Larry Tesler, former Xerox PARC researcher and Apple chief scientist, explains the impact of the Lisa, a computer ahead of its time.

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Apple introduced the revolutionary Lisa computer in 1983, but only about 30,000 were sold. The product was overpriced and slow. It also entered the market on the heels of the popular Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet, which established the IBM PC as the standard in business. But this didn't stop the Lisa from pointing the way to the future of personal computing.

Why was the Lisa slow? Because it didn't have enough power to run the demanding graphical user interface. Here's how it compares to my G4 Cube:




Lisa 1PowerMac G4 Cube
Processor5 MHz 16/32 bit450 MHz 32 bit
Maximum Memory2MB1,500MB
Standard disk0.8MB Floppy20,000MB Ultra ATA


Even that low-power setup was too expensive to compete with an MS-DOS PC, which had a quarter of the memory and an 8-bit microprocessor.

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