Re:Slow? by Creepy · 2013-01-18 09:06 · Score: 1

Says the person that never used a Disk ][. The C64 disk drive was only marginally faster than the C64 tape drive, which is to say, go take a nap while loading or saving anything. Also the C64's lack of expandability made it obsolete faster.
I'm not saying the C64 was bad - great graphics and sound for the price at that time compared to pretty much anyone else, but certainly not better in every way. Now Amiga OTOH...
Re:Slow? by QuantumLeaper · 2013-01-18 11:14 · Score: 1

The 1541 (C64 disk drive) was backwards compatibly with the 1540. If they had dumped backward compatibly it would have been almost as fast as the 1571. Also the programming on I/O for the drive and C64 wasn't that great. Compare JiffyDos (ROM replacement) on the C64/1541 to see what the drive could really do. I remember load time of one program was 4 minute on a stock 1541, with Jiffy Dos it was around 20 or less.
Re:Slow? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 12:07 · Score: 0

320x200, same on both. Check out these videos of what C64 stock video hardware can do these days with tons of memory....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXLv7UosQXs
The Apple HAD to be exapandable cuz it sucked otherwise ;)
Re:Slow? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 12:48 · Score: 0

Apple IIe didn't have 320x200. It had a "double-high resolution" mode of 560x192 though.
Re:Slow? by Trenchbroom · 2013-01-18 14:17 · Score: 1

As a C64 kid the only thing I was jealous of the rich kids and their Apple IIs was the disk drives. Quiet, reliable and fast. Woz really was a helluva engineer.

6809 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 06:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

I, too, started with assembly on 6502 (well, the Commodore 64 had a 6510 to be precise). Then 68000 on the Amiga. Good times. After that I mostly developed on ARM2 and ARM3. That was the most beautiful instruction set I've ever seen. All effects on conditions codes are optional, which makes for some very efficient code. Bloody fast, too. For that time anyway, I've not kept up with current trends.

But, for sheer fun, nothing beats the 6809 CPU. You can feel it's halfway between the 6502 and 68000. Underrated, really. I really should build a single-board computer with that delight again. Nothing against Arduino and such things, but there is something different about those older designs.

Re:6809 by Gordonjcp · 2013-01-18 07:47 · Score: 2

The really neat thing about the 6809 is the auto-increment index registers, and having two stacks. It's like it was purpose-designed for running Forth.
Re:6809 by mc6809e · 2013-01-18 14:00 · Score: 1

And don't forget program counter relative addressing modes for position-independent code.
When I started on x86 I was shocked to learn there was no PC-relative addressing mode. What a hassle.
Re:6809 by Gordonjcp · 2013-01-18 22:06 · Score: 1

That was the great thing about the 68000 (and the PDP-11 family, too) - it was almost impossible *not* to write position-independent code ;-)

Story Title... by David_Hart · 2013-01-18 06:31 · Score: 1

Is it just me or did anyone quickly read the story title as: 30 Years of the Apple Lisa and the Apple LIE:

I guess my subconscious view of Apple is showing...

Re:Story Title... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 07:36 · Score: 0

You must be reading this on a Chromebook to mistake Lisa for LIE:
(Go on, do tell us another one...)
Re:Story Title... by David_Hart · 2013-01-18 08:22 · Score: 1

You must be reading this on a Chromebook to mistake Lisa for LIE:
(Go on, do tell us another one...)
It was the IIE part in "30 Years of the Apple Lisa and the Apple IIE" that looked like the word LIE to me...
(you might want to work on that reading comprehension...)

Fond memories by anerki · 2013-01-18 06:31 · Score: 1

I have fond memories of the Apple II. It, among many other things, had some very low entry level programming tools (basically no GUI means this is the case whatever you try to do on it) which was my very first experience with programming as a child. When at 10 I got my first computer, an Apple Classic though... It had HyperCard on it... Oh HyperCard, why did you have to go... It'll never be the same without you.

