More retro stuff: The Lisa Computer System - Apple designs a new kind of machine (Feb, 1983)

The Lisa, of course, was the first mass-produced personal computer that used a WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointing device) interface. It makes an interesting read, as they explain WIMP to those who are completely unfamiliar with it.

Although the Lisa design has several important elements, four stand out: the machine’s graphics-mouse orientation, the “desktop” and “data-as-concrete-object” metaphors, and the integrated design of the hardware and software.

Helps you appreciate how revolutionary the Lisa was at the time (for a mass-produced computer).

As this went to press, Apple announced that the Lisa will be sold in one configuration only: the computer with 1 megabyte of RAM, two floppy-disk drives, the Profile hard disk, the six application programs (Lisa Draw, Lisa Write, Lisa Project, Lisa Calc, Lisa List, and Lisa Graph), and Lisa Test diagnostic program; the price of this package is $9995...

Fortunately for us, the history of computing does not stop with the Lisa. Technology, while expensive to create, is much cheaper to distribute. Apple knows this machine is expensive and is also not unaware that most people would be incredibly interested in a similar but less expensive machine. Well see what happens.

Yep. We did see what happened....

eta: Another Byte article: A behind-the-scenes look at the development of Apple’s Lisa (Feb, 1983)

Huh -- a blazing one meg of RAM! How large was the hard disk, dare I ask?

Per wikipedia, it was an optional external 5MB HD. Woo!

Tommy's retro post reminded me of the GEM system Anyone? We had it on our computer at home, it was great when Windows started showing up everywhere, I knew how to use it!

someone today said something about not buying electronics when the planet Mercury is going retro !?! Has anyone heard this? Is it a "WTF"? or what? Crazy talk I say. Maybe a "Bitches" discussion.

IIRC, Mercury is retrograde about a quarter of the year on average, depending where it is in its orbit in relation to the Sun and Earth's orbit. So it's not exactly a rare occurence.

In astrological terms, Mercury retrograde negatively affects communication, so I suppose if you believe in that sort of thing it would be a bad time to buy anything with a phone or Internet connection. Me, I say more iphones for the rest of us!

So, curse you all for not having found a solution to my printing problem. But, having said that, can somebody point me to where I'm supposed to go on Apple's website to complain that their friggin' update broke my ability to print on my printer?

(Astrology? In the *tech* thread? Yeesh, omnis.)

Sean, it looks like there was a recent firmware update for that printer. Not sure if it would make any difference, also the website mentions some adjusting of firewall settings to get net scanning working, maybe that will have an impact as well.

OK, a Javascript question (instead of just ramblings)

oJTT.all returns a Javascript array of all the child elements of your table oJTT.

ajTT.all(19) will return the nineteenth element of that array, which is probably not the 19th row, or the row with DOM id (id="19") 19, except by coincidence.

ojTT.all(19) is an IE-only way of saying oJTT.all[19]. You should probably use the square brackets.

The tags method is another ID-only method. The way you've invoked it won't work, but your understanding of it is essentially correct.

If all you want to do is get a reference to the row element with DOM id 19, the easiest way is document.getElementById('19');

Sorry that I took so long to answer this!