The Lisa operating system featured cooperative (non-preemptive) multitasking and virtual memory, then extremely advanced features for a personal computer. With the introduction of the Lisa 2, an optional 10 MB internal proprietary hard disk manufactured by Apple, known as the "Widget," was also offered. An optional external 5 MB or, later, a 10 MB Apple ProFile hard drive (originally designed for the Apple III) was available. The Macintosh, which was originally designed to have a single Twiggy drive, was revised to use a Sony 400 kB microfloppy drive in January 1984. They had a capacity of approximately 871 kB each, but required special diskettes.
The original Lisa had two Apple FileWare 5.25-inch double-sided floppy disk drives, more commonly known by Apple's internal code name for the drive: "Twiggy". The complexity of the Lisa operating system and its programs taxed the 5 MHz Motorola 68000 microprocessor so that consumers said it felt sluggish, particularly when scrolling in documents. The Macintosh featured a faster 68000 processor (7.89 MHz) and sound.
Protected memory, for instance, did not arrive until the Mac OS X operating system was released in 2001. It would be many years before many of those features were implemented on the Macintosh platform. The Lisa was a more advanced system than the Macintosh of that time in many respects, such as its inclusion of protected memory, cooperative multitasking, a generally more sophisticated hard disk based operating system, a built-in screensaver, an advanced calculator with a paper tape and RPN, support for up to 2 megabytes (MB) of RAM, expansion slots, a numeric keypad, data corruption protection schemes such as block sparing, non-physical file names (with the ability to have multiple documents with the same name), and a larger higher-resolution display. The Macintosh is not a direct descendant of Lisa, although there are obvious similarities between the systems and the final revision, the Lisa 2/10, was modified and sold as the Macintosh XL. In 1982, Steve Jobs was forced out of the Lisa project, so he joined the Macintosh project instead.
It was the first personal computer to offer a graphical user interface in an inexpensive machine aimed at individual business users.ĭevelopment of the Lisa began in 1978 as a powerful personal computer with a graphical user interface (GUI) targeted toward business customers. The Lisa is a personal computer designed by Apple Computer, Inc.