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Rare 1984 Apple LISA Video originally aired on a Cable Channel

youtube.com — Filmed in 1984, Alfred demonstrates the $10,000 Apple Lisa computer on a tri-state cable channel. This was a very early 'mass introduction' to a system that had a graphical user interface, icons, pull down menus, and a rodential input device called 'a mouse

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CLIFFosakaJAPAN 1 year 207 days ago, made popular 1 year 207 days ago

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Odiwan, on 10/12/2007, -9/+14Great stuff, thanks!
- guytoronto, on 10/12/2007, -18/+33Fast-forward to 5min to get to the interesting stuff. Why would that guy throw 5 minutes of him blabbing at the front of this video?
- jeremy66158, on 10/12/2007, -23/+1Don't fast forward to far if you want to hear that guy say "just do it" in a 1984 video! Does that mean he can sue Nike for trade make infringement?
- mistermanoli, on 10/12/2007, -15/+15it took him 20 minutes to get his hair the way he liked it.. another 10 to find his shiny gold chain.. the least we can do is look at him for 5 min...
- pseudojd, on 10/12/2007, -12/+7These small pictures are called Icons!!!
- Gdoubleod, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Wow this really makes me wish that youtube had a better fast-forward key... an interesting look at history though
- nyrol2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14The Apple Lisa was great for its time! It let you draw circles, WITHIN boxes.
- mfratt, on 10/12/2007, -6/+21I find it funny how Lisa Draw is 10x better than MS Paint, still shipping with windows XD
- Benzido, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10I find it funny how you would put the same exact comment on digg and youtube.
- zweben, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7I found it pretty ammusing that the woman asking the questions about the computer was seemingly unimpressed with the entire UI and multitasking and drawing, but she was amazed when he made the text bigger.
  
  But I guess that screen IS pretty small.
- blackjack75, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1As you might have guessed from her looks, she's a dirty dirty whore. All she wanted the computer for was to download porn on the soon-to-appear world wide web.
jeremy66158, on 10/12/2007, -19/+3He said "just do it" in a 1984 video! Does that mean he can sue Nike for trade make infringement?
Burmask, on 10/12/2007, -16/+4B-Ba B-Ba-Blah-Blah.
Dolomite, on 10/12/2007, -19/+2If it is posted on YouTube, and can be duplicated digitally an infinate amount of times with virtually no loss of quality, how can it be considered "rare"? Good video though.
- SoundJudgment, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12It is 'rare' that anyone would have kept such an early video for 22 years stored away. Ever rarer is the fact that it is a completely stable and watchable picture, and doesn't bend and tear at the top of the screen such as many VHS tapes of that era are prone to do. Someone kept this old footage in very good shape. ;)
- turquoisefish, on 10/12/2007, -8/+6Was rare, not anymore
- Dolomite, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1OK, so the physical hard copy VHS itself may be rare, as it is so old, but that is not what the title indicates... it indicates the footage is somehow "rare".
skozey, on 10/12/2007, -8/+0Bring back the Lisa!
dys2k6, on 10/12/2007, -15/+10man this guy likes to talk
- ryodoan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6You will notice he was, is a salesman. They need to like to talk.
ihlemic10, on 10/12/2007, -26/+8Notice how saying apple getting sued induces negative diggs...fan boys must be touchy right now.
- t3hX, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Or maybe because it was just a stupid comment? That would be the more obvious reason.
gaberowe, on 10/12/2007, -7/+16man that guy is annoying
- andrewa, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Boy that guy could do a really good Christopher Walken impersonation if he put his mind to it.
- adiblasi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Gabe! Well, it's Alfred. I got a text message from a friend, who told me about Digg.
  
  Yes, sorry about the 5 minute intro. That video was intended for my small audience of friends and subscribers on YouTube, which is community-centric. I had to put this in perspective, and yes, damn, I had some accident -- and I almost didn't do that TV spot since it was so close the the damn reconstruction surgery!
  
  I still have a Lisa system. It's in my office, next to a NeXT cube. I might make a follow-up documentary, going into the guts of those systems -- and powering them up to see if they boot or blow up. It will be great to do that without editing and just see what happens.
  
  FYI - I got a few emails from Steve Wozniak. He really got a kick out of the vids.
  
  Thanks for watching. Sorry about the blabbing. Let the damn thing buffer and skip in 5 minutes. Damn, should I post up some vids about the Apple /// ?
  
