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Apple To Release Lisa OS For Free As Open Source In 2018 (iphoneincanada.ca)
New submitter Jose Deras writes: Nearly 35 years ago, Apple released its first computer with a graphical user interface, called the Lisa. Starting next year, the Computer History Museum will release the Apple Lisa OS for free as an open-source project. According to a new report from Business Insider, the Computer History Museum will release the code behind the Apple Lisa operating system for free as open source, for anyone to try and tinker with. The news was announced via the LisaList mailing list for Lisa enthusiasts.
"While Steve Jobs didn't create the Lisa, he was instrumental in its development. It was Jobs who convinced the legendary Xerox PARC lab to let the Apple Lisa team visit and play with its prototypes for graphical user interfaces," reads the report. "And while Apple at the time said that Lisa stood for 'Local Integrated System Architecture,' Jobs would later claim to biographer Walter Isaacson that the machine was actually named for his oldest daughter, Lisa Nicole Brennan-Jobs." "Then-Apple CEO John Sculley had Jobs removed from the Lisa project, which kicked off years-long animosity between the two," continues the report. "Ultimately, a boardroom brawl would result in Jobs quitting in a huff to start his own company, NeXT Computer. Apple would go on to buy NeXT in 1996, bringing Jobs back into the fold. By 1997, Jobs had become CEO of Apple, leading the company to its present status as the most valuable in the world."
"While Steve Jobs didn't create the Lisa, he was instrumental in its development. It was Jobs who convinced the legendary Xerox PARC lab to let the Apple Lisa team visit and play with its prototypes for graphical user interfaces," reads the report. "And while Apple at the time said that Lisa stood for 'Local Integrated System Architecture,' Jobs would later claim to biographer Walter Isaacson that the machine was actually named for his oldest daughter, Lisa Nicole Brennan-Jobs." "Then-Apple CEO John Sculley had Jobs removed from the Lisa project, which kicked off years-long animosity between the two," continues the report. "Ultimately, a boardroom brawl would result in Jobs quitting in a huff to start his own company, NeXT Computer. Apple would go on to buy NeXT in 1996, bringing Jobs back into the fold. By 1997, Jobs had become CEO of Apple, leading the company to its present status as the most valuable in the world."
You are wrong here...
The LISA featured a propietary MMU to implement some memory protection though I think it did not offer virtual memory in todays sense. No computer today does actually "swap", they all "page" which means some hardware traps access to fixed-sized pages of memory and activating some low level memory handler. The early computer did instead "swap" what was a software based method to move memory to disk. It was more complex, higher level, pretty propietary and usually less powerful. Today we wrongly call both "swappping".
Quite a lot of old 68000 computers had some propietary MMU to increase stability and run Unix. This only fell out of favor when the cheapish 68000 home computers like Sinclair QL, Atari ST, Amiga and the NEC Town came into existance and came only back when the 68030 and 386 hit the shelves which both came with an integrated MMU.
"Life is short and in most cases it ends with death." Sir Sinclair
Be nice if NeXT OS was released as well especially since the company no longer exists.
You do know that NeXT OS is still alive and well with a new name? It's called OSX. Look at the copyrights in the include files.