Hi everybody,
after reading all this more-or-less funny articles in the LisaList
about giving away a Lisa 1, I have to write a few lines here. Perhaps
this text explains, how rare a Lisa 1 is; and in deed IT IS!
Approximately 20 years ago, there was a sold out auction in a factory
near my hometown. In this factory there were made HiFi components,
TVs, videorecorders and later on computers, too. In early till mid
80ies they developped an Audio-IO Card for the Apple Lisa, but
unfortunately the Lisa was not long enough for sale and only few
people could afford to buy a Lisa, and it seems nobody really needed
this Audio-Card. I don't know if they ever sold a few of them or if
they did all the engineering work and finally dumped the whole stuff :-)
Well, back to the sory: I read a line in the newspaper, that there is
an auction and decided to have a look. When I arrived, there were not
many people there (if I remember right: about 10 or 15) and when the
auction started, the guy sold the stuff of a complete engineering
department. When I say "complete" that's exactly what the word
"complete" means. You could place your bid on complete rooms,
including furniture, equipment, plants a.s.o. The most people only
wanted to buy an office chair, table or shelf and it seems I had been
the only one, who was looking for a computer. Finally I got the whole
furniture of 1 room, which had been the prototype engineering
devision in this factory. I went home to ask a friend, whether he can
help me with his VW-Van and when we arrived again a sad looking guy
stood there and watched us carrying away the stuff. When we stored
all that in the VW he came and gave us a small box with floppies and
said: I worked there for years ... and perhaps you will find the
software here very helpful...
I never met this guy again, but I can tell you, what sorts of
computers I stored in the VW:
plenty of boards, hard drives, floppy-drives, PSUs, cards for Lisa 2
1 Apple Lisa 1
7 Apple Lisa 2
1 Apple Lisa Prototype
BUT, before 100 guys from the LisaList ask me now, whether I will
give my Lisa 1 away, I have to tell you: I sold her years ago... The
collector from Switzerland bought the "old Lady of computing" and I
was very astonished, when I saw an auction on ebay about a Lisa 1
half a year later. I checked after the auction had ended that this
item (formerly my Lisa) was sold to a guy in USA for a bit more than
15000 USD. But this was 7 or 8 years ago...
Any futher questions?
I hope nobody is really intending to dump a Lisa... or crazy enought
to modd the case. aaaaaarrrrrrggggghhhh
My heart's bleeding!
Blasphemy!!! Don't kill a Lisa, that way!
This is the first commercial computer on this planet using the GUI
A milestone in computer history