Lisa, it’s your birthday — Revisiting Apples ill-fated Lisa computer, 40 years on On its 40th anniversary, we look back at the machine that brought the GUI to personal computers.
Jeremy Reimer – Jan 19, 2023 12:30 pm UTC Enlarge / Steve Jobs posing with the Lisa in 1983. Ted Thai reader comments 232 with 0 posters participating Share this story Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Reddit
Forty years ago today, a new type of personal computer was announced that would change the world forever. Two years later, it was almost completely forgotten.
The Apple Lisa started in 1978 as a new project for Steve Wozniak. The idea was to make an advanced computer using a bit-slice processor, an early attempt at scalable computing. Woz got distracted by other things, and the project didnt begin in earnest until early 1979. Thats when Apple management brought in a project leader and started hiring people to work on it.
Lisa was named after Steve Jobs daughter, even though Jobs denied the connection and his parentage. But the more interesting thing about the Lisa computer was how it evolved into something unique: It was the first personal computer with a graphical user interface (GUI). The vision takes shape
GUIs were invented at Xeroxs Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in the early 1970s. The Alto workstation, which was never sold to the public, had a bitmapped screen that mimicked the size and orientation of a piece of paper. PARC researchers wrote software that displayed windows and icons, and they used a mouse to move a pointer on that screen. Enlarge / A restored Xerox Alto, still running code in 2017. Ken Sheriff
Jef Raskin, an early Apple employee who wrote the manual for the Apple ][, had visited PARC in 1973. He believed that GUIs were the future. Raskin managed to persuade the Lisa project leader to change the computer into a GUI machine. However, he couldnt convince Jobs, who thought Raskin and Xerox were incompetent.
Raskin altered his approach and got graphics programmer Bill Atkinson to propose an official tour of PARC in November 1979. Because Jobs thought Atkinson was great, he agreed to come along. Jobs visit to PARC became the stuff of legend, a tale of a brilliant visionary seeing the future of computing for the first time. But in reality, Atkinson was already working on LisaGrafthe low-level code that would power the Lisas GUImonths before Jobs saw the PARC demo.
The Lisas hardware changed as well. The team abandoned the bit-slice processor and adopted Motorolas new 68000 CPU. The 68000 was a 16/32-bit chip and used a 24-bit address bus, giving it a maximum of 16 megabytes of memory. This was fine, as memory prices were still sky-high in 1980, and most computers of the day had a maximum of 64 kilobytes of RAM.
In January 1981, senior leadership at Apple got tired of Jobs constant interference and micromanagement of the Lisa project and officially removed him from the team. Jobs seethed, then took over a smaller skunkworks project being run by Raskin. This would become important later. Advertisement
By early 1982, the Lisa hardware was mostly finalized. However, the software was still in flux. A team of designersincluding Larry Tesler, who had left PARC to join Applehad been busy doing tons of research, prototyping, and testing. The main question they had was: How should the Lisas GUI actually work? June 1979: A mockup of an early Lisa interface, running on an Apple ][. Interactions magazine August 1980: A mockup of menus and dialog boxes, running on a Lisa prototype. Interactions magazine October 1980: A mockup of the new single menu bar. Note the Note from Jef. Interactions magazine December 1980: An abandoned multi-column file browser. This design would return in NeXTstep and OS X. Interactions magazine July 1981: The Twenty Questions file locator. It worked, but nobody found it fun, so the team returned to the icon-based approach. Interactions magazine August 1982: The Lisas GUI is finally finalized. Interactions magazine
In an article in Interactions magazine, designers Roderick Perkins, Dan Smith, and Frank Ludolph described how the Lisas interface changed from early prototypes to a familiar desktop with icons, then away from that model, then finally back to an icon-based, document-centric approach. The goal was to make the Lisa powerful and fun to use.
At long last, the Lisa was ready to be unveiled to the public. On January 19, 1983, Apple announced the computer, which it accurately described as revolutionary. Page: 1 2 3 4 5 Next → reader comments 232 with 0 posters participating Share this story Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Reddit Jeremy Reimer I’m a writer and web developer. I specialize in the obscure and beautiful, like the Amiga and newLISP. Email jeremy_reimer@hotmail.com // Twitter @jeremyreimer Advertisement Channel Ars Technica ← Prevous story Next story → Related Stories Today on Ars
Donald Trump has hit out at the bishop of Washington after she lectured him on respecting immigrants and LGBT+ citizens during a televised church service.
The direct appeal to Mr Trump, which went on for around two minutes, has gone viral on social media and drawn criticism from Republicans, including a congressman who urged the president to deport the bishop.
But what exactly did Bishop Budde say and what has the president’s response been?
What did Bishop Budde say?
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She began: “Let me make one final plea, Mr President. Millions have put their trust in you.
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“In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.
“There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in democratic, republican and independent families, some who fear for their lives.”
The bishop then highlighted the contributions of asylum seekers – a group Mr Trump has wasted no time in cracking down on.
She listed groups including “the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings” and those “who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals”.
“They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals,” she said. Mr Trump then looked down at the floor.
She continued: “I ask you to have mercy, Mr President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away.
“And that you help those who are fleeing war and persecution in their own lands, to find compassion and welcome here.
“Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land.”
Her comments came after Mr Trump promised to carry out the biggest deportation in US history and his executive order stating the government will recognise only two sexes.
How did Donald Trump and other Republicans react?
The president remained stony-faced during the remarks, during which he sat alongside wife Melania in the front row, and next to Mr Vance and his wife Usha Vance.
He did at one point turn away and look over his shoulder before examining the booklet he was holding.
At another point in the sermon, Mr Trump turned towards his VP and the pair shared a wordless exchange of looks.
Mr Vance raised his eyebrows at one stage and turned to share a look with his wife, whose gaze remained firmly forward.
He repeated the move after the bishop spoke about immigrants, and followed it up by whispering to Mrs Vance.
When Bishop Budde finished her sermon, Mr Trump leaned over to say something to Mr Vance, who shook his head in response.
Asked what he thought of the sermon as he returned to the Oval Office, the president told reporters: “They could have done better.”
In a late-night post on his social media platform Truth Social, he called Bishop Budde a “radical left hardline Trump hater” and said she was “nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart”.
“She brought her church into the world of politics in a very ungracious way,” he said.
“Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job. She and her church owe the public an apology.”
Republican congressman Mike Collins shared a video of the sermon on X and wrote: “The person giving this sermon should be added to the deportation list.”
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She was elected as the ninth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington (EDW) in 2011, having served as rector of St John’s Episcopal Church in Minneapolis for 18 years.
She has had her sermons published in several books and journals, and has authored three of her own books about faith – most recently in 2023.
She has also been openly critical of Mr Trump before, having written an opinion piece for The New York Times in 2020, in which she condemned him for clearing Lafayette Square, near the White House, amid the George Floyd protests and then posing for photos on the grounds of nearby St John’s Church while holding a Bible.
She said she was “outraged” by the move and claimed he was using the Bible and the backdrop of the church, which belongs to her diocese, “for his political purposes”.
The EDW’s website describes her as “an advocate and organiser in support of justice concerns, including racial equity, gun violence prevention, immigration reform, the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons, and the care of creation”.
The bishop is married and has two children and grandchildren, the website adds.
A fire at a hotel in a popular ski resort in Turkey has killed at least 76 people, the country’s interior minister has said.
Ali Yerlikaya added that at least 51 other people were injured in the fire at the Grand Kartal hotel in Kartalkaya in Bolu province’s Koroglu mountains in northwest Turkey, about 185 miles (300km) east of Istanbul.
Four people, including the business owner, have been arrested by Turkish authorities, the justice secretary said.
The fire broke out at about 3.30am in the hotel’s restaurant, with pictures showing several fire engines surrounding the charred building, and white bed sheets tied together could be seen hanging from one upper-floor window.
At least two of the victims died after jumping from the building in panic, the governor of Bolu told the state-run Anadolu media agency, adding that 234 guests were staying at the 12-storey, 161-room hotel.
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Other reports said some people tried to climb down from their rooms using sheets and blankets. The health minister said at least one of the injured was in serious condition and 17 others had been discharged from hospital after being treated.
Third-floor guest Atakan Yelkovan told the IHA news agency his wife smelled burning but “the alarm did not go off”.
“We tried to go upstairs but couldn’t, there were flames. We went downstairs and came here [outside],” he said.
Mr Yelkovan said it took about an hour for the firefighting teams to arrive.
“People on the upper floors were screaming. They hung down sheets… some tried to jump,” he said.
Ski instructor Necmi Kepcetutan said he was asleep when the fire began and, after rushing outside, he helped some 20 guests escape.
He said the hotel was engulfed in smoke and admitted he couldn’t get to some of his students.
“I hope they are OK,” he said.
Mr Aydin’s office said 30 fire trucks and 28 ambulances were sent to the site. Other hotels at the resort were evacuated as a precaution and guests were placed in hotels around Bolu.
A team of six government-appointed prosecutors is investigating how the fire started.
German TV station NTV suggested the wooden cladding on the outside of the hotel may have accelerated the spread of the fire and that efforts to put it out were hampered by the fact it is built on the side of a cliff.
The Grand Kartal hotel passed a fire inspection last year, tourism minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy told reporters.
Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised to take “all necessary steps” to find out what happened and “hold those responsible accountable”.
A two-year-old boy and 41-year-old man have been killed while two others were injured in a stabbing incident in the southern German state of Bavaria.
A man, described by police as a 28-year-old Afghan national, has been arrested following the knife attack in a park in Aschaffenburg on Wednesday.
Police said the two seriously injured people were receiving hospital treatment and that a cordon remained in place in the area around the scene.
Officers have said the motive for the attack is currently unclear.
The suspect, who had followed a day care group of five small children, was detained at the scene in Schoental park, an English-style garden in the Bavarian city, where the attack occurred at around 11.45am local time.
Train services in the town were temporarily interrupted as the suspect tried to flee along the tracks, German news agency dpa reported.
A witness is being questioned, police added. They said there was no indication of further suspects and no danger to the public.
Police said they did not know the nationality of the two people who were killed and they did not release any details about those injured.
Germany has been hit by a string of violent attacks, including a car ramming into a crowd at a Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg in December, killing six people and injuring about 200.