dap1@ihlpf.UUCP (07/16/83)
#N:ihlpf:23200006: 0:4824
ihlpf!dap1 Jul 16 0: 8:00 1983
We just got an Apple Lisa last Friday and I thought I would put my reaction
up for any others who might be thinking of buying.
The first thing that strikes me is that it is SLOW. I understand they are
running their 68000 at 5Mhz. to keep the video happy, but for whatever
reason, it takes forever (relative to what one would expect) to bring up
an application. If, in addition, you try to print out something while you
work, this is slowed down again by maybe a third. This seems like pretty
bad degradation to multiplex to what amounts to a NEC printer.
Then again, once you've got an application up and running, it seems to buzz
along pretty well. The mouse really helps in this respect. After a little
practice, the mouse feels very good and the ability to get things done in
a hurry increases dramatically.
Another complaint is flexibility. Over and above the fact that you can't
program it, the Lisa has several limitations built into it. For instance,
when it creates a pie chart, it always arranges the sections from largest to
smallest rather than the way they are listed. As long as you want to do it
Lisa's way, everything's great, but don't expect to do anything to far off
the beaten path.
I'll make a quick rundown of the tools available:
LisaDraw: I simultaneously reserve the biggest compliments and the biggest
disappointments for LisaDraw. It is very easy to learn and can produce
extremely professional looking results in minutes. The interface with
LisaDraw is well thought out and within its limitations, it does a beautiful
job.
Unfortunately, they have left out several important features for no good reason
that I can see, and included some very questionable features. For instance,
no spline curves. I don't understand this. The easiest way in the world to
simulate a nice smooth curve is a spline curve and they're not that hard to
program. Instead, they included a facility to draw sections of ellipses in
very restricted sections (namely quarters of ellipses). I have used this
feature exactly once and found it extremely awkward.
Another omission is the ability to rotate. Expansions and translations are
handled well, but there is no way to handle general rotations. Still another
is the inability to handle text at an angle, even at ninety degree intervals.
This means that the Y axis on their graphs is labelled above the axis rather
than along the side where it would make more sense. Text cannot be compressed
either. This means that when compressing a picture, the text often comes out
looking out of place. Well, maybe this is expecting a bit much, but our
HP2627 does it. Handy for writing in tight places.
Finally, the output on the printer does not always match the screen. I have
seen a couple of cases where some text wiped out lines on the printer but they
looked fine on the screen. This, in spite of the fact that the printer is
claimed to be the same resolution as the screen.
LisaCalc: I haven't used this one a lot, but it seems to be a fairly nice
spreadsheet and the mouse is really a nice interface for this particular
application. Instead of having to type in a cell number or move the cursor
to the proper cell you just select that cell (or range of cells) with the mouse.
LisaWrite: I think you really have to stretch your imagination to call this
a word processor. You can justify text and get pages numbered automatically
and that's about all that seperates this from a decent editor. Then you need
to get it printed out on that God-awfully slow printer (in graphics mode for
"final copy"). It'll never replace Nroff (although I wish something would).
LisaGraph: This has the same advantages that the Lisa enjoys overall, namely
simplicity and user interface. It also suffers from the lack of flexibility
that is present in other places.
To get a graph, simply type in your numbers and observe the graph over on the
right. This is certainly simple enough, but if you want the sections of your
pie chart in a particular order, forget it. If you want different shades for
the bar chart or pie chart, or different symbols for the scatter and line chart,forget it. If you want anything besides a bar, line, scatter or pie chart,
forget it. Nonetheless, if you are able to work within these constraints,
the Lisa certainly makes life easy.
LisaProject: This is a really neat program which allows you to set up a
schedule diagram in about a tenth the time it would take to set it up
by hand and then displays schedules both by resource and by task. Again,
if you stay within the limits, a VERY nice tool.
Well, that's about it. If anybody has any specific questions, they can
feel free to send them to me.
Darrell Plank
BTL-IH