In the late 1970s, a visit to Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center inspired Steve Jobs to build a computer with a mouse-driven graphic interface. The results were stunning. Despite high price and subsequently quick demise, LISA set an unforgettable new standard for user friendliness. As product manager Bruce Blumberg said, "With Lisa, there's no concept of programs. You work on documents." For the first time, users could store files by clicking small icons called "folders." They could access these documents later by hovering their mouse over a menu bar. They could shrink the page size, stack the pages on top of each other, and lay one document aside (with a simple click and drag) to work on another. Today, these tasks sound pretty basic, but in 1983, they made all the difference to people who were used to typing every command into their machines. "The arrow darted across the video screen, keeping perfect rhythm with the palm-sized device I pushed and pulled over the desk top," said writer Jim Schefter. "In moments, the idea of controlling an incredibly complex computer with nothing more than hand motion and a single button seemed perfectly natural." "The computer was Lisa, from Apple. And with it, computers suddenly stop being mysterious, forbidding machines that boggle the brain. Lisa is easy; you'd have to work at it to make a mistake." Read the full story in Apple's Lisa