There's just something that's different now. Computers used to be, I don't know, more like *our* stuff. Now that's it gone from enthousiasts to the whole world it feels... different. Not worse per se, just different, like something was lost. My childhood memories are full of afternoons/weekends with dad on the Apple II or if some friend of his, a fellow enthousiast, came over to experiment on stuff. Those were the best days, ending with stacks of floppys of new stuff! Not that you had that much new stuff, it was just stuffitted :)

--
Life is great! (as told by Lady Susan)

what $2,000 USD got you in 1983... by Sebastopol · 2013-01-18 06:40 · Score: 2

Funny how PC prices still hover in the same general price range.

In 1983, for about $2,000, I got this (I was 13):

Apple //e, 64KB
Green Monochrome Apple Monitor
Apricorn 80-column card (for displaying 80-columns, duh)
Imagewriter Printer (9-pin dot matrix, noisy as heck)
Two 5-1/4" disk drives (and disk drive controller card)
PFS Write (Word Processor)
Snooper Troops (game)
Cheap Particleboard Desk
1-year subscription to NIBBLE magazine

Best Christmas gift ever. Of course, this was my ONLY Christmas gift for some time, as it depleted a huge chunk of my parents' savings, so after this Christmas gifts consisted of one or two pieces of $50 software (like Wizardry, or Bard's Tale).

This setup lasted me until late 1988 when I saved up enough summer job cash to build a 386 clone.

--
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested

Re:what $2,000 USD got you in 1983... by TeknoHog · 2013-01-18 08:43 · Score: 1

PFS Write (Word Processor)
Snooper Troops (game)
Ah, the days when you had to pay for decent software, and you probably did not get the source.

--
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Re:what $2,000 USD got you in 1983... by takshaka · 2013-01-18 10:03 · Score: 1

Ah, the days when you had to pay for decent software, and you probably did not get the source.
Pay? Not when we had Copy II Plus.
Re:what $2,000 USD got you in 1983... by Sebastopol · 2013-01-18 12:24 · Score: 1

Yes!!
And don't forget Locksmith 5.0!!! Damn that program was fast. Back when you could control the alignment of the read/write head through IO and write half-tracks.
Actually, I don't miss that at all. Heh.

--
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Re:what $2,000 USD got you in 1983... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-19 00:49 · Score: 0

"Funny how PC prices still hover in the same general price range."
Err, no:
http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm
"$2,000.00 in 1983 had the same buying power as $4,624.43 in 2012."
Not to mention that for $2.000, nowadays you get a high-end model, computers are available for just a few hundred $, even portable ones. Fortunately, in the last 30 years, computers became affordable to (almost) everyone.
Re:what $2,000 USD got you in 1983... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-19 05:06 · Score: 0

computers are available for just a few hundred $, even portable ones.

Just as they were 30 years ago:
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/files/nodes/1210/vic20.jpg
http://www.trs-80.com/adver/ad-model-102-computer-%5B26-3803%5D-(rs).jpg
http://www.ganjatron.net/retrocomputing/zx81/cc128207a.jpg

Praise And Horror For The Apple IIe by EXTomar · 2013-01-18 06:47 · Score: 2

As I mentioned in another post, I very much appreciate my parents for getting an Apple IIe (with the 80 column text card) but it took me long after to consider how expensive that piece of hardware was for them just in 80s US$ let alone what it could cost today!! My fond memories of coding my own stuff (like a school presentation with ASCII graphics) and playing "Agent USA" and "Ultima 4" and "Ultima 5" and other games but it never really sunk in until these anniversaries came around just how expensive the hardware and software really was.

So while I salute my parents and Apple for providing me with a neat little computer to play and do some BASIC code on, I am really shocked it went anywhere due to the price tag.

Waaaay back by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 06:50 · Score: 1

All I remember is PR#6

remember? by Roskolnikov · 2013-01-18 06:53 · Score: 1

3d0g

--
Unix, an obscure operating system developed by bored researchers in an attempt to get a better game playing experience.

