10/1/2008 - Apple Lisa Demo

Yes, Xerox PARC may have invented the modern graphical user interface (GUI) with mouse-based input, but it was Steve Jobs' vision that brought it to the masses with the Macintosh computer. Before the Macintosh, though, there was Apple's first computer with the GUI called the Lisa. The Lisa was not really meant for the average consumer and, in fact, its $10,000 price tag was even too much for the business consumers that Apple was aiming for. Still, there's no doubt as to its impact in the world of computing. The concepts and innovations of the Lisa GUI are still being used to this day and it's hard to imagine anything replacing it any time soon. It's so ubiquitous that grade school children are more well-versed in using a mouse and keyboard than their parents and grandparents.

Using a mouse with a GUI may seem so commonplace and pedestrian now, but imagine back when computers were still using text-based input. It must have been like a toy or novelty to move a cursor around and clicking on icons. In some ways it's actually slower to use a mouse and GUI, but its ease-of-use comes from the fact that it's harder to make mistakes like you would with typos in a command-line-interface (CLI). Not having to memorize command keywords also helps immensely. Sure, people had to get used to it, and there were actually videos like this one that got people acclimated to this new concept: