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In the 80s, a businessman planned to get rich by reselling 7.000 Apple Lisa computers. But the tech giant recalled the products, destroyed everything, and buried the remains in a landfill. The reason? To erase one of the biggest failures in its history. Mystery, millions in losses, and an extreme decision by Apple!
When we talk about Apple, the image of one of the most innovative and influential companies in the technology sector immediately comes to mind.
However, the company has not always had only successes throughout its history.
In the 1980s, one of its products failed so miserably that the company made a radical decision: destroy thousands of units and bury them in a landfill.
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This unusual episode involves the Apple Lisa computer and a businessman who dreamed of profiting from these machines.
The Launch of the Apple Lisa: Innovation and Failure
Launched in 1983, the Apple Lisa was one of the first personal computers to feature a graphical user interface.
The proposal was revolutionary for its time, but it soon ran into an insurmountable obstacle:
the exorbitant price of $10.000.
In addition to its prohibitive cost, the Lisa also had technical limitations and faced strong competition.
The Macintosh itself, released by Apple the following year, cost just $2.500 and was much more attractive to consumers.
Besides, IBM already dominated the market, making Lisa's life even more difficult.
As a result, sales were poor, reaching about 30.000 units before the project was abandoned.
The opportunity that turned into a nightmare
Em 1985, just two years after its launch, Apple decided to end production of the Lisa, leaving a large stock of 7.000 units.
At that moment, Bob Cook, a businessman who saw the situation as a business opportunity, entered the scene.
Cook received an offer to buy these units and saw the possibility of transforming them into marketable products.
Instead of just reselling the old computers, he planned to modernize the devices, updating the operating system and improving its configuration.
An ambitious revitalization plan
Given the Lisa's low popularity, Cook decided to invest heavily to make it more attractive.
Your project involved:
- Install a Macintosh-based operating system;
- Improve floppy drive;
- Increase RAM memory;
- Add a larger capacity hard drive.
In total, the businessman spent around US$ 200.000 to make these improvements.
The plan was to sell the updated computers at a more affordable price, making them competitive in the technology market at the time.
Apple steps in and buries thousands of computers
Before Cook could put his strategy into action, Apple recovered all units from Lisa.
According to The Verge, the company had a clause in the contract that gave him the right to request the computers back at any time — and that's exactly what he did in 1989.
But the biggest surprise came later: Apple destroyed the 7.000 computers and buried the remains in a landfill in Logan, Utah.
The official justification for this drastic action was a strategic financial decision.
According to records from the time, the company achieved a $34 tax deduction for every $100 of depreciated value, in addition to avoiding the costs of technical support for an already obsolete product.
An attempt to erase the past?
Bob Cook, however, believed in another version of the facts.
For him, Apple simply wanted eliminate any trace of Lisa's failure, preventing future generations from remembering the fiasco.
After all, the company was already consolidating itself as a technology icon and did not want to carry such an obvious error in its history.
How many computers were actually buried?
To this day, there are doubts about the exact number of units that were discarded.
Some reports suggest that only 2.700 computers were actually buried, while the rest may have been sold before Apple took action.
The lack of official records fuels speculation about the fate of some of these machines.
Would Bob Cook have managed to sell some units before Apple intervened?
If so, Apple Lisa models may be hidden in private collections around the world.
Lisa's legacy and its historical value
Although it was a commercial failure, the Apple Lisa represented a great technological advance.
The computer pioneered a graphical interface that, years later, would become the industry standard.
The concept developed by Apple in the Lisa directly influenced the evolution of operating systems, including macOS and even Windows.
These days, finding a working Apple Lisa is a real challenge.
The few remaining models are rare and valuable pieces for collectors, which can be worth tens of thousands of dollars.
The episode involving its destruction and burial only increased the fascination surrounding this story.
The Lisa case shows how even technology giants can fail — and sometimes try to erase the traces of those failures.But in the world of the internet, stories like this never completely disappear.