Re:remember? by xystren · 2013-01-18 12:54 · Score: 1

I'll byte... 3d0g was the DOS reentry point. You'd typically type this when you wanted to exit the monitor (which you would enter by CALL -151)...
So, how about this one.
CALL -151
FA62:4C 59 FF
3D0G
or
CALL -151
B942:18 60 BAAA:00 3D0G
That bring back any memories?
Re:remember? by hb253 · 2013-01-18 14:06 · Score: 1

Holy cow, high school flashback.....

--
Self awareness - try it!

Anyone else misread that as "Apple Lie?" by PPalmgren · 2013-01-18 06:54 · Score: 1

I wonder what that says about my perception of the company :)

The problem with the Lisa by Animats · 2013-01-18 06:56 · Score: 5, Interesting

The Lisa got so many things right. A good GUI, a protected-memory operating system, and a hard drive file system. The problem was price. The price problem was due to trouble at Motorola. The Motorola 68000 didn't do instruction backout properly, so it couldn't handle page faults correctly. That was corrected in the Motorola 68010, but the 68010 was too late for the Lisa. So the Lisa had to use a compiler hack to work around the lack of instruction backout.

Because the 68000 couldn't do instruction backout, Motorola didn't make an MMU chip for it. So the Lisa had a custom MMU built out of a large number of ICs. This pushed the parts count and cost way up.

Because good hard drives weren't available for personal computers when the Lisa was designed, Apple built their own, the LisaFile. Apple's attempt at hard drive manufacturing produced a slow, expensive, unreliable drive.

By the time the Lisa shipped, Sun was shipping the Sun I, and the UNIX workstation era had started. The Lisa was in the same price range as UNIX workstations, but the Sun I had a 68010, Ethernet, and hard drives that were expensive but worked.

If it weren't for the instruction backout problem on the 68000, the history of computing could have been completely different. The Lisa was usable, but overpriced. The original Macintosh was an appallingly weak machine - one or two floppies, a slow CPU, and very little memory. This tends to be forgotten, but the original Mac was a commercial failure. Not until the hardware was built up to 512K and a hard drive was supported did it become profitable. (Or usable.) But it was saddled with an OS designed for 64K of RAM. (The original MacOS had a good GUI, but under the hood, it was a lot like DOS - not only was there no memory protection, there wasn't even a CPU dispatcher. The original Mac was supposed to have only 64K of RAM (most of the OS was in ROM) but shortly before shipment, it was increased to 128K.)

Re:The problem with the Lisa by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 07:24 · Score: 1

The Motorola 68000 didn't do instruction backout properly
What is instruction backout? I tried to Google it, but it looks like you are the only person who uses the term. :)
Re:The problem with the Lisa by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 07:30 · Score: 1

Yeah, we got a Mac at the company I worked for when they were first released.
'That's kind of interesting with the mouse and stuff'
'But what can we do with it?'
'Look, if you move the mouse around you can draw pictures on the screen'
That was about it, really. No idea why the guy who ran the company bought one, guess it was the Apple logo on the side.
Re:The problem with the Lisa by kent.dickey · 2013-01-18 08:25 · Score: 1

The original 68000 CPUs couldn't take TLB miss exceptions properly--some of the instructions would partly execute when you tried to take an exception. So you couldn't really do virtual memory properly with them, even with external logic (which people tried to do). The 68020, which came much later, had a built-in MMU.
Re:The problem with the Lisa by Animats · 2013-01-18 08:38 · Score: 5, Informative

What is instruction backout?
When a page fault occurs part-way through an instruction, the CPU has to interrupt execution. After the page has been brought in from disk, execution can resume. But it must resume as if a page fault hadn't occurred. The usual approach is to restart from the instruction that failed, which means that instruction gets done twice.
The problem is that some instructions aren't idempotent - doing them twice has effects different than doing them once. On some CPUs, an instruction can call for both a memory access and a register increment. If the memory access faults, the register must not be incremented twice. So either the instruction has to be backed out to the state just before it started, or the state of the partially executed instruction has to be saved in the interrupted state. (The M68010 actually did the latter; there were extra words in the state saved on an interrupt to hold data about partially finished instructions.)
This gets much more complicated in superscalar machines, where multiple instructions have to be undone. See these lecture notes from a CS course at U. Vermont, which discusses "back-out", and its successors. In machines with out-of-order execution superscalar processors, you can't just back up; undoing the state of the CPU on a page fault is a big deal. It works, but it took Intel 3,000 engineers to design the Pentium Pro to do out of order x86 code.
Re:The problem with the Lisa by larry+bagina · 2013-01-18 08:42 · Score: 1

When an instruction is aborted (so the MMU can swap in memory), the 68000 couldn't roll back the program counter (or maybe other registers) to the original state.

