The Verge has published a new half-hour documentary that dives into the origin and obsolete status of Apple’s Lisa computer platform. The ’80s were something else. We associate 1984 with when the Macintosh revolutionized personal computers, but the Lisa is another story.
Expand Expanding Close
Two organizations key to Apple’s history are to be merged into one, as Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) has been donated to SRI International. This will see PARC and SRI research teams working together on future projects.
PARC was where Steve Jobs famously saw the graphical user interface and mouse that were used in the LISA and then Macintosh, while SRI was where Siri was developed …
Expand Expanding Close
Apple Lisa was introduced 40 years ago. And although it never became a hit due to its high price, Lisa paved the way for the Macintosh and other computers with a graphical user interface. But how does the Lisa compare to modern computers and even devices like smartphones and tablets?
Expand Expanding Close
Apple has today been granted a patent for a graphical display concept it calls virtual paper, and two things struck me about it – one about its origins, the other about what it may tell us about future Apple design language.
The patent is for a visual representation of paper in three-dimensional form, which is, of course, the type of user interface most applicable to the upcoming Apple mixed-reality headset …
Expand Expanding Close
CNBC has a short but fascinating video on the world’s largest collection of Apple prototypes. Many of these are housed in a clear perspex case, including the original Macintosh, Color Macintosh, Newton and a Macintosh Portable …
Lisa Brennan-Jobs & Natalie Portman
Actress Natalie Portman is the latest name to be thrown in the mix of potential stars in the upcoming Steve Jobs biopic written by Aaron Sorkin. The information comes courtesy of Deadline, which reports that Portman is “in talks to join” the project in a leading role although the specific character is unknown. It’s possible Natalie Portman is being considered to portray Steve Jobs’ daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs.
Expand
Expanding
Close
A Lisa mouse used by Steve Jobs to give a presentation at the Aspen International Design Conference in 1983 and then buried in a time capsule has been dug up, reports CNET.
The capsule was originally due to be unearthed in 2000, but landscaping work meant that conference organisers lost track of its position and had to call in help from the National Geographic Channel show Diggers to locate it.
The capsule was retrieved back in September, but the video has just been made available.
Just months before the original Mac debuted 30 years ago, it was deeply troubled by an in-house 5.25″ flimsy floppy-disk drive it relied on called the Twiggy (you know, for it’s flimsiness). This was replaced by a more stable 3-inch Sony drive before shipping, but the Twiggy Macs had more than just a different drive.
Interestingly, the operating system featured a Steve Jobs rendtion of Microsoft’s dreaded, now retired Clippy assistant. The Ashton Kutcher resemblance has never been clearer… er… pixelated.
Check out the full article for other tidbits at Cult of Mac (via Daring Fireball).
Apple and its cofounder Steve Jobs certainly helped design and popularize storage devices throughout computing history. For example, the Mac mainstreamed Sony’s 3.5-inch floppy drive in the 1980s, but Apple was working on its own storage devices even before the Mac debuted. One of our buddies discovered this eBay listing advertising for what appears to be a prototype of a previously unknown NISHA hard drive adorned with the colorful Apple logo. It comes in a translucent case, and it could easily be the first Apple product we have seen like this, even though it never shipped. It is neither a Hard Disk 20 drive Apple introduced on Sept. 17, 1985 specifically for use with the Macintosh 512K nor is it a Hard Disk 20SC.
The latter product was the first SCSI drive Apple manufactured and deployed on the Macintosh Plus in 1986, effectively obsolescing the Hard Disk 20 unit. It is a safe bet that this unit represents an early prototype of one of Apple’s hard drives, but it could also be a new hard drive design that never saw the light of day. The seller could not tell either, as the drive did not power up. Eagle-eyed readers are aware that Apple of the past had been designing its own storage devices and the aforementioned Hard Disk 20 serves as an illustrious example of the company’s closed approach to hard drives.
