Apple’s Lisa Operating System To Be Released As Open Source

While people might give Apple a lot of flak for being late to doing certain things or including certain features in their products, the company was also known for a lot of “firsts”. This included creating a computer with an operating system that sported a graphical user interface in the form of the Apple Lisa.

The computer was released back in 1983, nearly 35 years ago, and now it looks like the Computer History Museum has plans to release the operating system found on the Lisa as a free open source platform. What this means is that if you’re interested in taking the platform for a spin and check it out for yourself, you’ll be able to as the Museum will be releasing the source code behind it.

Exactly what will come of this remains to be seen, but it could be an interesting history lesson or just for fans who want to see what Apple were like back in the day, or just developers who love tinkering around in general. The Lisa, for those unfamiliar, was pretty much a flop despite it being one of the first of its kind.

The computer cost $10,000 back in the day, which according to Business Insider when you factor in inflation, means that it will cost around $24,000 by today’s standards. This is versus other computers offered by IBM that were considerably cheaper, with Apple only managing to sell 10,000 units after 3 years.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Computers
Tags: Education