--
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Re:The problem with the Lisa by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 08:59 · Score: 0

Thanks much! This is the reason I love Slashdot... that and the juicy flame wars. :)
Re:The problem with the Lisa by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 09:09 · Score: 0

But it was saddled with an OS designed for 64K of RAM. (The original MacOS had a good GUI, but under the hood, it was a lot like DOS - not only was there no memory protection, there wasn't even a CPU dispatcher. The original Mac was supposed to have only 64K of RAM (most of the OS was in ROM) but shortly before shipment, it was increased to 128K.)
And who decided that 64K was enough?
Re:The problem with the Lisa by AmiMoJo · 2013-01-18 09:10 · Score: 1

From the way you write it you make it sound like the memory fault exception handling was broken, but to be fair to Motorola that was how it was designed to operate. The 68000, like other CPUs in its class at that time, was never really designed for a memory protected OS. The cost of implementing the necessary hardware was significant and Motorola probably figured they would offer the 68010 for customers who wanted that sort of thing and were willing to pay for it. Apple just couldn't wait.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:The problem with the Lisa by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 12:28 · Score: 0

vt.edu is Virginia Tech, not U.Vermont
Re:The problem with the Lisa by ChunderDownunder · 2013-01-18 14:42 · Score: 1

Nope, the Mac II had a separate MMU. Mac LC released several years later, and based on the same CPU, didn't.
The 68030 did...
Re:The problem with the Lisa by A+Nun+Must+Cow+Herd · 2013-01-18 15:40 · Score: 1

Great description, thank you!
Re:The problem with the Lisa by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 19:26 · Score: 0

Wasn't the original Mac faster than the Lisa CPU wise? The Lisa had a 5 MHz 68000 and the Mac 128k had a 7.89 MHz 68000.
"The Macintosh featured a faster 68000 processor (7.89 MHz) and sound. The complexity of the Lisa operating system and its programs taxed the 5 MHz Motorola 68000 microprocessor so that consumers said it felt sluggish, particularly when scrolling in documents." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_lisa

Ahh the Apple // lineup by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 07:04 · Score: 1

Those were the days. Monochrome green, single 5 1/4" floppy drives, PR#6... I still have a working Apple //e (and C64) set up in my office at home. Sometimes I load "Beautiful Boot (by the Nibbler)" just to hear the speaker make those lovely blip blip sounds... I've been programing most of my life, and I miss the old days when Men were REAL Men, Women were REAL Women, and Small Furry Creatures from Alpha Centari were REAL Small Furry Creatures from Alpha Centari...

Memories by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 08:28 · Score: 0

When i was 13 years old my brother and me bought the Apple //e, the matching DuoDisk drives and Monochrome monitor at the local publisher. (There were no other consumer computers stores in our town in Belgium).
I brought my Apple to school as a part of a presentation. I remember my teacher telling me: "All fine and well, but don't expect that your career will be depending on this computer and the tricks you do with it."

How wrong he proved to be: i learned soo much (BASIC, 6502 Assembler, Pascal, VisiCalc, ..) those days. Mmmm...

Everybody had originals? by Jmc23 · 2013-01-18 08:36 · Score: 1

We were poor so couldn't afford buying any computer. Because of the simplicity of the design and available information we had 2-3 FrankenApples my dad put together from junked apples. It was so easy to hook up peripherals or plug in your own card that he also made a scanner, light pen, joystick, memory cards, etc...

Ah, what fond memories of watching BBS screens drawn at 150baud after my dad repurposed a broken acousticly coupled modem. ah, the day we found a dead 300baud modem card in the garbage was a happy day indeed.

