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Help with information about these two non-funtioning Lisa models
Posted by: RedJacketPress on 2022-09-09 13:53:05 I have on hand two non-funtioning LIsa models. So far, I've not had the opportunity for more than a quick look at both, and I didn't have the chance to capture the Serial Numbers (though I'll try to do that later). The first had a Battery Pack which, unfortunately, had not been removed (I have now removed it), and has corrosion on a few traces, and several components. This one has bodge wires on the Logic Board, and a chip marked "Sun Remarking," which leads me to suspect it's a Lisa 2 that was upgraded in some way. The second has no Battery Pack (and no Bodge Wires), and doesn't have too much in the way of obvious damage (though this is just from looking in the back). This seems to be a Lisa 2/10 or Mac XL. Anything I should be looking for that would be useful to know, apart from the Serial Numbers? Thanks!
Posted by: fri0701 on 2022-09-09 14:12:15 The Lisa 2/10 / Mac XL I/O board does not have batteries installed (or any leads for a battery pack), whereas the other models do. Your conclusions so far seem reasonable to me. Maybe others who are more experienced here can weigh in, but perhaps the Sun Remarketing chip (if it's on the I/O board) is a drive controller chip for an 800k drive upgrade. This should be easy to check - the 800k drives are flatter than their 400k counterparts. It would be helpful if you posted the serial number labels as well as the label on the other side of the machine (with the model number, memory option, etc). Using those, it should be pretty easy to tell when your Lisas were made and what model they were before any upgrades.
Posted by: RedJacketPress on 2022-09-09 15:22:36 One has a Serial Number, though one does not -- not that I could see. First five photos are of the Lisa 2, including the label; the rest are of the Lisa 2/10 or Mac XL, followed by the Label and Serial Number. The Sun Remarketing chip in the first photo is on what I would expect to be the Logic Board, rather than the I/O Board. (The I/O Board would be at the bottom, with the ports?)
Posted by: stepleton on 2022-09-09 16:39:33 The Sun Remarketing chip is indeed on the I/O board because it contains the logic for most of the Lisa's I/O systems. The board with the ports is the "motherboard". The chip itself is called the I/O ROM. It could be the Sun Remarketing ROM used for supporting an 800K floppy drive. What does your floppy drive look like?
Posted by: RedJacketPress on 2022-09-09 18:24:38 That's my latter-day technical training bias revealing itsellf, I suppose. When I think of I/O, I expect to see ports! Without having to go to any significant effort requiring disassembly -- what might I be looking for in the Floppy Drive?
Posted by: mg.man on 2022-09-10 01:03:55 Without having to go to any significant effort requiring disassembly... Just pull the front cover off, should be obvious. If a 400k, should look like this: ...if 800k, more like this: ...but with a proper (not bodged as in photo) bracket. Images courtesy of iFixIt (couldn't find a better one). In summary, if it's a 800k floppy, it should look like a typical Mac Plus (or late 512k) or later floppy = ~1/2 the height of the original 400k Mac floppy.
Posted by: stepleton on 2022-09-10 04:00:56 Yes, "significant effort requiring disassembly" is rare with the Lisa. With the exception of the power switch and the speaker, you can get any low-voltage component within hands' reach without a screwdriver. I suppose it's still disassembly, but it's minor stuff like pulling cards out of slots. In my experience, even the "proper" bracket looks a bit bodged, but not as bad as in the photo! It's still in a bent piece of sheet metal that doesn't look nearly as sturdy as the rest of the computer.
Posted by: mg.man on 2022-09-10 04:08:46 even the "proper" bracket looks a bit bodged I believe it should look like this: (rotated 180 degrees, of course!)
Posted by: fri0701 on 2022-09-11 19:49:57 One has a Serial Number, though one does not -- not that I could see. First five photos are of the Lisa 2, including the label; the rest are of the Lisa 2/10 or Mac XL, followed by the Label and Serial Number. The Lisa 2 looks to have started out as a true Lisa 2 (it's not an upgraded Lisa 1, according to the label). The Lisa the serial number label corresponds to was assembled on August 23, 1983. This is pretty early for a 2/10 or XL. Normally, the A6S0200 model corresponds to a Lisa 2/10, and the A6S0300 model corresponds to a 2/5... which seems to be backward for your Lisas, if I'm understanding your message correctly. Is the serial number label you posted from your 2/5 or 2/10?
Posted by: RedJacketPress on 2022-09-12 10:38:13 The unit with a Serial Number (that I thought to be a Lisa 2, becaue of the Battery pack) was the one from Sun Remarketing. Image 0987 is of the Floppy Drive, long with what I suppose it a Hard Drive above it. Image 0988 is from what I thought to be a Lisa 2/10 or Mac XL. Image 0989 is from the back of the Sun Remarketing unit, I'm thinking that probably powers the Hard Drive? Apologies for not getting to this sooner -- these are at work, and it can be difficult to find time to get to them!
Posted by: stepleton on 2022-09-12 12:53:46 The picture is starting to come into focus 🙂 The 987/989 machine is a Lisa 2/5, sure enough. It has the 800K floppy drive modification we've been discussing. Above it is a non-Apple hard drive supplied by Sun Remarketing that nevertheless speaks the parallel port protocol that Apple used for hard drives back with the Lisa/Apple II/Apple III. These drives are unusual these days. Unlike a Lisa 2/10, a stock Lisa 2/5 has no cabling of its own for an internal hard drive. So what did Sun Remarketing do if they wanted to fit a hard drive like you see here? Well, they just took a long ribbon cable and snaked it through the Lisa's innards and out the back, where they plugged it into the port for the ProFile external hard drive that these machines typically used. That's what you see here. So, it's not power (that's a different internal connector): it's data. The 988 photo isn't enough to establish on its own that the computer is a 2/10, but the other information makes it seem likely. You should be able to find a 26-pin ribbon cable inside the drive bay somewhere: the 10 MB Widget drive would have been attached to that once upon a time. Around back, you'll find that there's only two 25-pin ports along the bottom of the computer: unlike the 2/5, the 2/10 has no place to connect an external hard drive unless you use a parallel port expansion card.
Posted by: stepleton on 2022-09-12 13:04:05 PS: One thing that will be interesting to discover sometime is whether either computer has the "square pixel" modification installed. (Lisas originally shipped with rectangular "tall" pixels in the ratio 2:3, but Apple developed a modification that changed the screen geometry and made the pixels square, which meant that the Macintosh desktop would have the correct proportions instead of looking vertically stretched. A system with the square pixel modification will no longer run native Lisa software. But don't be fooled into thinking that the screen mod is what makes a Macintosh XL a Macintosh XL: if the computer is running a Macintosh environment, it's an XL, otherwise it's a Lisa. The new name was coined to sell computers, not to make a technical distinction.) If you can't look at the display while it's working, it's not really possible to tell whether the screen mod is present without starting to pull the machine apart. This sounds dramatic but for this purpose is something you can accomplish without any tools --- if you're curious, locate the ROMs on the CPU board (the other big board behind the I/O board) and report what identification numbers you can find on any label attached to the ROMs. (Or just Google those IDs, which will likely work too.)
Posted by: RedJacketPress on 2022-10-03 08:48:17 Following up on this, as the owner of these is interested in selling them. They are both located in the lower Hudson Valley in New York -- I can't imagine shipping them is going to be an option. If there is any interest, please send me a private message -- I may make a more formal "For Sale" post in the days to come.
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