The first image is small and private: a farmhouse in Oregon, a young mother in labour, a man who comes and leaves. On May 17, 1978, Chrisann Brennan gave birth to a baby girl. The father, Steve Jobs, was not at the bedside. He flew in a few days later, helped choose the name from a baby book in a field, and left.

The Apple computer that would later carry the same name was already being sketched in a garage at the edge of Silicon Valley.

The echo between the two Lisas — one flesh, one circuit — would not quiet for decades. It would ripple into boardrooms, brochures and courtrooms, and become a strange, public echo of something deeply private.

A MACHINE CALLED LISA

Around the same time, inside Apple, engineers were building something ambitious: a personal computer with a graphical deskto

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