Suprisingly, my dad was able to snag a dead Lisa shortly after launch and fix that as well. For things that were being sold for thousands of dollars it was suprising how much people threw them away when pretty much everything could be fixed with a basic voltmeter to diagnose, and some basic solder skills to remove and replace burnt out components. Some times it was just resoldering required.

--
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.

AAAAA!! Wrong! by Savage-Rabbit · 2013-01-18 08:36 · Score: 1

[T]hank you for not claiming Apple invented the mouse and giving credit where credit is due...

Except he didn't give proper credit. While Xerox had the first commercial sale of the mouse, it was invented by
Doug Engelbart.

Telefunken in Germany beat Engelbart and Xerox to it and was already selling a mouse called the "Rollkugel" before Engelbart's demo as an optional peripheral with it's computers. Engelbart did his demo on December 9, 1968, Telefunken was already selling mice by that time.

--
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow

Re:AAAAA!! Wrong! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 09:49 · Score: 0

Of course, if you keep reading through the site that you linked us to, you'll see that while Engelbart's demo was in 1968, he had developed his mouse in 1963. And it doesn't say that the Telefunken mouse was on sale then, but rather in October 1968 it was featured in corporate literature and was being used in installations of their TR 440 computer. Even if we assume that Jan 1 1968, Telefunken started selling their mouse, Engelbart's mouse predates that by almost 5 years.
This timeline helps explain things
Reading comprehension must be a thing of the past, you youngins and your Upset Aves, get off my lawn.
Re:AAAAA!! Wrong! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 10:52 · Score: 0

Yes you are ;) go read the link about Engelbart on the same site, it says Engelbart and English had developed their mouse by 1963, and the first public demo was in 1968. Also, your link says it's not known when the Rollkugel was created/sold, only that it was described/pictured in a company magazine in 1968 before Engelbart's demo and definitely being used before the Alto in the early 70's.

Apple //e story by freeze128 · 2013-01-18 08:55 · Score: 2

In 1980, when I first saw the Apple II, it's all I ever wanted. My mom would ask what I wanted for christmas and I would always say "An Apple II computer". Of course, it was just too expensive to get a pre-teen at that time (and we were not well-to-do). Instead of getting an Apple computer for my Birthday, one year my Mom got me 2 shares of Apple computer stock. It's not much fun for a kid to play with shares of stock. Luckily, my father bought me a //e later that year. The stock has since split a few times, and is now almost worth as much as the //e cost originally, but I got WAY more value out of the computer than I did out of the stock.

Apple loved the document-based paradigm by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 09:34 · Score: 0

Apple tried for years to resurrect the document-centric design, culminating in the badly flawed OpenDoc, which was put out of its misery about the time Steve Jobs came back.

The only surviving aspect is the Stationery Pad feature, which lets you turn a saved document into a template for creating more documents like it. It's a wonderfully powerful feature that nobody ever uses.

Apple has never known its audience by hessian · 2013-01-18 11:34 · Score: 0

The ][, ][+, //e and //c were great machines.

They were hacker's machines.

Easy to do basic stuff on, no barriers to entry, and yet also very friendly to either grandma or the weekend code warrior.

After that, Apple started wanting to go for the easy money. The Macintosh was marketed with the de facto notion that even if mental retardation struck you where you stood, you could still use one.

Now it's just a hipster machine.

Bring back the hacker days, when not everything came with "wipers" to make sure we didn't screw up.

Are you listening, Apple? After the iHype fades, you're going to need a new direction. What's like an Arduino, Raspberry Pi and new frontier all in one? A hacker's machine, of course.

--
Futurist Traditionalism

It was great for a Unix workstation, though by Xtifr · 2013-01-18 11:48 · Score: 1

As a personal computer, yes, it was overpriced and sluggish. As a workstation that you could run UNIX on, though, it was one of the best deals around. And yes, UNIX was available for it almost as soon as it was released--that's why my company bought one. It wasn't supported by Apple, but it was a commercially supported BSD, and even with the price for the commercially supported version, it was hands-down the cheapest UNIX workstation available.

