SUMMARY In retrospect the Lisa may be seen as an experiment that both succeeded and failed. The Lisa succeeded by introducing several concepts to the computing industry which in some cases revolutionized how computers were built and how users used them. The Lisa failed by not being able to convey what it was really trying to accomplish, that is, convincing people (both power users and normal users) that a computer system can be easy to use, powerful, and reliable. Apple Computer is one of the few computer companies in the world that has the gumption to attack projects like Lisa. Apple's success in developing the Lisa, showing that a desktop system could be both powerful and easy to use, and attempting to migrate some of the Lisa's features to its other computers (eg Macintosh and Apple 2 series) should be considered a feather in the hat of all the people at Apple who participated in the Lisa adventure. In a few short years a rather small group of very talented and dedicated people at Apple built a computer system designed to be used by ordinary people. What specific circumstances created this conjunction of technical talent is beyond my knowledge. However, it did happen and for a brief time there was an unparalleled flash of brilliance that is now a fading image. Hopefully this fading flash will be rekindled in the future. Having the Lisa legacy without learning from it would be worse than not having a legacy at all.
|