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Hardware The Computer History Museum has officially released the source code to Apple's ill-fated "Lisa" PC

Krvavi Abadas

Mr. Archivist
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Apple_Lisa_Computer.jpg

as the story goes, it was one of the first personal computers to have a Graphical User Interface (GUI). while it reviewed fairly well at the time, it was extremely expensive ($9,995 in 1983), had very little in terms of software, and was quickly overshadowed by the fairly cheaper Macintosh once that hit shelves.
or, in the words of the Museum....
The release of the Apple Lisa was a key turning point for the history of personal computers. Without the Lisa, today’s computers might not use mouse-driven GUIs, and perhaps the Macintosh, and even Microsoft Windows, might not exist either. We’re thrilled to publicly release the source code for the Apple Lisa—for the first time—and thank Apple, Inc. for their permission and support that led to this release.
(that's Hansen Hsu, a curator there.)

while it may not be of much use to a general consumer, having access to this is important for preservation purposes. going perfectly with the Museum's other notable source releases, such as DeluxePaint and versions 1.1 and 2.0 of MS-DOS.
 
Sorry to double post, but here's a great anecdote from software engineer Andy Hertzfeld about a conflict between the Lisa and Mac teams:


Before anyone could respond, the door was flung open, and in strode Rich Page, the systems wizard who was one of the main designers of the Lisa. Rich was a tall, bearded, ursine engineer, equally adept at hardware and software, who was responsible for getting Lisa to use the 68000, and had personally ported or created many of the tools that both the Macintosh and Lisa teams were using. But I had never seen him looking as angry as he was at the moment.

"You guys don't know what you're doing!", he began to growl, obviously in an emotional state of mind, "The Macintosh is going to destroy the Lisa! The Macintosh is going to ruin Apple!!!"

Burrell and I didn't know how to respond, and neither did anyone else in the room. Larry Tesler gave me an embarrassed glance, trying to figure out what to do. But Rich wasn't particularly interested in a response, he just wanted to vent his frustration.

"Steve Jobs wants to destroy Lisa because we wouldn't let him control it", Rich continued, almost looking like he was going to start crying. "Sure, it's easy to throw a prototype together, but it's hard to ship a real product. You guys don't understand what you're getting into. The Mac can't run Lisa software, the Lisa can't run Mac software. You don't even care. Nobody's going to buy a Lisa because they know the Mac is coming! But you don't care!"

With that, he turned around and strode out of the conference room, as quickly as he had come in. He slammed the door as he left, with the noise reverberating ominously in the stunned silence. There was some nervous laughter, but nobody knew what to say. Larry Tesler started to apologize, explaining that Rich didn't speak for most of the Lisa team, when suddenly the door was flung open again and Rich Page was back, just as angry as before.

Apple was fine (mostly), but the Lisa sure wasn't
 


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