(As for the original Mac, it's often overlooked, but one of the problems with it was that you could not legibly display eighty columns of text on that dinky screen, which meant that straightforward ports from other systems often weren't possible. Which may have been what Apple wanted, but it certainly didn't help sales any.)

Apple IIe contemporaries by blyon3 · 2013-01-18 11:50 · Score: 1

Yep, I'm old ... back around 1982-1983 I was working on:

- Apple IIc and IIe writing game software in 6502 assembly,
- Perkin-Elmer minicomputers writing market data distribution software in FORTRAN,
- IBM PC writing trading software in PASCAL 1.0

The Apple was the most fun and the least profitable.
When the Mac was first introduced, Apple wanted developers to develop on the Lisa and target for the Mac -- this made the cost of entry for Mac developers much higher than it had previously been with the Apple II series and changed the developer landscape for quite some time (forever?).

I got an Apple IIe computer in the spring of 1983. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 13:44 · Score: 1

I got an Apple IIe computer in the spring of 1983. Still remember the day like it was yesterday. Dad's utility knife opening the box. The new gear smell. The feeling of the spiral-bound manuals and the funny noise they made when I turned the pages. Mom worrying about whether we should turn on the computer or the monitor first. Our cat that ran out the door, startled, when the drive made its recalibration noise.

Dad had gone all out and bought a newfangled Extended 80-column card with 64k extra memory. First one in town with 128k, the salesman said. I learned Basic, subscribed to Nibble, spent nights programming, bought Beagle Bros software and pirated everything else, learned 6502 assembly, was so proud when I cracked my first ware.

That same Apple IIe is still in my old room at my parents'. The power supply was repaired once, but that's it. It still boots. I know because every time I visit my parents (once or twice a year) I go to my room and fetch the 5.25" floppy disk in the top right drawer. It has the Apple Writer II word processor on it, and a file named "SEE YA". I put it in the top drive (slot 6 drive 1) and turn on the machine. Control-L to load the file. It opens, 24 lines by 80 columns of splendid 5x7 characters in green phosphor. Every time I visit, I add a paragraph to the file. I tell my Apple II what's been going on in my life.

The first paragraph was about me leaving for college and saying goodbye to the Apple IIe. Later in the file, there are paragraphs about my leaving for Japan to find myself. Then coming back. Then about my grandmother dying. Then me getting a job. Then getting married. The latest paragraph ended with "HELLO", it was my 4-year-old son at the keyboard.

Still works by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 13:59 · Score: 0

I just plugged in my //e the other day. I am the happy owner of Disk ][ Drives #562 and #967 and an Amdek Color ][+ monitor. 30 years in, everything still works fine.

Copy of a copy by chriscappuccio · 2013-01-18 19:30 · Score: 0

Fuck apple. Franklin Ace 1000 FOREVER!!!!

Mouse driven GUI but not mouse by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 20:15 · Score: 0

If you count trackballs as mice then the first popular mouse driven device was Atari football, with X's and O'x for players and the controlled player was driven by a huge trackball. To bad other games didn't follow that paradigm. We would have gotten a lot more exercise.

Lisa was very modern by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-18 23:02 · Score: 0

As mentioned in the Byte review posted elsewhere on this topic, the 68K was clocked at 5MHz because of the needs of the hirez graphics. The Lisa also had 1MB RAM standard which in 1983 was enormous. The file system supported redundancy and repair. Apps were serialized so they only ran on the Lisa they were installed on. The three slots supported DMA and shipped empty. The case design was very modular so it was easy to repair and replace things. The OS was multitasking thanks to a custom MMU as the 68K didn't have one. The native programming language was a kind of Object Pascal. In many ways the Lisa was overly ambitious given the technology of the time, offered features that didn't return to its successor's line for a decade or longer, and without that experimentation, the Mac would not have been what it was at launch. It had its clear failings like the Twiggy drive but it was a bold attempt we should all be thankful for and worth revisiting to see what lessons might still be learned from such early attempts.

Re:Apple best EVAR by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-19 00:58 · Score: 0

That was a very short day as it was turned into annoying tribal drumbeats by its competitors.

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