Macintosh and Lisa

In 1984, Apple had two computers with GUIs: The Macintosh, which has gone on to be the most pleasant computing platform in the world, and the Lisa, which most people have never heard of. The Lisa was even marketed as the “Macintosh XL” for a while, before it was finally canned once and for all so that its little brother the Mac could take center stage. Legend has it that all of the Lisas Apple couldn’t sell are piled up in a landfill somewhere. This photo was taken at the computer museum tucked into the back corner of [RE-PC][1], a treasure trove of nearly-useless computer junk just south of downtown Seattle. For some reason I ended up buying a Power Macintosh 9600/233, circa 1997, from the $20 as-is mystery pile. The adventure to turn this relic into a Mac OS X server/router deserves its own entry, heck, its own site. [1]: http://www.repc.com/