• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Location of Apple Lisa 'landfill'

falter

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 22, 2011
Messages
6,580
Location
Vancouver, BC
This is just for fun -- I understand Apple buried the last remaining inventory of Lisas at Logan, Utah. I was wondering if in fact that is the same as the current Logan landfill there? Has the location ever been definitively pinned down? And could someone legally go digging for Lisa treasure?

I'm not serious about this of course... 20 years in the ground and bulldozer violence I'm sure would have done horrendous damage. But I kind of wonder if someone hasn't tried anyway, or if they even could. I understand Apple had the area secured to ensure nothing got out..
 
If the landfill was being used 20 years after the Lisas were dumped there I would think they are under 30 feet of compacted junk by now.
 
Hope they shot them first, since the Lisa had the computer equivalent of "Hoof and Mouth Disease".

You know, with two bummers in a row (the Apple III and the Lisa), if it wasn't for that fact that Apple users were rabid, Apple would have gone back to being a fruit.
 
Hope they shot them first, since the Lisa had the computer equivalent of "Hoof and Mouth Disease".

You know, with two bummers in a row (the Apple III and the Lisa), if it wasn't for that fact that Apple users were rabid, Apple would have gone back to being a fruit.

Haha... yeah it`s taken me a while to get used to the idea of Apple not being on death`s door.

$10000 in the mid 80s -- that`d be $19-20k right now. Sheesh. Would have had a nice downpayment on a house for that much. I guess their business plan didn`t count on competition from the real estate sector. :) A collector who sells one at $10k is still only recouping about half their initial investment. :)
 
If the landfill was being used 20 years after the Lisas were dumped there I would think they are under 30 feet of compacted junk by now.

Yeah I didn`t think of that. Our landfill is now about that high 10 years later. They said Apple bought the land... I found that kind of weird... I suppose checking the land registry might nail it down. It`d be a Goonies kind of quest for sure. I`m assuming they were all Lisa 2s... not 1s.
 
If you guys raid the lost tomb of the Apple Lisa, I have dibs on a nice working one, mmk? :p

After all, there should be plenty to go around. :D
 
After all, there should be plenty to go around. :D

Lots and lots and lots.

However, if you subtract the 90% that croaked from bad design, how many of the remaining 10% would still be working after being under 30 feet of compacted garbage?

They could barely survive day-to-day use.....
 
You know, with two bummers in a row (the Apple III and the Lisa), if it wasn't for that fact that Apple users were rabid, Apple would have gone back to being a fruit.

Want to read something funny? Check out the story titled "IBM secrecy" from the January 30, 1984 issue of InfoWorld. The choice quote:

The current rumor is that the real IBM Personal Computer (to be released sometime in 1984) will use the powerful Intel 80286 chip. Could this machine be the rumored "Lisa killer" IBM supposedly has up its sleeve?
 
IBM didn't NEED a "Lisa Killer". Like the Apple /// (which is what happens when you let a software guy dictate hardware specs), most Lisas committed suicide.

Hell, whatever they came out with, if you turned it on in the morning and it was still running at lunchtime, it would have been a hands-down winner.
 
IBM didn't NEED a "Lisa Killer". Like the Apple /// (which is what happens when you let a software guy dictate hardware specs), most Lisas committed suicide.

Hell, whatever they came out with, if you turned it on in the morning and it was still running at lunchtime, it would have been a hands-down winner.

Were Lisas really that unreliable? I know the original Lisas (Lisa 1) had unreliable and eccentric twiggy drives. How about the Lisa 2s though? I've recently restored a couple of these and they seem well made.

Did the Lisa 2s have a history of falling over or are you refering to the Twiggified Lisa 1s?

I am impressed with the Lisa Office suite. For it's time, it would have been way ahead of anything else (yes, I know the concept was originally Xerox's).

(Yes, I also know Lisas were expensive and are slow)

Tez
 
If memory serves, Apple's trash were fed through hydraulic trash compactors before being disposed of. This stemmed from people were raiding their trash after business hours for "stuff." Initially the security were indifferent since the "stuff" were in the garbage can after all. At some point somebody in Apple decided it was a "security risk" (and didn't want to be on receiving end of a lawsuit where people hurt themselves digging through their electronic waste) so they started pad locking the garbage cans and instructed security not to let people in for the trash. And don't you know it people started bring bolt-cutters... So the end-all solution was to feed everything through hydraulic trash compactors to render everything unusable.

Someone I know claims to have dug out 2400 baud modems, brand new Mac Plus and assorted working logic boards (remember this was in mid-80's.)

Oh, and very funny ET cart video.
 
Last edited:
Were Lisas really that unreliable? I know the original Lisas (Lisa 1) had unreliable and eccentric twiggy drives. How about the Lisa 2s though? I've recently restored a couple of these and they seem well made.

Did the Lisa 2s have a history of falling over or are you refering to the Twiggified Lisa 1s?

I am impressed with the Lisa Office suite. For it's time, it would have been way ahead of anything else (yes, I know the concept was originally Xerox's).

(Yes, I also know Lisas were expensive and are slow)

Tez

If the number of Lisas (of any stripe) that the first computer repair company I set up was any indication, yes, the 2s were just as bad as the 1s, but in different ways.

After the ///s started dying off (permanently), we thought that the cash cow was dead along with it, but, lo and behold, they trotted out the Lisa and she was alive an kicking.

I recall that Bell Computer services up here had a fair number of Lisas under contract and they wouldn't touch them. Their techs had standing orders to just repace the unit and bring them to Nebula Computer Systems Inc. (my first company) which really pissed off the local Apple dealers with repair facilities, but, we were cheaper, faster and made circuit mods that fixed some of the more prevalent hardware malfunctions.

Apple tried to recruit us to become the authorized repair depot for their products but at the "sit down" they had a repair procedure price list that charged twice as much as we did (expect on warranty stuff) and I wasn't comfortable with that.
 
Back
Top