  By the way, you can see my library of videos at
  http://www.youtube.com/adiblasi
  
  Make SURE you watch Macintosh G4 Upgrade, Gear Slut, Apple ][, and some of my comedy clips, including RenFest, Vegas 2006, and Christmas.
  
  - Alfred
  
  www.myspace.com/alfred_meta
  www.solidnutrition.com
- tdowling, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Alfred, that was a really interesting video. I never knew that Lisa had a Multifinder type of thing going on from the very beginning! I need to improve on my knowledge of Apple history...
getsol, on 10/12/2007, -57/+0It doesn't make any sense and it doesn't take science to understand it.

Alex
http://www.getresume.com
- greatblackowl, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19Don't click on that link... It's just spam.
punch, on 10/12/2007, -16/+8Wow, this guy talks way to much! Get to it already.

blah blah blah blah
tyns, on 10/12/2007, -12/+4does that guy ever shut up.

I waited for the stream, then the video finally kicked in and it was a bunch of more crap with him talking, with a bad hair-do.

waste of time.
- franksmith, on 10/12/2007, -10/+3I hear ya...
  
  By the time he started talking about his childhood bicycling accident I couldn't take it any longer... never saw the Lisa :- /
mistermanoli, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1digg up.. or down...
digitalArtform, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6My neighbor had a Lisa. He ran the graphic design progrram at a major art school and was, I'm told, part of the team that was asked to help with icons or something. I'll bet he still has it.
Cide, on 10/12/2007, -11/+4That guy is way too happy to be on the internet.
dpcamp, on 10/12/2007, -13/+3did anyone actually site there through the whole 18 minutes?
- DigginTuesday, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12I did :) he waffles on for 5 minutes, although he clearly loves what he's doing rather than loving himself, so that's ok. The Lisa stuff was fascinating though.
  The main reason... Microsurfs (book about life on Microsoft's campus, circa eighties) refered to a geeky party where the Apple Lisa was mentioned. My then girlfriend also called lisa rather liked the reference and lent me the book. Lovely girl, fond memories :)
  
  Technically Lisa was advanced, edit (Apple Lisa, not Lisa girlfriend who was advanced in entirely different ways) it started in the late 70's, but we had the Commadore Amiga within five years of that and the Atari ST close behind. If you don't think it's impressive, write me a pre-emptive multitasking graphical operating system including a compiler, graphics package, scripting language, all the stuff we take for granted basically. These were smart pioneers one and all and deserve some kudos.
- nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4That video was fascinating just to hear how they described the interface when it was brand new. I think that a lot of people have forgotten some basic ideas about software, like how it should help you work faster and not have you learning to use the computer for days or weeks.
Cronus6, on 10/12/2007, -17/+2OMG!! Old Apple crap! Must Digg!
ahxiong, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9oh boy, look at how long it took for the calculator program to load hee hee
thefutureisours, on 10/12/2007, -7/+6ahhhh the 10,000 Lisa computer. wayyyyyy overpriced even back then....
- dotpage, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10Multitasking on a GUI in 1984... If I ever get into a time machine back to 1984, I'd pay the 10 grand for it...
- zydeco, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2$10,000 in 1984 is about $19,500 today. Would you still pay for it?
- bblades, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3I agree with dotpage. The Lisa had an amazing UI for its era. It was years ahead of its time, but its not the best product that sells the most, its the one that does something well enough at the right price, thats why it failed.
- ryodoan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Can you imagine having a mint condition LISA? That has to be worth a good chunk of change, not even counting its sheer historic value.
  
  While Xerox was first, I don't believe they ever released a commercial version of their prototypes.
kernokerno, on 10/12/2007, -14/+4I gave up after listening 2 minutes at this moron. I don't care who he is or how was his childhood
- adiblasi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Correct. It wasn't made for you.
  
  The video was made for my YouTube subscribers. I did NOT post it on Digg -- someone else did. Not a problem. Good thing you can 'click off' and close the window.
  
  So, do you have anything posted that is good that I can watch? Please. I'd enjoy seeing some tech oriented content from you. Please post your YouTube account info -- and if you don't have one, create one. - Alfred
Calabahn, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3What a tool.
BillDoE, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4He calls it Liser.
- KyleMistry, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1The er, ah, Liser?
- adiblasi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Liser" - hahah YES my Lon_Giland NY Accent. LOL! One of my family members said the same thing! - Alfred
frankidadio, on 10/12/2007, -10/+4never got to it.... the bozo talked about his nose too long....
xGBox, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5As a computer associate, it saddens me (and our department) that I 'still' have to explain some of that stuff to consumers. But what's even worse is knowing that computer associates from the 80s had to explain almost 'all' the terminology to them.
residentofevil, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Tony Soprano has a brother that uses a Mac?
redrighthand, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Aside from it running a little sluggish and being black and white look how much of the overall appearance and commands have remained in place for all those years. Build it right the first time then refine.
kolop1, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1Video is way to long. He could have done this in 2 minutes. I don't need him to talk at the beginning. I know what an apple Lisa is.
JoeLeo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3In the closing credits: "Steve Job's daughter"?

