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- Computer History 1983
Apple introduced its Lisa. The first
personal computer with a graphical user interface, its development was
central in the move to such systems for personal computers. The Lisa´s
sloth and high price ($10,000) led to its ultimate failure.
The
Lisa ran on a Motorola 68000 microprocessor and came equipped with 1
megabyte of RAM, a 12-inch black-and-white monitor, dual 5 1/4-inch
floppy disk drives and a 5 megabyte Profile hard drive. The Xerox Star —
which included a system called Smalltalk that involved a mouse,
windows, and pop-up menus — inspired the Lisa´s designers.
Compaq Computer Corp. introduced first PC
clone that used the same software as the IBM PC. With the success of
the clone, Compaq recorded first-year sales of $111 million, the most
ever by an American business in a single year.
With the
introduction of its PC clone, Compaq launched a market for
IBM-compatible computers that by 1996 had achieved a 83-percent share of
the personal computer market. Designers reverse-engineered the Compaq
clone, giving it nearly 100-percent compatibility with the IBM.