Along with an extravagant launch for the Macintosh last week (Issue 46) Apple announced a series of Lisas - if at first you don't succeed... The Lisa 2 series has three models, unimaginatively dubbed Lisa 2, Lisa 2/5 and Lisa 2/10. The range can run the original Lisa software and that being developed for the Macintosh. The standard model has a single 3.5" floppy while the /5 and /10 have 5 and 10 Mb hard disks inside.

Apple says the operating system has been upgraded - this and the microdisks increase the speed of the new Lisas to 2 to 3 times the speed of their predecessor. That either makes them fast or the Lisa slow - take your pick. The Lisa 2s have 512K of RAM which can be expanded to 1Mb. They also have a 12" screen (the Mac's is 9").

The straight 2 will be priced at £2,625, the 2/5 at £3,375 and the 2/10 at £3,135.

* Not slow to recognise a potential golden goose, Microsoft has announced that it has already converted several of its products to run on the Macintosh, and hence on the rest of the Lisa range.

Microsoft Basic has been translated, as have other utilities and applications - MS File, Chart, Word and Multiplan. Not all of these packages will be available immediately in the UK but the same could be said of their target machines.

This makes it an each-way bet as far as Microsoft is concerned, with its own windows on MSDOS, and PCDOS also on the file.

* For a Macintosh Pro-Test see Issue 46.