original 1984 macintosh woz

[blakespot]

LISA - Multi-tasking GUI Innovation/Implementation

I was about to tell you that the Lisa was not a multitasker...but I just did a search and found that the Lisa actually had preemptive multitasking! Amazing. How did the Mac not inherit this? Multifinder did not come until a few years after the Mac's intial debut, and it is a very poor example of how to multitask ('poor' also describing the multitasking model of OS 9.2.2). You learn something new every day.


blakespot

(On a bizarrely tangential note, I found this in doing a search on the Lisa... Scary...)

 

[mc68k]

Originally posted by blakespot

Amazing. How did the Mac not inherit this? Multifinder did not come until a few years after the Mac's intial debut, and it is a very poor example of how to multitask ('poor' also describing the multitasking model of OS 9.2.2). You learn something new every day.


blakespot

This LISA FAQ was VERY informative on many aspects of the machine. I agree that the multi-tasking model of OS 9 (descended from Multifinder) is still poor. If only Apple had kept innovating we still wouldn't be using essentially the same OS as the early '80's.

To answer your question:

"When Apple introduced the Lisa in January 1983, the Macintosh was still under development. In January 1984 Apple introduced the Macintosh, a physically smaller version of the Lisa.

The Macintosh from a casual glance resembled the Lisa in many ways. But underneath, the Macintosh and the Lisa were totally different. The Lisa supported a multi-tasking operating system, the Macintosh supported single-tasking. The Lisa's extra memory (8 times larger than the Macintosh) and hard drive allowed larger more-sophisticated Lisa programs and larger data files.

The Lisa's Desktop Manager and its distinctive user interface were used by the Macintosh developers as a foundation for the Macintosh's Finder and its user interface…

…I don't mean to criticize the Macintosh unfairly since it has in its own right contributed much to the field of personal computing. But from an overall perspective the Lisa was a result of a total system approach that delivered integrated functions with a consistent and high quality user interface. I can only speculate how this "total approach" originated but think it may have something to do with the experience and age differences of the Lisa and Macintosh development teams. From my readings it appears that the Lisa developers were about a decade older than their Macintosh counterparts. The Lisa developers came mainly from large computer companies (eg Xerox, HP, DEC) which dealt mainly with mini-computer class systems, while the Macintosh developers came mainly from Apple itself and its Apple 2 and 3 computer divisions. The Lisa developers also appear to have had a different perspective on programming than the Macintosh developers. The Lisa's core software was mainly written in Pascal, a high-level language. Macintosh core software on the other hand was written in 68000 assembly language."

 

[Mac Dummy]

Re: Re: Re: Missed Opportunity!

Originally posted by blakespot
I'd love to get back into the Newton. Sadly, with a serial-port-less Quicksilver and such old sync software, I just don't think I could go back at this point. It was 1999 when I let my MP2000 go. I still wish I had not, but I can't seem to bring myself to grab another one on eBay.

blakespot

That's how I feel about my Apple IIe, it was a about a 1985 model I'm guessing. My parents bought it from a college student around 1989. It had the factory dual 5.25" floppy drive unit and a green monochrome screen all enclosed in a beige case. We had to let it go in 1992, due to lack of software options. Unfortunately, I became a Windows user for the next 12 years, but I finally broke free and bought a 12" Powerbook in September. I still wish I had my old Apple II though, I loved playing "Wings of Fury" on it dispite the green screen, when I wasn't using it to write reports for school.

 

[Mac Dummy]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Missed Opportunity!

Originally posted by Hemingray
While I'm still a total newbie to the Newton community, I am looking into options to connect the Newton to Apple's newest computers. So far, I've come up with the Keyspan USB Twin Serial adapter for connections AND I found a Sync program for OS X called Newten 1.1. Haven't been able to use it yet, but it sounds promising!

If your trying to sync up to OS X, then you might try here. http://www.everchanging.com/newton/

 

[rainman::|:|]

this is the oldest thread i've seen resurrected with a post by myself in it

pnw