Classic Systems Emulated: The Apple Lisa

September 14, 2021

Apple Tries Again

Work on both the Apple III and the Lisa started more/less simultaneously. Like the Apple III, the Lisa was intended on being an office computer, even though playing a significantly different role. While the Apple III was intended on being a general-purpose office computer, the Lisa was intended on being a advance document-processing system, similar to word-processing systems like the Xerox Star.

Work on the Lisa started in the spring of 1979. Bill Atkinson, one of the main programmers of the Lisa (and later playing a very prominent role on the Macintosh's development), took various pictures that documented the evolution of the software that would eventually be LisaOS. The prototype Lisa system, like that of the later Macintosh, started off as a expansion card that plugged into the slot of a Apple II.

Since its inception, the Lisa was already capable of high-resolution graphics that could display proportional typefaces, detailed patterns that could simulate color, along with a compelling user interface. The Lisa was already using the 720 by 360 monochrome screen display that would persist to the final product. The WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) feature set was already finding its way in. The early incarnation of what would be LisaOS used a "soft-key" interface where functions were displayed on the bottom of the screen, corresponding to whatever keys would have been assigned to them (typically the function keys). This type of interface was typically used on HP workstations from that time. This shouldn't be a complete surprise as some of the Lisa developers were previously employed their.

Why Is It Called The Lisa?
The computer was named after Jobs' daughter, Lisa. For marketing though, a backronym was created to fit the name. Officially, Lisa was an acronym for "Locally Integrated Software Architecture". For Andy Hertzfeld and the other Mac developers, the acronym for Lisa became "Lisa: Invented Stupid Acronym". BTW, the vast majority of the information in this article came from the awesome Apple Folklore site that is run by Hertzfeld. Check it out if not already.

It's Time For Some Small Talk

Jobs' visit to the PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) in 1979 is basically computer lore at this point. PARC, which was Xerox's research and development lab, was doing ground-breaking research into the idea of the desktop metaphor. The desktop metaphor is a computer interface which creates a display on the monitor that mimicked an office desk. Like how a real desk would have files tucked into folders, their would be similar digital equivalents. Also, like how that real-world office has that handy trashbin, their would be a digital version of it as well. The intent of the desktop metaphor was to make new users unfamiliar with computers ease into them by projecting an desktop environment that imitated it's real-life equivalent that that they would have already been familiar with.

The ideas of the desktop metaphor were developed around a programming language called SmallTalk. SmallTalk made use of pop-up menus, windows, and objects. The ability to manipulate the desktop using a mouse had a profound impact on Jobs. He quickly realized the potential of this powerful new interface. Jobs had to have it, and he quickly worked out a deal with Xerox which transferred Apple stock to Xerox in return for two demonstrations of SmallTalk in action. While Jobs saw the potential of SmallTalk, their were also limitations. Their were no icons or file explorer. Their was no drag-and-drop, pull-down menus, or applets either. Apple would need to pour in a lot of work in order to transform the GUI into something that the man on the street could use.

The user interface of the Lisa rapidly changed following those visits. The soft-key interface was dropped in favor of the desktop metaphor. The programmers who worked on the Lisa were quickly writing the rules of how a GUI should be defined. While Xerox created the desktop metaphor, Apple created the WIMP interface. WIMP is a acronym for Windows, Icons, Menus, and Pointer. The Lisa programmers created a interface that would incorporate desktop icons, windows, and pull-down menus. Documents and folders would be manipulated with a mouse pointer. The command-line would no longer hinder people as these users would be introduced to computers in a much more friendlier nature.

However, All Is Not Well
The Apple III was released while the Lisa was in development. Released on November 1980, the computer quickly earned a horrible reputation due to its design flaws that resulted in overheating issues. The Apple III suffered from a 99% failure rate which quickly tanked the new platform. The design flaws was a result of Jobs' insistence that the computer couldn't have any fans whatsoever. Since the Apple III had been covered in previous articles, I won't cover those details here. However, what did happen was that Apple's Board Of Directors became angry and frustrated with Jobs' design choices which doomed the platform.

To add insult to injury, the company would have to continue supporting the Apple II. From the board's perspective, the whole point of the Apple III was to eventually replace the II. Also, creating a new follow-up takes time, and the Apple III was suppose to have been that grand entrance to corporate computing. As such, the ball was now in IBM's court. Their response to the Apple III was the IBM 5150, ie. The IBM PC. This computer's legacy is still being felt today as this was machine that gave birth to the PC that we know of today. The PC Master Race just started!

With the surging popularity of the IBM PC, Apple missed a massive opportunity. Apple's Board Of Directors blamed Jobs and they stripped him of his control over the Lisa project. Angered by this move, Jobs commandeered a skunkworks project directed by engineer Jeff Raskin. Raskin dreamed of a low-cost, entry-level computer that would have been universal to the point of being an appliance. He named the computer after his favorite type of apple, the Macintosh. From their, Jobs was determined to bring this project to market, which he eventually did with critical acclaim on January 1984. However, that is the story for another article.

Now Back To The Lisa
The computer kept falling behind schedule and constant delays pushed the Lisa's release date back. The role of the Lisa changed again as it now absorb the roles that the Apple III was suppose to have fulfilled. However, this was going to be a monumental task as the Lisa was targeted towards advance document processing, not general corporate computing. The Lisa had a much higher price tag than the Apple III, and that price was climbing ever still.

