Meeting Lisa
Where it all began for me…
I distinctly remember the first issue of Personal Computer News. It had the Apple Lisa on the cover. I was the proud owner of a 48K ZX Spectrum, so I was “into computers”, but this was something totally different. Even the reviewer wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Check out the first paragraph of the review.
Who could possibly need this kind of computing power?
I didn’t know anything about the 68000 at this point, but I sure as hell knew that a megabyte of RAM was insane, and a 6.74MB Winchester?!
The craziness didn’t end there. Then the reviewer switched it on. Unfortunately, he got an error message the first time.
I don’t think it announced exactly that…
Unless I missed something, Apple has always referred to the little pictures on the screen as “icons” but, hey, this was new to all of us back in ‘83.
There are a few moments in the review where it’s obvious the poor chap’s mind has been blown and he maybe goes a little bit over the top.
“As you will see, LISA HAS NO NEED FOR THEM.” Dude. Chill. Nobody would say this about an Apple computer until the introduction of the TouchBar, and that was Apple saying it. It hasn’t exactly been a raging success.
Of course, another novel part of Lisa was the mouse.
Not a bad description of a mouse I’d say.
He goes on:
NNE. Is that the best you can do? Let’s see it in degrees, buddy.
Let’s hear about the display Mr Reviewer Man.
ZX Spectrum resolution? 256 x 192.
“The result is like looking at real printing,”. Suck it, Kindle!
It’s almost comical reading a reviewer rave about the fact that you could have different sizes of text on the screen at the same time, but back then, there were several home computers that didn’t even support lower case (the Apple II, ZX81, and Dragon 32 being a few examples).
The reviewer also gets a bit tripped out when he talks about the file system (ding!).
Until the file in question disappears, amirite?
A little bit of hyperbole at the end of this paragraph…
In a world… Braaaam… where there is no command prompt… Braaam…
Frankly, the reviewer starts to lose his shit here….
What the hell are you talking about?
Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m fairly sure Lisa isn’t thinking about doors causing the reflection of certain wavelengths of light.
Stay with me here, buddy. It’s going to be OK. Stick your head between your knees and breathe. In….. out…..in …..out….
After a few minutes of mindfulness, our intrepid reviewer gives a slightly more grounded description of Lisa’s mysterious ways.
Oops. Slight deviation into the trip-o-verse for the start of this paragraph.
When I first read this I assumed we were talking about swapping as in paging memory to disk. Then I realized we’re talking about actually swapping physical disks. Ah, memories…
There’s more to the review, and I may revisit it later, but it’s time to talk money…
Taking inflation into account, Mr. Moneybags here is talking about 24,000 - 30,000 pounds in today’s money. Dirt cheap? That’s a bit of a stretch. Imagine how much Apple stock this guy could have bought…
Finally, the record is set straight. Lisa is incomparable. Don’t even bother trying.
You wanna see the future? Behold… You may be able to kinda make out a really blurry picture of a badly cropped future…. anyway,… behold!
1983 screenshot technology or some pretty serious overscan on that display.
Of course, I never laid eyes on a Lisa, never mind touching one. I wouldn’t touch a mouse until I first encountered the Mac at university in 1987. I wouldn’t even own a machine with a GUI until 1991 (Atari ST 520STFM). Hell, I didn’t get my first Mac until 2016. So you could say it took a while for Lisa to work her true magic on me.
But this combination of Personal Computer News and it’s first issue review of “Apple’s lovable LISA” did change my life. From a 13-year old kid living in the West of Scotland, my fascination and love of computers has taken me to where I am right now, close to Sacramento, California, getting even closer to my 50th birthday, sitting in my family room bashing this out on an iPad Pro with a slightly dysfunctional Smart Keyboard. It’s not a rags to riches story or an inspiring tale of triumph over adversity, but it’s been good enough for me.
BTW, if you’re looking for some actual information on Lisa rather than my ramblings, I’d heartily recommend Stephen Hackett’s column on Lisa published on MacStories.net.
https://www.macstories.net/mac/the-lisa/
