The Computer Heritage Museum is close to releasing the source code for Apple’s original point-and-click operating system. Named Lisa, the OS was one of the first things that Steve Jobs created; and form the basis for all future Mac computers.
Named after Steve Jobs’ eldest daughter, the release of Apple Lisa’s source code isn’t going to actually see anyone running it on modern computers. It’s designed for a completely different time; when computers ran on 2MB RAM and had an impressive 5MB storage. The original Lisa was also designed to run on the Motorola 68000 processor from 1979.
Releasing Lisa again is being done to preserve a piece of computing history, which is rather important when everything rushes by so quickly. Something important enough that Apple itself is reviewing the code ahead of making it available to the public.
It should be noted that the original version of Lisa computer was considered a failure and only sold 100,000 units. Largely thanks to being sold for $9,995 back in the day (that’s without being adjusted for inflation).
[Source: LisaList Google Group]