The Lisa was using the Motorola 68000 processor. Released in 1979, Motorola's new 16-bit offering was setting the graphical workstation market on fire. However, these processors carried their weight in gold. Combined with the circuitry and other cost, the machine's price soared ever higher. When it became obvious that one couldn't run LisaOS from a floppy, a 5MB Profile Hard-Disk would be required. Hard-drives were a very expensive proposition in 1982-1983. An 5MB Profile Hard-Disk carried a $1,000 price tag in 1983. Adjusted for inflation, that would be $2,640 in 2021. The cost of the Twiggy floppy drives contributed as well.

Their were problems with the Twiggy drives as well. These drives were suffering from reliability issues. Their were constant read/write errors that often corrupted data. The developers quickly relied on the hard-drive instead. The drive also suffered from performance issues as well. The Twiggy drives would continue to plague the Lisa through production and after release.

Not only that, but the Lisa had some display oddities which would affect the platform until its demise. Even though the Lisa had (for its time) a very high-resolution display (720 by 360 pixel resolution), the Lisa monitor doubled the pixels vertically, which stretched the image in the same manner. The reason for this was that the Lisa was geared towards word-processors and spreadsheets, and as such, those applications worked much better when the vertical resolution is stretched. General microcomputers at the time were quite limited in the display department during, so hardware designers usually made compromises when trying to determine if emphasis should be placed on either the vertical or horizontal resolutions. For business computers, horizontal resolution was preferred as 80-column work area was the golden rule for word-processors and spreadsheets, and this would be the case on the Lisa as well. However, every other application, especially graphics-based ones, tended to suffer as a result because the Lisa didn't use square pixels, which became standard on the Macintosh. Thus, the Macintosh didn't suffer from this issue.

This resolution disparity of the Lisa caused basic shapes to become distorted. For example, circles now appeared as ovals. Not only that, while basic text-based applications worked well enough, word-processors were already going through a transformation though, with more and more applications using detailed typefaces and proportional fonts. WYSIWYG applications would not work well from these resolution disparity either. These typefaces became distorted from the unusual resolution as well.

Introduction
The Lisa was introduced in January 1983, but Apple didn't start shipping the units until June. However, Apple was not selling that many computers. The $10,000 price tag was a lot to ask for a computer, even if that computer did include many advance features. The Lisa was the first general-purpose computer that shipped with a GUI as standard. LisaOS had a very innovative user interface (with many elements making their way onto the Macintosh). LisaOS was also referred to as the Lisa Office System and Lisa 7/7. The seven was meant to symbolize the productivity programs which Apple released for the computer. These programs were very groundbreaking in themselves and very powerful. LisaWrite embraced the WYSIWYG feature set which made it a very powerful word-processor for it's time. The other applications were: LisaCalc, LisaDraw, LisaGraph, LisaProject, LisaList, and LisaTerminal; which all served their respective roles. Also, the Lisa had memory protection for applications, a feature that didn't find its way into the Macintosh System Software until OSX.

However, their were issues as well. LisaOS was slow. I became a witness to this while using both the Lisa Emulator Project and the Idle emulator. Despite it running on the state-of-the-art Motorola 68000 with 512KB of memory (which was a lot by 1983 standards), the GUI felt sluggish. It didn't help that the IBM PC/XT was released shortly thereafter, along with Lotus 123, which started to take the corporate world by storm. 123, with it's character-display, was lightning fast and responsive on the PC/XT. Neither one of these developments did any favors for Apple.

The Lisa Becomes A Mac
By late 1984, Apple needed to clear out its inventory of unsold merchandise. Software modifications were made to allow MacOS to run on the Lisa. This Lisa-turned-Mac, the Macinsoh XL, was released on January 1985. The updated Lisa was rebranded as an high-end Mac running a modified version of the Macintosh System Software, MacWorks XL. Thus, Mac applications could now run on the Lisa. MacWorks was also important as this was the first version of MacOS that supported a hard-disc.

The Macintosh XL was presented as the high-end model of the Macintosh line until the MacPlus was released on 1986. Apple dropped the price to $4,000. As a Macintosh, the Lisa sold in much greater numbers, and the MacXL became a big hit for Apple. However, the reason why Apple created this model was to clear inventory, and not make new Lisa's. Once that mission was accomplished, then the company had no reason to continue the product line, and the MacXL was discontinued only a few months later on April of the same year. As such, the MacXL became one of Apple's shortest-lived products.

Legacy
Despite the general misfortunes of the Lisa, this line of computer has a very important legacy. The Lisa help crafted the rules of what a GUI was suppose to be. It helped make GUI environments mainstream and would introduce many to them, who in turn, would be ready for the Macintosh when that computer arrived. The Lisa models are faithfully emulated by both the Lisa Emulator Project and Idle, which can run both LisaOS and MacWorks. Thus, those who never experienced this machine can have an oppornuty to via emulation! While the Lisa was a general failure in the marketplace, I still think the presence of the Lisa made a overall very positive impact on the computing landscape. I wouldn't want to live in a world without it.