Apple Lisa
The Apple Lisa was launched in January 1983 and was a landmark machine.
It was the first commercially available computer to offer a Graphical User Interface (or GUI). Up until this point all machines had to controlled by typing in commands via the keyboard, but the Lisa was supplied with a mouse and allowed the user to 'point and click' just like operating systems today.
Apparently "Lisa" stands for "Local Integrated Software Architecture", but it is well documented that Steve Jobs, Apple's co-founder, named the machine after his daughter.
The idea of a "point and click" operating system was not invented by Apple. In actual fact it was developed by Xerox at thier Palo Alto Research Center (also known as PARC). They had developed the Alto computer in 1973 which incredibly featured many facilities that we now take for granted on our desktop computers - features like networking, email, object oriented programming and the graphical user interface. However, the Alto was just a research project and was not commercially available and even if it were to be, the cost would have been beyond any reasonable figure.
It was only after a visit by the Apple team to PARC that the idea of developing a cost effective computer based around the graphical user interface came to be ... and the result was the Apple Lisa.
Sadly, the Apple Lisa was costly and unreliable. It saw a couple of revisions and Apple even offered free upgrades for Lisa 1 owners Lisa 2. Later the machine would become obsolete with the launch of the Apple Macintosh - a physically smaller and more cost effective machine ...
We have one complete Apple Lisa and one without keyboard ...
Date of Manufacture: January 1983
Quantity Available: 1
Working Condition: Working
Physical Condition: Good
Original Box: No
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