Apple's Lisa Operating System Going Open Source

DooKey

DooKey

[H]F Junkie
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Apple is releasing their Local Integrated System Architecture (LISA) OS as open source next year. If you recall, the Apple Lisa didn't sell well at all, as a matter of fact it only sold 10K units. However, it was the first PC to have a GUI and use a mouse. Just think if Apple didn't sell the thing for many times that of an IBM PC and we might have the Apple OS as the defacto standard now. You can check out the announcement here. If you really want to go down memory lane you can check out this old Apple Lisa commercial below.

Watch the video here.

Back in 1983, Lisa computer cost $10,000; if you factor in the inflation, it’ll cost $24,000. On the other hand, IBM was already offering computers that were far cheaper. This flopped OS brought some of the advanced features for the first time, including protected memory, sophisticated HDD-based OS, etc.
 
Steve Jobs has been lauded for creating the "boutique" computer market, but at the end of the day it took him over 20 years to truly make up for the mistake of creating the boutique computer market. Bill Gates and Microsoft could have ended up an almost forgotten piece of computer history had Apple taken full advantage of what they created/adapted/enhanced.
 
Interesting to watch that commercial. Apple was appealing to hipsters before hipsters were even a thing!

While this is interesting, I wonder outside of a few hobbyists, if there will be any real development on this. I could see it being used in some training courses. Of course, given the fact that older computers are faster than new computers, this may spark a resurgence! :LOL:
 
I don't know what's stranger. Seeing that old of an Apple commercial or seeing Kevin Kostner in an Apple commercial.
 
Maybe Kevin Kostner got a free computer for doing that commercial. Then he used it to create a screen play for Dances With Wolves. So in a sense Apple helped to create Dances With Wolves.......maybe.
 
It was not just the price, but also the lack of applications. Apple did such a great job keeping it a secret, they seemed to have forgotten hardware without software is just a boat anchor (and not a very good one at that) and the limited Apple office applications were not enough to get it accepted in the market. All the software houses were asking, "Why?".

It pissed off a lot of people and Apple learned.
 
Thats something you will never see anymore, a businessman riding his bike into the main lobby of his place of work with his dog in tow.....and then sitting in the office with said dog....man things were so much more laid back in the 80's, i miss those days.
 
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OMG, this isn't going to help the stereotype of Apple products costing too much or $$$ more than others. :censored: :blackeye:
 
"...stereotype of Apple products costing too much..."

ROFL! Good one!
 
SomeoneElse said:
Thats something you will never see anymore, a businessman riding his bike into the main lobby of his place of work with his dog in tow.....and then sitting in the office with said dog....man things we so much more laid back in the 80's, i miss those days.
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I think that hipster business man took off in the 90s in silicon valley. In the 80s, it was very avant garde.

Then people abuse being that laid back and their companies' flounder, then people blame their hipster business ethic, then people revert back.

It's the hipster business cycle... but as long you make money you can do anything.
 
"Just think if Apple didn't sell the thing for many times that of an IBM PC and we might have the Apple OS as the defacto standard now."

And boy, would that suck.
 
sadsteve said:
"Just think if Apple didn't sell the thing for many times that of an IBM PC and we might have the Apple OS as the defacto standard now."

And boy, would that suck.
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Apple compared to the IBM was vastly superior, even in terms of games. It wasn't until the late 80s when IBM PC clones started to get sound cards and MCGA/VGA graphics. And Windows 1.0 was absolutely dreadful to use. (I'd say the first useable Windows was 3.0). Apple would be a different company than they are today had they not lost, but they lost partly due to their arrogance (which Jobs was heavily influential in).
 
Nytegard said:
Apple compared to the IBM was vastly superior, even in terms of games. It wasn't until the late 80s when IBM PC clones started to get sound cards and MCGA/VGA graphics. And Windows 1.0 was absolutely dreadful to use. (I'd say the first useable Windows was 3.0). Apple would be a different company than they are today had they not lost, but they lost partly due to their arrogance (which Jobs was heavily influential in).
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Well a C-64 was superior to both in terms of games.
 
Nytegard said:
Apple compared to the IBM was vastly superior, even in terms of games. It wasn't until the late 80s when IBM PC clones started to get sound cards and MCGA/VGA graphics. And Windows 1.0 was absolutely dreadful to use. (I'd say the first useable Windows was 3.0). Apple would be a different company than they are today had they not lost, but they lost partly due to their arrogance (which Jobs was heavily influential in).
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I'm talking suck as in 'Walled Garden' kind of suck. In that particular time frame, I like the Amiga systems better than the PC or Apple computers. If Commodore hadn't had there head stuck up their butt they might have been a real player. Since I had Amiga's, I didn't use Windows at home until Windows 3.1 (and it felt like a step backwards from the Amiga).
 
I think the Lisa computers were about $8000 in the mid 80's? I remember reading about them in Byte magazine (I think) and thought they looked cool. I was a teenager with a C64 so no way in the world could I have afforded one. $8000 is still a lot of money by today's standards, but in the 80's it was outrageous.
I've only seen one in person. I worked with an engineering company in the early 90's - the CTO had one in his office that was never powered on. I believe I moved it once when we went to a different building. I don't think this had any type of networking? The old Mac's had a proprietary network system...name is slipping my mind . It was not ethernet. It might have been token ring as well (but now I'm really out on a limb).
 
sadsteve said:
I'm talking suck as in 'Walled Garden' kind of suck. In that particular time frame, I like the Amiga systems better than the PC or Apple computers. If Commodore hadn't had there head stuck up their butt they might have been a real player. Since I had Amiga's, I didn't use Windows at home until Windows 3.1 (and it felt like a step backwards from the Amiga).
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I miss the Amiga - too bad Commodore ruined it. I hated Windows 3.1 - Amiga OS was better at the time. Not until Windows 95 came out did Microsoft have a decent OS for home users.
 
steakman1971 said:
I miss the Amiga - too bad Commodore ruined it. I hated Windows 3.1 - Amiga OS was better at the time. Not until Windows 95 came out did Microsoft have a decent OS for home users.
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Still got my Amiga's, all running AmigaOS 3.1 and I couldn't agree more.

I think one of the main problems with Lisa, apart from price, was the fact that the OS was painfully slow on a 5Mhz 68000.
 
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