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How did a commercially unsuccessful computer help shape the next one?

Apple’s Lisa struggled in the marketplace, yet parts of its technology continued into the Macintosh. QuickDraw, its graphics library, gives this story something more precise than the slogan that failure leads to success. A product’s sales and the later usefulness of its ideas are different things to investigate.

3–7 min

Questions you could explore

  • Which specific parts of Lisa carried forward, and which problems did those parts solve?
  • How do interface ideas and commercial performance provide different ways to assess the Apple Lisa's legacy?

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4–5 min

Calibrating the radiocarbon clock

History4–5 minCarbon-14 decays at a steady, predictable rate, which makes it look like a simple stopwatch for dating ancient wood, bone, or charcoal. However, the amount of radiocarbon in Earth's atmosphere has varied over the millennia, so an accurate date relies on calibrating the measurement against tree rings and other materials whose calendar age is already known.

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4–6 min

How do archaeologists work out what happened first?

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5–7 min

When Britain’s railways needed a shared clock

History5–7 minA timetable becomes awkward when the clocks at its two ends disagree. In nineteenth-century Britain, railway journeys helped turn local time into a shared coordination problem, while the telegraph helped distribute an answer.

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