Apple Lisa Goes Open-Source To Mark 40th Anniversary Of ‘Most Important Flop’
Photo 185203606 © Vlad Salikhov | Dreamstime.com
Not many people would recall using the first Apple Lisa. When it launched in 1983, it was marketed for business users and set them back nearly US$10,000 per unit. Owing to its steep price, and the fact that the more accessible Apple Macintosh and Lisa 2 arrived two years later, the desktop computer has been regarded as the tech giant’s “most important flop.”
In honor of the computer’s 40th anniversary on January 19, 2023, the Computer History Museum has released Apple Lisa’s source code to the public.
Despite being short-lived, the computer set a precedent for future PCs, and even smartphones, with its pioneering graphical user interface (GUI)—albeit one that was riddled with software issues. The Apple Lisa was built in with a full suite of applications including a word processor, spreadsheet program, and charts, and it eventually led to the development of the Mac operating system.
Discover the secrets of the Apple Lisa source code! Sign up for updates so you don’t miss out: https://t.co/2cPmjhyPnH #AppleLisa #ArtOfCode pic.twitter.com/rZGC3MYjNh
— Computer History Museum (@ComputerHistory) January 5, 2023
The source code that the museum is sharing is for version 3.1 of the Lisa Office System, rolled out in 1984. Take note that it’s being made available under the Apple Academic License Agreement, which opens the resource for “non-commercial, academic research, educational teaching, and personal study purposes only.”
Encompassing 26 MB of data, the code includes over 1,300 commented source files for the OS, its apps, and Lisa Toolkit development systems.
The release joins the Computer History Museum’s growing Art of Code series, where it highlights significant code releases that formed the building blocks for tech history. You can download the source code here, right after filling out a form.
[via Ars Technica and MacRumors, images via various sources]
