The Mac was never intended to be Apple’s star: that was the Lisa, Apple’s first computer with a graphical interface. While impressive, the Lisa was also unreliable and incredibly expensive: when it launched in 1983 it cost $9,995. An IBM PC was around $1,500.
While the Lisa was busy bombing, Jef Raskin’s skunkworks project was working on something much less expensive and, as it would turn out, much more important.
