Apple Lisa

Read Cult of Mac’s latest posts on Apple Lisa:

Apple check No. 2, signed by Jobs and Woz, goes up for auction

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Apple check #2, signed by Jobs and Woz, goes up for auction
Both Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak signed this check.
Photo: RR Auction

A unique bit of Apple history just went up for auction: Apple Computer check “No. 2” signed by company co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Bidding for the $116.97 check is already up to more than $55,000.

A number of other rare Apple items are also up for sale, some signed by Jobs.

Apple Lisa 1, factory-sealed iPhone 2007 rake in cash at auction

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Apple Lisa 1
This Apple Lisa 1 sold at top dollar this week.
Photo: RR Auction

An auction that included vintage Apple items that were almost thrown away wrapped up this week with many items bringing in more than their estimates. A Lisa 1 and an original iPhone still in the plastic sold at hefty prices. Some technical notes handwritten by Steve Jobs also brought in more than expected. There were many more.

However, some of the Apple items did not sell, including a fully functional Apple-1, likely because bids didn’t reach their reserve price.

Massive Mac collection goes up for auction

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Hanspeter Luzi Vintage Apple Archive
These are just a few of the hundreds of classic Macintoshes going up for auction.
Photo: Julien’s Auctions

The Hanspeter Luzi Vintage Apple Archive with over 500 computers and other Apple items will go up for auction at the end of this month. There’s an Apple Lisa and other classic Macintosh models collected over 25 years.

That means two separate auctions of Apple products will be happening in close succession.

Larry Tesler, the Apple employee who invented cut, copy and paste, dies at 74

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Larry Tesler
Larry Tesler worked for Apple from 1980 through 1997.
Photo: Yahoo!

Larry Tesler, a pioneering computer scientist who worked at Apple from 1980 to 1997 and created computerized cut, copy and paste, died Monday at the age of 74.

Tesler served as VP of AppleNet and Apple’s Advanced Technology Group. During his time at Apple, he played a key role in the development of products ranging from the Lisa to the Newton MessagePad.

And that was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to his contribution to computing.

Apple Lisa, transformed! [Cult of Mac Magazine No. 307]

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Apple Lisa, transformed! Cult of Mac Magazine No. 307
A vintage Apple Lisa computer gets a modern makeover and more.
Cover: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac

An Apple fan who turned a broken Lisa computer into a powerful machine explains how he dragged the vintage machine into the 21st century in this week’s issue of Cult of Mac Magazine.

Grab the free mag now to learn all about John McLearan’s unique passion project. In addition to the cover story, you’ll get the best Apple news and opinion of the week. Plus, product reviews and how-tos with a distinctly Apple focus. (Want to read in your browser instead? Get all the top headlines below.)

How a broken Apple Lisa was transformed into a powerful computer

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restored Apple Lisa with clear plastic housing
Saying John McLearan restored this Apple Lisa 2/10 is an understatement.
Photo: John McLearan

The Apple Lisa computer was a colossal failure. It was also the most important machine in personal computing history.

You can try to argue that last claim with John McLearan. He believes it. And he offers his restored Lisa 2/10 — loaded with modifications to make it a 21st-century workhorse — as proof that the computer’s reputation needs a considerable upgrade.

Original source code for Apple’s ill-fated Lisa will be made public next year

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Take a sneak peek at upcoming Apple Lisa documentary
The Lisa didn't sell, but it was immensely significant.
Photo: Auction Team Breker

Apple isn’t the most transparent of companies when it comes to its technology, but from next year you’ll be able to dive into the code of one of its most revolutionary operating systems to see how it was achieved.

The operating system in question is that of the ill-fated Apple Lisa, a $10,000 machine which debuted in 1983 — and included Apple’s first ever graphical user interfaces, and one of the first in computer history as a whole.

Apple collectibles are a seller’s market

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Bids for this Apple I started at $370,000.
Bids for this Apple I started at $370,000.
Photo: Christie's

Cult of Mac 2.0 bugStarting a collection of Apple’s past is relatively easy and often affordable. But once you get started and a pricey, rare object presents itself, will you be able to control yourself?

Here’s a list that will test whether you have the fever and an intense desire to hold personal computing history in your hands. It may also test your fiscal fitness.

The Twiggy Mac Lives! The Quest To Resurrect The World’s Oldest Macintosh

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Hello I'm a Twiggy Mac
This rare Macintosh 128K prototype with Twiggy floppy disk drive has been lovingly restored to working order.

Nearly three decades after Apple Computer introduced the Macintosh, a pair of incredibly rare Mac prototypes have been discovered and restored to working order.

