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| Author | Before Macintosh: The Apple Lisa documentary (Read 24554 times) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Bolkonskij
Administrator 1024 MB  Posts: 2023 
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on: January 02, 2025, 14:26
So Computer historian David Greelish made this lovely documentary about the Apple Lisa and why it was such a revolutionary computer. It's up for free to watch on YouTube now and if the topic sounds interesting to you, go ahead and watch it. (I just did so!) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=psAeTDYezdo There were a few interesting tidbits of info and viewpoints I wasn't aware of. And a few opinions being reinforced aka Steve Jobs canning entire product lines supposedly based on emotions ... One interesting fact I found was the Lisa OS. I have no experience with it but was surprised to hear that it effectively used the OpenDoc approach. In that it was document-centric, not application-centric (like the Mac). A revolutionary approach at the time. Anyway, wanted to share the link. Watch it if you think that sounds interesting, it's time well spent and if you do, write how you liked it 
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Last Edit: January 02, 2025, 14:28 by Bolkonskij
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lauland
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512 MB  Posts: 674 Symtes 7 Mewconer!
Reply #1 on: January 02, 2025, 18:05
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I was going to point out the very "OpenDoc"-ish approach it took too! When you actually try and use the Lisa OS in an emulator it feels "very alien". Their idea was you weren't ever supposed to think about "applications" (even which one you were using) but concentrate only on "your document". This whole document-centric approach was one of the things everyone in the industry thought we'd move to, but never happened, for various reasons. (Microsoft's COM is the only API-level implementation that really stuck). I could speculate, but it's the same reason the conventions of user interface etc haven't changed much at all in 25+ years, we still deal with monolithic applications, files in folders, windows browsing hard drives, etc. ...other than in the handheld/phone world that is! (Even then, we're still opening "apps" and not "documents"). Our desktops becoming more like our phones has both good and bad implications, of course... The Lisa's CPU ran at only 5 mhz (slower than the original Mac's 8 mhz), with no MMU, yet the OS had multitasking and other advanced features. It's tantalizing to imagine what running the Lisa OS on hardware like the original Mac II (or beyond) might have done. Technically it would've been possible for Apple to do that, but politics, personalities, and actual business...time and money...caused the pivot to Mac. (And instead, some people ended up running System 6 on their Lisas). Almost the exact same thing happened with the Apple III, we ended up...eventually...getting most of what was promised...ProDOS inherited a lot, but not the really advanced stuff from SOS...but it took a while. And, with MacOS X and the Apple IIgs, Apple went so far beyond their poor abandoned cousins...
Last Edit: January 02, 2025, 18:09 by lauland
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Jatoba
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256 MB Posts: 270 System 9 Newcomer!
Reply #2 on: January 04, 2025, 22:56
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Just finished the documentary (via an Invidious instance as a proxy for YouTube). In short, great stuff. Very educational about the Lisa. One thing it reminded me of is the existence of LisaEm, the emulator. "Is that running on Mac OS?" I checked, and surely enough, it's not in the Garden. So then I looked at the official website (RIP to the author): https://lisa.sunder.net/downloads.html It would seem this emulator has been made available for the "usual" mainstream options of Windows, Mac OS X and GNU/Linux. Nothing else. But source code is available. Maybe something to think about after Mini vMac...
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #3 on: January 05, 2025, 01:28
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The one technological progress I can readily acknowledge are the keyboards. Back then it was nearly impossible to get a decent keyboard w/o forking over a small fortune for it (or buy IBM - which was also costly). Yet today, even the cheapest China tech usually has good enough keys on it.
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lauland
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512 MB Posts: 674 Symtes 7 Mewconer!
Reply #4 on: January 05, 2025, 20:00
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Keyboards: Ironic how there's a fad for modern usb versions of vintage "clicky"/"clunky" keyboards among some geeks. I have to admit I like it when I can feel SOMETHING when typing, but, dang, some of those old keyboards, like pre-G3 powerbooks are just FUNKY. Also, side note, the Lisa and original Mac's keyboards didn't have cursor keys...why would would need them when you have a mouse?!? Lisa emulator: It uses wxWidgets (previously known as wxWindows) for its gui. So if there were such a beast for pre-MacOS X, it could be possible.
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Jatoba
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256 MB Posts: 270 System 9 Newcomer!
Reply #5 on: January 05, 2025, 21:14
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@lauland There is! Not sure if it is new enough for the task, though: it was called wxMac. I once accidentally did a lot of research on it and wrote about it here. "Accidentally" in the sense that I was answering in a thread asking about wxPython instead, but I somehow didn't realize it! If compiled from source via CodeWarrior, the latest version should be 2.6.4 with the following SourceForge link for download: https://sourceforge.net/projects/wxwindows/files/2.6.4/ Both "Carbon" and "Toolbox" should be available as targets for Mac OS. Will 2.6.4 be too old?
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lauland
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512 MB Posts: 674 Symtes 7 Mewconer!
Reply #6 on: January 06, 2025, 02:44
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So 2.6.4 requires CW8, and, of course they couldn't just include project files, but instead .xml exports and ad-hoc applescripts that go through all the folders and "convert" them. (Likely "asking" CW to import and saving)...always a bit of a pain with that sort of thing, just getting it to actually work, but not a deal killer. I don't have CW8 installed anywhere, but could do so and give it a try. Unless any of us suddenly becomes very enthused about a MacOS 9 Lisa Emulator this is likely very low priority.
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lauland
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512 MB Posts: 674 Symtes 7 Mewconer!
Reply #7 on: January 06, 2025, 15:42
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One note: The reason I mention 2.6.4 requiring CW8 is that the disto the @jatoba found, even though it is called "wxMac-2.6.4" is the source, and doesn't include built binaries of the library. So to build LisaEm, it looks like I'd need to build wxWidgits first.
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lauland
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512 MB Posts: 674 Symtes 7 Mewconer!
Reply #8 on: January 13, 2025, 16:56
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Randomly stumbled upon this large collection of Lisa documentation in PDF format, several of these I hadn't seen before: https://www.apple.asimov.net/documentation/applelisa/ (modern browser link) This one is interesting because it covers how they got early versions of the MacOS to run on the Lisa: AppleLisa - MacWorksPlusDevInfo.pdf (modern browser link) Pretty sure MacWorks would run in LisaEm, so you could use LisaEm to emulate a mutant Mac Plus of sorts... www.apple.asimov.net is mostly absolutely tons of info on Apple 2's, but also the much more obscure Apple 1 and 3. There's a very small Mac section of docs from Jef Raskin (lead Mac designer), but it's good historic stuff, a lot of preliminary docs: https://www.apple.asimov.net/documentation/macintosh/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jef_Raskin (modern browser links)
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