Category Archives: Apple

This day, January 19, 1983, the Apple Lisa was unveiled. It forever changed the way computer actions were accomplished, as it was the first computer to include a graphical user interface, and a “mouse” which could be used to direct a virtual “pointer” on the screen. Apple stated that the name “Lisa” was an acronym for Local Integrated Software Architecture, but it is more commonly inferred that this acronym was created to conform to the name of Steve Jobs’ daughter, Lisa. To this time, all computer actions were accomplished through often complex commands typed into a keyboard.

This computer no less than completely changed the way individuals interact with computers. From a Feb. 7, 1983 Fortune magazine review by Peter Nulty:

“Lisa’s most distinguishing feature … is the massive programming Apple engineers have stored in her memory. To operate even the simplest personal computers today, a user must learn a myriad of arcane commands and procedures. The industry calls this computer literacy. Apple engineers have taught Lisa to be people literate.

“Lisa takes orders primarily from a mouse, not a keyboard. The mouse is a cigarette-pack-size plastic box with a button on top and a cable connected to the computer. When the mouse is moved on the surface of a desk, an arrow moves on Lisa’s TV-like monitor screen. This permits the user to juggle words or statistics around in much the same way that a child uses a joystick to manipulate spaceships in a video game. Lisa also has a standard keyboard, but the operator has to use that only to type in text or statistics.”

Nulty summed up his review by calling the Lisa “… exceedingly user friendly, if not outright seductive” in that it transformed the tedious activity of creating office reports into something close to playing a video game. It was also a highly “democratic” machine, because this deceptively simple system, as Nulty continues, “… should save computer neophytes days, or even weeks, in learning to use the machine.” Aside from the increased storage and additional applications the computer offered, it was, to that time, the easiest computer to use ever designed. Also, it was the Lisa, along with the Macintosh, that solidified Apple’s superiority in in the field of graphic design.

Apple introduced the Lisa at $9,995, which included its software applications: LisaWrite, LisaDraw, LisaProfile, LisaCalc, LisaGraph, and COBOL. It was designed primarily for the office environment.

– Christopher Hartman

“There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.” – Ken Olsen, co-founder of Digital Equipment Corporation at a convention of the World Future Society in 1977.

I’ve been re-reading Steve Wozniak’s memoir “iWoz”, and it’s fascinating to witness and understand the unique and unusual circumstances which resulted in the first “personal” computer. For Wozniak, the primary mission was to democratize the concept of computing, which he hoped ultimately would be within reach of everyone:

“It happened at the very first meeting of a strange, geeky group of people called the Homebrew Computer Club in March 1975. This was a group of people fascinated with technology and the things it could do.

“After my first meeting, I started designing the computer that would later be known as the Apple I. It was inspiring … Everyone in the Homebrew Computer Club envisioned computers as a benefit to humanity — a tool that would lead to social justice. We thought low-cost computers would empower people to do things they never could before. Only big companies could afford computers at the time. That meant they could afford to do things smaller companies and regular people couldn’t do. And we were out to change all that.”

At the first Homebrew meeting, Wozniak quietly listened while others discussed one of the predecessors of the personal computer, made by Altair. This was a CPU (central processing unit) which contained an Intel microprocessor chip. Altair supplied the parts, and the consumer lent the elbow grease in assembling it.

The “eureka” moment for Wozniak came when he realized that he had built a similar and (arguably) better computer five years previously– which he referred to as the “Cream Soda” computer — because he and his friend Bill Fernandez (who taught Wozniak how to solder the parts, among other things in the course of their projects) would ride their bikes to the Sunnyvale, CA Safeway supermarket and buy cream sodas, which they’d drink while working in Bill’s garage. Wozniak always referred to this computer as his “jumping off point” – it only had 256 bytes of RAM (Random Access Memory), which was only enough memory to type a medium-sized sentence - and also didn’t have a TV monitor (which he would later add to create the first TV monitor/keyboard/CPU interface).

In the end, Wozniak’s “eureka” moment resulted in a computing device that was within the reach (technologically and financially) of just about everyone. The personal computer has gone on to become an indispensible device in virtually every American household. In this sense, Wozniak’s (and Homebrew’s) vision has largely been realized.

– Christopher Hartman