I think that should be "Steve Jobs' daughter".

Ok, so I'm not perfect either.
- pauldonnelly, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Try learning English! It could come in useful.
ThatBlokeRob, on 10/12/2007, -8/+13Up to 16 apps at once! Wow, Windows still can't do that! :P

*Waits for MS fans*
- SPARTACVS, on 10/12/2007, -6/+5Ha. Nice try... maybe if everyone had 256mb of RAM.
  
  http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/1051/desktopvo4.png
- avihappy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7I have 1 GB and windows vista still can't run that much. Go figure.
- Avalontor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I'd like to know which 16 apps you would like to run at the same time.
- ryodoan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Well, your computer processes are programs, and on a well used Windows computer it is not uncommon to see more than 50 processes running at the same time. I know I have looked at my processes and seen over 70 a few times (which was swiftly followed by me closing programs and killing boot options).
- jaydj, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5MS doesn't have fans. It has users.
perre, on 10/12/2007, -6/+6This is a dupe from about a month ago, but didn't get noticed or promoted at the time... Great video. Glad it's getting attention. Here's the earlier submission:

http://digg.com/apple/Apple_Lisa_in_action_video_demo_from_1984
emailingRob, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11"See I can cut the word, and then paste it up here."
"Wow can you do that again? It all happened so fast."

Wonderful video to dredge up from the archives. Dugg.
serpicolugnut, on 10/12/2007, -12/+7Oh. My. God. Shut this guy up.

Shut. Up. Shut Up and show the #$^@#%^ video.

Somewhere in the tri-state area a used car dealership is missing it's manager...
NakedSnake, on 10/12/2007, -15/+4Oh. My. God. Shut up the Apple kids on digg.

We don't have to submit every commercial for every Apple product on youtube. The rest of you don't have to digg it to the front page.
- DigginTuesday, on 10/12/2007, -7/+0The Apple kids? What fruit are you??
- avihappy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8This was the first time some people saw a PC's GUI.
Raian, on 10/12/2007, -7/+3What the F is this!
NipGrip, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1This guy is stoned, pass the bong, man.
jeffgtr, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3Yes the guy rambles on for a long time, but I don't think the intent of this video was to be all about the Lisa. It was a series of videos he did, just so happens that someone latched on to the Lisa part of it and posted it here. You can fast forward through the drivel gab. For those of you that can't figure it out, turn down the volume let the thing cache in then just move the little slider at the bottom to fastforward..jeesh did you actually try and sit through the first part? Unbelievable.
- adiblasi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Jeff, good suggestion on skipping the 5 minute intro. Now, will somebody please post my Macintosh G4 upgrade video... You can hear me make bad jokes and watch me get pissed off when I drop a screw into the motherboard. LOL! - Alfred
conjuror1972, on 10/12/2007, -6/+3thats 5 minutes i wish i had back...
anomalya, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2overly long boring intro to lame old *****, like who cares about old crap, new stuff is where it at, out with the old in with the new.
aaronmcdonald, on 10/12/2007, -10/+4LISA IS STILL BETTER THAN VISTA AND XP!
- macewan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1keep the faith!
Morky, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1Ok, I'm going to say it. Youtube sucks. The idea is great, but the execution sucks. Not being able to skip ahead is extremely annoying, but more aggravating that that is when a long video gets stuck and you have to start from the beginning. 1.6 billion? I mean my God, Adobe only paid slightly more that double that for freaking Macromedia!
- adiblasi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Morky - YES - 1.6 billion bucks - YouTube has some problems. Their Email system REALLY Sucks. OK, so this is me -- a character I created (using a Mac, lots of software, my music studio, and white contact lenses - gee do I have too much time on my hands?) complaining about the YouTube email system. Scope it out -- Alfred
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgFcfBPDTWs
phytonix, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Does apps/windows drop shadow already in Lisa? Wow.
And it seems the window open/close has animation! Quite ahead of its time, it seems.
- phytonix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I think it does not drop shadow now it is artifact of the video. But it definitely has animations. And it is multi-task. DOS seems not multi-task OS.
- DelMonte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The Lisa OS and the Mac OS have had drop shadows under the right-down side of windows since the beginning. But they were just black, not a semi-transparent gradient like in OS X.
Clocker, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Hey, anomalya, you wouldn't have the new without the old. If Apple hadn't produced and marketed the Lisa and Mac back then, you wouldn't have whatever computer you're sitting in front of now.
silentdud, on 10/12/2007, -8/+4Crap... That still looks better than windows XP.
robdazomba, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9I love how everyone bitches about the guy being annoying. He actually had a very interesting set up story to tell about the tape and what it was, but maybe he doesn't understand that most people on the Internet are burdened with the attention span of a hummingbird on crack. I guess I can understand the annoyance and impatience some of you are expressing.

