Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utcs!mnetor!seismo!cmcl2!lanl!dlc
From: dlc@lanl.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: Running in place
Message-ID: <5424@lanl.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 19-Jul-86 14:31:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: lanl.5424
Posted: Sat Jul 19 14:31:03 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 19-Jul-86 22:26:21 EDT
References: <867@unirot.UUCP> <804@tekig4.UUCP>
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 28

> >This machine bears more than a
> >superficial resemblance to the original Lisa of January 1983.  Sure,
> >it costs less, and there are more applications available, but its
> >basic characteristics don't show the 3 1/2 years that have passed
> >since the Lisa's introduction.
> If you're a businessman, marketplace success is the ONLY
> yardstick.
I saw a Lisa demonstrated in 1983.  The slightest deviation from the script
of the demo crashed the system.  At any time, a 30-second "disk re-organization"
could interrupt your work.  They didn't mention Clascal, or any language for
developing your own programs.  Only a word processor, project manager, and
two draw/paint type programs were available.  There was not even a terminal
emulator.  The disks were even wierder than the 3-1/2 inch format on the
Macintosh, and the media was unavailable at a price double the price-per-
density of other 5-1/4 inch media, and four times the per-disk price.  The
hard disk was slower than 8 inch floppies (so are 5-1/4 inch floppies on
Big Blue's machines.)  The only thing the Lisa had going for it was a bit-
mapped screen and maybe the mouse.
  It was not just expensive, it didn't work.  The only answer one could
reach, for business or personal reasons, was no.
  A year later, the Macintosh was cheaper, although still over-priced.  But
it worked.  And it had a language (Microsoft BASIC) in which a terminal
emulator was written (MacTEP.)  So there was a foundation for growth in the
Macintosh.  The only reason to ever have a Lisa was to develop Macintosh
software, and Apple never marketed that application through their dealers.
  But even the Lisa was not the unmitigated disaster the Apple /// was.  I've
heard that after about a year, Apple ///'s began to pop out chips from the
mother-board with such force they hit the top cover of the cabinet.