The computers, known as Twiggy Macs because they used the same 5.25-inch Twiggy floppy disk drive found in Apple’s doomed Lisa, were tracked down and painstakingly brought back to life by Adam Goolevitch, a vintage Mac collector, and Gabreal Franklin, a former Apple software engineer.

“Throughout the past 15 years, I have heard stories of and researched the fabled ‘Twiggy Macintosh’ computer,” Goolevitch told Cult of Mac in an email. “It was a thing of myth and legend — like a unicorn.”

Locating these Macs was the first step, but getting them to work was the real challenge. Goolevitch and Franklin embarked on an all-out effort to resurrect these long-lost pieces of Macintosh history.

Now two Twiggy Macs have been returned to life in full working glory. They are — without a doubt — the oldest Macs in the world. With auction prices for Apple-1 computers nudging upward toward the half-million-dollar mark, these incredibly rare prototypes — which look a lot like something you might find at a garage sale — could prove priceless. Here is the story of their amazing resurrection.

You Probably Never Noticed This Apple Tribute In The Simpsons [Image]

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lisasimpsonapple

 

With over 500 episodes of The Simpsons aired on TV, and tons of Apple links, even a hardcore Simpsons and Apple fan might have missed this tribute to Apple. In episode #497 “The D’oh-cial Network” Lisa builds a social-network called SpringFace. The computer behind Lisa’s coding prowess was a Lisa computer by Mapple at the Springfield High School computer lab.

The Apple nod is a reference to the Apple Lisa which was released in 1983, and is named after Steve Jobs’ first daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs. The logo on the Simpsons’ Lisa computer is the Mapple logo which is just an apple that has been bitten on both sides.

Source: Reddit

Steve Jobs’s Ex-Girlfriend & Mother Of Lisa To Publish Memoir In 2013

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Steve Jobs with his daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs.
Steve Jobs with his daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs.

In a timed announcement made exactly on the one year anniversary of Steve Jobs’s death, Chrisann Brennan — Steve Jobs’s highschool sweetheart and the mother of American journalist and writer Lisa Brennan-Jobs, for whom the Apple Lisa was named — has said that she will be publishing a memoir next year.

Forget The Retina MacBook Pro, These Are The Five Most Expensive Apple Computers Of All Time

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Expensive Mac

You might think that the new MacBook Pro with Retina display breaks the bank as far as computers go, but compared to some of Apple’s older machines, it’s just a drop in the bucket. Apple has never had the most economical options for computers, but they’ve come a long way towards being affordable to most consumers. Don’t believe me? Forbes has compiled a list of the five most expensive Apple computers of all time.

Cult of Mac’s New Graphic Tee Resurrects A Forgotten Steve Jobs Creation

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Cult of Mac is back with another great Apple-inspired tee!

Made right here in the U.S. of A., we partnered with Seattle indie brand Might Tees to bring the computing days of yore back to life on our new In Love With Lisa graphic tee.

Who’s Lisa? Why, she was only one of Apple’s most iconic computing failures. Perhaps it was her stratospheric 10k price tag that was to blame for her abysmal sales record — it obviously wasn’t her boxy good-looks! We loved her though, so resurrected her cutting-edge, dual-floppy technology in a vintage design you’ll be proud to wear over your torso.

Our new tee is hewn from 100% super-soft cotton, ships worldwide, and is available right now over at MightTees.com.

Steve Jobs: Building The World’s Greatest Company, One Product At A Time [Gallery]

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steve-jobs-apple-think-different

Things at Apple are going to be a little different without Steve Jobs at the helm. I have no doubt that Tim Cook will step up to do a fantastic job, but there are many reasons why we’ll never forget Steve’s time at Apple. Here we take a look at some of Apple’s greatest achievements while Steve was at the company, and the products that have made it the world’s largest company.

Apple Lisa 1 Sells for $15k on eBay

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Rare Vintage Apple items are popular these days. An Apple Lisa 1 put up for sale on eBay last week has sold for $15,000 after 11 bids! The unit, in working condition, belonged to a former member of the Lisa production team at Apple and was sold by his brother.  In an email received by Cult of Mac, the seller noted that the buyer intends to display the system in a museum in Italy.

Ebay Watch: Last Day to Bid on Working Lisa

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The financial crisis may be spurring a few Apple collectors to clean the computer room — after a couple of Apple Is we found on eBay, reader David Fulero tipped us off about this Lisa model up on the block.

She’s up for sale for just $999, a relative bargain if you consider the 26-year-old machine’s original sticker price was about $10,000 — something like $20,000 today.