???? – 1985retired
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“It dot-matrixed its heart out so your Mac could be heard.”
“First to click, priced to baffle, remembered fondly anyway.”
The Lisa was Apple's line of desktop computers and the first mass-market computer operable through a graphical user interface. Unveiled on January 19, 1983 at a base price of US$9,995 — about $32,300 in 2025 dollars — it promised businesses a simpler, friendlier alternative to the big, complex mainframes of the day. With its window-and-mouse-driven interface, document-oriented workflow, memory protection, and pre-loa
Development began in 1978, with Steve Jobs drawing inspiration from demonstrations of GUI technology at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. Built on the Motorola 68000 microprocessor, the Lisa was ahead of its time, but its steep price drew criticism that hung over its run. Apple quietly retired the line in 1986, leaving behind the blueprint for the graphical computing we all live in now.
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“It dot-matrixed its heart out so your Mac could be heard.”
“A Lisa in Mac clothing, gone before most of us learned to say MacWorks XL three times fast.”
“Five million keys pressed, one rainbow, endless hours waiting for the tape to load.”