]> http://www.applefritter.com/taxonomy/term/21/0 en http://www.applefritter.com/node/3198 [center][image:3193][/center] Lisa has a soft power switch. When 'off' Lisa is actually in a low power mode. Press the power button while the computer is running the Lisa Office System program suite and Lisa saves all documents and shuts down. Press it again and Lisa boots back up and reopens all documents precisely as they were before the computer was turned off. [center][image:3194][/center] The Lisa interface at first glance looks very similar to the Macintosh System, but there are many significant differences. Perhaps most noticeable from this screenshot is the lack of an Apple menu (though Version 3 (a.k.a. "Lisa 7/7") had an Apple menu which was labeled"Desk"), the "File/Print" and "Housekeeping" menus, and the icons aligned by default across the bottom of the desktop (and I thought Microsoft was being radical when they put theirs on the left-hand side!). Clicking on the buttons in the scroll bar that look like documents causes the window to scroll a window-full at a time, whereas, on the Macintosh, this is done by clicking in the large grey of the scroll bar. [center][image:3195][/center] The Lisa operating system is document-centric, as opposed to application-centric. With Macintosh, one opens an application and then creates a new document from within the program. With Lisa, the application need hardly be seen. Double click on a stationary pad such as "LisaGraph Paper" and a new LisaGraph document appears on the desktop which then can be opened and edited similarly to a Macintosh. [center][image:3196][/center] There is no "New Folder" option in Lisa's File/Print menu. Instead, double clicking on the "Empty Folders" icon will create a new folder in the directory of the "Empty Folders" icon, which can then be placed wherever one wants. [center][image:3197][/center] This screeshot, taken by David T. Craig, shows the Lisa 7/7 desktop. This desktop picture includes the Desk menu and shows several applications open at once. This was part of Lisa Office System 3.0/3.1. David T. Craig writes: "There were three major versions of the Lisa Office System, versions 1, 2, and 3. Version 1 ran only on the Lisa 1 computer which came with two 860KB 5.25" Twiggy floppy drives. Versions 2 and 3 ran on the Lisa 2/5 and 2/10 machines which came with a single 400K 3.5" microdisk. Version 3 was also called "Lisa 7/7" since it came with 7 applications (LisaWrite, LisaDraw, LisaCalc, LisaGraph, LisaTerminal, LisaProject, LisaList) and all 7 were seen as providing a complete office suite (7/7 = 1). The last version of the Lisa Office System was version 3.1. It was created to support transporting Lisa documents to the Macintosh using Apple's Lisa-to-Macintosh application. Version 3 also supported color printing in the LisaDraw and LisaGraph programs which could be printed to a Canon ink-jet printer (it is interesting to note that the Lisa's graphic library, QuickDraw, has always supported color but the Lisa hardware sucha s the display did not support color)." There's a plethora of intriguing facts about Lisa which I haven't covered in these two pages. Once again, I strongly encourage those who find this topic interesting to read The Legacy of the Apple Lisa Personal Computer. For more information, the Apple Lisa Computer Desktop Manager Info is also helpful. Fri, 11 Jun 2004 13:22:19 -0700 http://www.applefritter.com/node/3191 [center][image:3173][/center] Introduced in January 1983 at a price of $9,995, the Lisa is often overlooked in favor the cheaper, less powerful, later Macintosh, which is a pity, as the Lisa introduced a slew of innovations, many of which still are not implemented in "modern" operating systems. I would go into great detail on the Lisa, but David T. Craig (who also helped with this page) has already done a better job than I possibly could, writing The Legacy of the Apple Lisa Computer, an exceptionally thorough paper on the Lisa, and I whole-heartily recommend that everybody reads it. Instead, I'm going to focus on some of the details about Lisa that I found most interesting. The original Lisa had two 5.25" Twiggy drives designed inhouse and 1 MB of RAM. With the introduction of the Lisa 2 the Twiggy drives were replaced with a single Sony 3.5" drive as the Sony was cheaper and Apple wanted to standardize the Mac and Lisa floppy media. The Lisa 2 shipped with only 512 KB RAM and was generally sold in the "2/5" configuration, with an external 5 MB Profile hard drive. The Lisa 2/10 sported a redesigned motherboard and had an internal 10 MB Widget HD. A Macintosh XL is generally the same as a Lisa 2/10 but with MacWorks installed. The pictures seen on this page are of the Lisa 2/5. [center][image:3174][/center] Whereas the Macintosh required a size 15 Torx screwdriver with 12" neck to open, the Lisa simply required two fingers: one for each tab. This provided easy access to the drive cage. The CRT was still reserved for service people. [center][image:3175][/center] Release the thumbscrew at the bottom center, pull, and the entire cage comes right out. The board on the left is the disk controller, labeled "Lisa Lite Adapter." In the Lisa 1, the second floppy drive is mounted above the first; in the Lisa 2/10, the hard drive is there. [center][image:3176][/center] From left to right, first is the reset button, then the ports: video out, parallel, mouse, serial 1, and serial 2. The two thumbscrews on the top loosen the back cover, which then can be leaned back and pulled out. The keyboard port is on the front. [center][image:3177][/center]  There are three expansion slots on the left. The system board seen here is mounted on a cage assembly. [center][image:3178][/center] The cage assembly can be removed completely, making for easy upgrades and repairs. Note the connectors on the bottom center. [center][image:3180][/center]  In the lower right corner of the board is where the battery should be, missing from this unit. The chip socket in the upper-right of this photo was designed for a math coprocessor, which was uncommonly installed. [center][image:3182][/center] The large IC in the upper-right is the Motorola 68000 processor. The two cards with the yellow tabs each contain 512KB of RAM. [center][image:3183][/center] I can't imagine there are many people who have upgraded a Lisa without knowing what they were upgrading, but the color-coding is a nice touch. [center][image:3186][/center] These expansion slots were rarely used, perhaps the most frequent application being a parallel card, which interfaced Lisa to either the Apple 5 MB ProFile hard drive or to Lisa's original printer, the Apple Dot-Matrix Printer (DMP) These slots were also used by a 4 port serial card that Lisa SCO UNIX people used to connect 4 external terminals. There was also a test card that Apple's manufacturing plants used and a very rare network card which was used internally by Apple for development of AppleBus (later AppleTalk) networking. [center][image:3187][/center] Pull the lever out, turn it clockwise, and the connectors open up. Place the card in, turn it counter-clockwise, and they close. Apple didn't scrimp on quality. [center][image:3188][/center] I was surprised when I first saw the Lisa's mouse connector: squeeze on the plastic sides to connect and disconnect. This variation was used on the Lisa 1 and Lisa 2/5; the 2/10 used a thumbscrew connector much like that on the Mac 128k-Plus. [center][image:3190][/center] The Lisa keyboard was significant in that it featured the APPLE key instead of a CONTROL key. The only previous Apple computer to have an Apple key was the Apple III from 1981. This keyboard was also significant in terms of not having special function keys like most office-oriented computer keyboards had. For example, the Xerox Star had several special keys as did many of the word-processing systems such as IBM's Display Writer and the Wang WP machines. Fri, 11 Jun 2004 13:23:58 -0700