Summary

  • The Apple Lisa, released in 1983, was a groundbreaking computer that introduced features such as a GUI, a one-button mouse, and 10MB of internal storage.
  • Despite its innovative features, the Lisa was a commercial failure, selling only 10,000 units before its discontinuation.
  • The Lisa's legacy lives on in the Macintosh, which adopted many of its features and went on to become a successful and influential product in the personal computing industry.

On this day in 1983, Apple made history when it released the Lisa computer. The Lisa was a groundbreaking machine that revolutionized how people used personal computers at the time. Being the first commercial computer to use a graphical user interface (GUI), it was also the first Apple computer to use a peripheral, in the form of a one-button mouse, and an internal storage device with a whopping 10 MB of space.

Unfortunately, although the computer was groundbreaking regarding features, it was a commercial failure by most accounts, with the company only selling around 10,000 units in the two years before its discontinuation. But its death led to the creation of the Macintosh only one year later.

The inception of the Apple Lisa computer

It took 5 years to develop the Lisa, from Wozniak to Jobs

Technician reparing an Apple Lisa | Source: stiefkind via Wikimedia Commons
 

The conception of the Lisa began in 1978 when Steve Wozniak envisioned an advanced computer using a bit-slice processor for scalable computing. Initially, Steve Jobs was the project lead for the Lisa, having named the device after his daughter, but he was later kicked off the project and assigned to a new project called the Macintosh. This was due to internal fighting between Jobs and the then-current CEO, John Sculley.

After the change in management, an Apple employee named Jef Raskin persuaded the new project leads to shift focus toward a graphical user interface (GUI) instead of the text-based display from previous computers. The concept of GUIs had originated at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in the early 1970s, but it had never been used in commercial computers before.

Despite initial resistance from Steve Jobs, Raskin's persistence and a visit to PARC led to the transformation of the Lisa into a GUI-driven machine. At the same time, the Lisa's hardware changed significantly over its development. The original plan involving a bit-slice processor was abandoned in favor of Motorola's 68000 CPU, a 16/32-bit chip with a 24-bit address bus, allowing a maximum of 16 megabytes of memory. When we compare this to the size of SSDs today or even compare the Lisa to a modern Macbook, it sounds laughable, but at the time it was revolutionary for personal computers.

The birth of the Macintosh and the death of the Lisa

A turbulent time in Apple's history

The Apple Lisa 2 was rebranded as the Macinstosh XL | Source: Gerhard Walter via Wikimedia Commons
 

After overcoming internal challenges, the Lisa was ready for its public debut. On January 19, 1983, Apple officially announced the Lisa, aptly describing it as "revolutionary." But this did not sit well with Steve Jobs, who in many ways sabotaged the project both during its development and after its release. Having worked on the Lisa, Jobs took most of the features that made the Lisa great and adopted them into his Macintosh, which was released only one year later, at a fraction of the price.

The Lisa was designed as a commercial personal computer but its price tag of $10,000 kept it out of most households at the time. The computer was mostly used by businessmen and in corporate offices. Enter the original Macintosh a year later, at half the size and sporting many of the Lisa’s best features, the Macintosh only cost $2500, which made it more affordable for an average consumer to purchase.

After the Macintosh’s release, the sales of Lisa units plummeted overnight, causing the company to rethink the product line. In later years, Apple played around with the idea of creating the Lisa 2 but this idea would later be scrapped and the Lisa 2 would become the Macintosh XL in 1985. In the same year, Steve Jobs left Apple and went on to found NeXT, a company that would compete alongside the Apple line of computers.

The legacy left behind by the Apple Lisa

A stepping stone for future innovation

The Apple Lisa made its debut at the Apple Convention in Boston in 1983. | Source: Alan White via Wikimedia Commons

Although the Apple Lisa is seen by most as a commercial failure, its innovative features became the stepping stone for the Macintosh to rise to power. Features such as double-clicking, menu bars, pull-down menus, and the concept of copying and pasting were pioneered on the Lisa and became fundamental to GUIs for decades after.

The Lisa, though overshadowed by subsequent successes, played a crucial role in shaping the future of personal computing. Its contributions to GUI development and interface design continue to influence the digital landscape, reminding us that innovation often comes from bold ideas, even in the face of commercial challenges.