The Lisa: Apple's Most Influential Failure (2023)
computerhistory.org
computerhistory.org
I used Sun-2 and later workstations, and it looks like they were comparable with Lisa, with the additional plus of a DisplayPostScript UI base. Where that gets interesting is that both a Unix base and DPS were part of NeXT.
But we are talking consumer versus research computers, different markets.
I managed Suns and Macs for a department, and there were interesting and useful similarities, particularly the SCSI bus and even the keyboards before USB. I really appreciated the Unix bases. Our department chairman said "Students will be using Windows when they graduate, so why macs?" I calmly stated that by the time they graduate, Windows will have stolen features from mac, with a time lag, so they'll be prepared.
Apple's history sure had some interesting twists and turns.
Graphics generators don't seem to convey anything, and often give themselves away with grossly misspelled words.
I suppose that whatever emerges from the current situation as actually useful might be encapsulated in a "regular" app or web app.
Only crazies like me (and HN) favor text, especially when videos and shorts seemed to bury it. Though, I still have fun mashing up graphics I find on the web and posting elsewhere. And posting images on the web can be infuriating, because sites require them to be hosted elsewhere and linked.
I take great photos but post almost none thanks to the internet copying and slurping machine. I just need to pay for (OUCH) a host that can restrict access. Or I snail mail memory sticks.
Most computer display systems are wired (Apple and MS) and barely user-manageable. Think Apple's infuriating Finder.
Columns seem to be laid out (sized) differently each new Finder window. Only the horizontally scrolling mouse handles that.
I used to have an applescript that resized the window to fit all the columns. It stopped working.
Linux offers more window managers, but when you are talking DPS or SVG, that's a radical change. Wyland took ages and is it prime tine?
I still think of a computer as a tool rather than an alter-brain, so I can't comment on how such a system would interact. If the result is generated on the fly and not repeatable, it's not for me.
There was a bootstrap dependency on the UCSD-p system which ran on Apple hw and meant a compiler existed which could be tooled to write Lisa code in Pascal. Compared to UCSD-p Lisa was chalk-and-cheese. Tool you make things with not the same as tool they become.
I have to say, alongside the Vax 11/780 we were coding network stacks on, the lisa was just amazing. It was completely intuitive, although I did watch and follow the on-lisa video presentation on how to use it.
I have no idea where they got it from because the Lisa was not easy to buy in the UK. I never saw another one after that. I used an ICL (three rivers) Perq for a while, and I think Lisa was riffing on ideas expressed in that machine and in the symbolics LISP machine and the XEROX Parc work. The future exploded into workstations shortly after. Whitechapel and others.
Systime had other cool things, like metal stripe guided 4 wheel robotic shuttles to carry the production process between stages. I mean now that would be an autonomous AI system with vision but at the time it was really simple to just lay down some metal tape on the floor and give them guidance on how to deal with low bandwidth radar "you are in my path" signals.
Systime went under, they were involved in a scam breaching the ITAR regulations selling DEC compatible stuff to the USSR, and in copying DEC IPR in hardware beyond the licence agreement. The headquarters was an iconic 1980s Leeds building and features in the 1985 TV series dystopian nuclear thriller "edge of darkness".