14 DAY TRIAL // Named after Steve Jobs’ daughter and featuring an actual GUI (graphical user interface), the Apple Lisa was a commercial failure when it debuted in the early ‘80s, but that doesn’t mean the computer is worthless.
Far from it, actually, as Auction TeamBreker is looking to fetch £25,000 ($42,000 / €30,000) or more from the highest bidder on a May-scheduled auction for one of these babies. Less than 100 remain in the wild, and every time the count yields less, you can be sure their price will go even higher.
“It is incredible to think that the Apple 1 is really where modern computing began,” says Uwe Breker, auctioneer at Team Breker. “Apple had made previous computers but the Lisa 1 was the first to have many of the features we still use today like a mouse, an icon-based interface and of course the recycle bin.”
“The Apple Lisa 1 may not have been very popular at the time of their release but now they are very sought after indeed. This computer is incredibly basic by today’s standards, but it is part of computing history,” added Breker.
It’s interesting to see how a computer that retailed for the equivalent of $24,000 (£14,000 / €17,300) today is being auctioned for less than double that amount. Considering it was the first-ever computer to put a graphical interface and a mouse on our work desks, some would say it’s worth ten times that amount.
Needless to point out, it will fetch the right price at the right time. It’s probably why the highest bidder will do anything in his / her power to own it next month.
Other novelty features that the Lisa brought included overlapping windows, pull-down menus, and the recycle bin. Computers never actually had a dedicated place for deleted files up until the Lisa came, let alone a place encased in a separate window.
When Apple learned that customers were not satisfied by the Lisa computer, the company quickly went back to the drawing board, came up with version 2.0 of the system, manufactured it, put it on sale, and reimbursed everyone who had bought the original.
Apple destroyed all the machines that came back as part of the recall program, which is why there are less than 100 of these computers available today. If you happen to own one in pristine condition, be sure to hold on to it for a few more years. You could be sitting on a small fortune.