Seriously, you should slow down and take it in. You might, you know... *learn* something at some point.
- scb0825, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1comment dugg just for "hummingbird on crack" lol
carve, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4That is so cool that we see period vido where someone has to explain what a mouse is and what an icon is! We take it for granted today, but these were inovations at one time. I'll disagree that this is the first time anyone had seen these things, however- Xerox had developed a similar GUI in the late 70's

BTW- it is funny that "calculator" takes about 20 seconds to open. I'm impressed that his mouse curosr moves so quickly though. Did you see the size of that 5Mb HD!?
- robdazomba, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1By that, he obviously meant it was the first time people in that part of society (i.e., non-geeks) had been exposed to this in significant numbers. Don't be so literal.
  
  And BTW, read up:
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_graphical_user_interface
  
  Xerox is often wrongly given the lion's share of credit for the creation of the modern GUI by two groups: a) Apple haters, and b) those who are only casually acquainted with the GUI's history. The reality is that Xerox started the basic idea and Apple took it to its logical extreme. The credit should be divvied up about equally. Apple took Xerox's initial ideas (paid for them, BTW) and added a *lot* to the concept, including the desktop concept, drop down menus, drag and drop and a lot more. The Xerox GUI was not "similar" to what is shown in the video. That's mostly Apple's work you're seeing.
- DelMonte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1" I'll disagree that this is the first time anyone had seen these things, however- Xerox had developed a similar GUI in the late 70's"
  
  I think it's obvious that he was talking about the general public when saying "this is the first time anyone had seen this". He was obviously aware that at least people working at Apple had seen something like this (while developing it) before his story was shown on TV.
  
  The Xerox machines weren't released to the masses, nor covered by news stories. I bet that 99% of the US population never saw a GUI based computer at the time, which is not so far from "anyone".
evilpettingzoo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I wish they still made keyboards with loud ass keys... I really miss those.
- chrisjj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That's exactly what I was thinking - real big loud clicks made you feel like you were doing really important work.
xatx, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2spam
chandrab, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Very cool....I've got an Apple Lisa-1 sitting next to my..First TRS-80 Model III, Commodore PET 2001 (8K RAM), Atari 800, Apple II+, KIM-1...I keep one Lisa at work to show the newbie programmers at work what we have today existed back in 1982. The Lisa was away head of it's time (yet a huge financial failure for Apple)
- 32 bit 68000 processor (5Mhz)
- 1MB RAM (Very expensive for 1982)
- Virtual Memory and Multitasking OS
- Integrated Applications (btw it also has cut & paste)
- Screen Saver (Dimmer really)
- Intelligent Power-switch (Puts all your docs away before shutting itself off)
- Twin read heads on the 5.25 Floppy for redundancy and speed (but non-standard)
- Diagnostics in ROM
- GUI Based Operating System (Mac's QuickDraw based on Lisa)
- LisaNet networking built-in

Larry Tesler et al, you did an awesome job!

read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lisa
- inobla, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2It still had a gray scale monitor... booooooo! I'm glad I was using a C64. A way better machine for the money.
  
  Now at least Apple has learned to sell their stuff for only 300% more than it's worth.
blampen, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3It is amazing how little things really have changed.
- blackjack75, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1You don't have to mention your penis in every post. It happened to all of us.
phenolholic, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2looks like apple's GUI hasnt changed much since the LISA, minus the addition of a nifty dock and a bunch of bells and whistles. i hate how this guy gave an unattractive appeal to the prompt. CLI's own.
heaintheavy, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1It just shows how badly Apple blew it.
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Rare 1984 Apple LISA Video originally aired on a Cable Channel

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