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Anyone have experience with the RGB2HDMI project (based on a RaspPi)? I’m trying to figure out how to use it with the #AppleLisaClone to get a better video out. I see it’s supported but I can’t find a wiring diagram.
Thanks to @48kRAM for the tip on wiring the Lisa to a RHB2HDMI (use the monochrome analog YUV connector (shield to pin 1/GND, video to pin 4/V). I’ve got a picture, but I hope to be able to improve this as the halftone pattern really rings.
Hey that’s not bad looking! There’s a dizzying number of settings in RGB2HDMI so it takes a lot of time trying things, back tracking, etc.
This is a repurposed iPad LCD with an external driver. I think it’ll make a fine display for the #AppleLisaClone.
Ok, display sorted out, now to the next big hurdle. The #AppleLisaClone is throwing a error 45 which is a “bus error” and it happens as soon as RAM is being tested. So, @DosFox@tech.lgbt and I suspect the issue lies on the new RAM board.
I’ve tested the SIMMs in a Mac Iix and they work. I’ve also pulled all of the TTL chips and they tested good on the Chip Tester Pro.
Kinda stuck at this point. Having another RAM card would be very useful now.
Ideas?
A couple of posts about troubleshooting bus errors in a Lisa.
Deep diving into buss error handling by reviewing the previous posts and the Lisa Boot ROM assembly.
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/apple/lisa/firmware/Lisa_Boot_ROM_Asm_Listing.TEXT
If I understand this correctly, memory $282 should hold the address that caused the bus error. In my case, I get
282 0002 0000
which I think is $020000 (high byte is ignored). Does that mean the problem is occurring at position 128kbytes in the RAM card? Not sure how to map that to a component/components yet.
Using the service menu and the display memory command 01FF00 with a length of 100 shows the contents of memory just fine.
As soon as I cross the boundary into 020000 (say, with display memory 01FF80 length 100), the machine abruptly reboots and beeps twice (lo/hi).
Is this a RAM card problem or a MMU problem?
It seems the Lisa thinks it only has 128Kbytes of memory, according to these memory locations ($294-297 maximum physical address and $2A8-2AB total memory). Need to look into the boot rom to see how memory size is determined.
This is curious: @iconicbits also has a SunRem 2MB card that hasn’t worked either. And combined with an Apple 512K card, was also able to produce an error 45.
An #AppleLisaClone side note: this may be a source for the weird open-side expansion board edge connectors.
Mouser has the high-point contact short-tail version in stock. Almost $10/ea! O.o
I asked VintageMicros what kind of memory should be used in the SunRem 2MB RAM card. They sent this picture of SIMMs. The top module looks like the chips are NEC D41256L-12. The sticker says 70ns but doesn’t the -12 denote 120ns?
Today I brought my rig over to Kennet Classic Computer Museum in Kennet Square, PA where Bill has a Lisa 2/10 that he graciously let me take apart to troubleshoot my #AppleLisaClone.
I had a little trouble removing the card cage. There are small metal levers on the corners of the cards to aid in removal. One of them was sticking up too far and caught the case. Fixing that it slid out easily. There are two 512K Apple RAM cards in this machine. It has a VintageMicros sticker on the inside dated Nov 07.
Let’s pop one of the RAM cards out and see if my rig throws the error 45 again.
Ok Apple 512K card installed in the #AppleLisaClone. Will it blend?
#What RetroComputing
Wowowowow the #AppleLisaClone just passed the startup tests and is asking for a disk!!
This means my system (and especially the MMU) seems to be working! This also means the SunRem 2MB card may be faulty. Going to test it in the Lisa 2/10 later to confirm.
Inserting a disk (well, selecting one on the FloppyEmu) doesn’t seem to work though. I’m getting an error 38 which means no boot file on disk. So do I have bad disk images? Did I get the floppy interface wiring wrong?’does the FloppyEmu need a special mode to work with the Lisa?
It does “eject” the disk though so something is working.
Thanks to @iconicbits for the tip that the FloppyEmu has a Lisa mode that needs to be set. After that, it boots the Lisa Office System!
Absolutely amazed that I was able to cobble this thing together.
I didn’t bring the ArduinoFile with me so I don’t think I can go further with LOS.
I put the SunRem 2MB card (configured with 1.5 MB of memory), bank 2 empty, memory slot 2 empty.
Well, well. Hello error 45! This conclusively proves there’s a fault with this RAM card.
Hi, I’m a Mac! Sometimes a Lisa. But I’m also just a giant pile of cards
So I was able to borrow both Apple 512K RAM cards, which is awesome! I plugged in the second one and I think there’s an issue. Parity error perhaps?
A troubleshooting document that @DosFox@tech.lgbt shared with me mentions using the service mode to peek at some memory locations for clues as to which chip on the 512k card is at fault. I can’t wrap my head around it at the moment, but here are the memory locations. Will need to look at this later.
Obtained some new 30 pin SIMMs for the SunRem 2MB RAM card but unfortunately these won’t make the card work either.
Good news on the #AppleLisaClone and the SunRem 2MB RAM card. Thanks to @iconicbits we now know that these boards are missing a critical trace of an enable line to GND.
I added the bodge wire to my board and installed 2MB of RAM. Guess what: it actually boots this time!!
Although I’m randomly getting 70 and 71 memory errors.
When I bought the ICs for the SunRem 2MB card, I missed the fact the top two chips (highlighted in yellow) are supposed to be 74LS373. Instead I stuffed 73S373 chips (note S vs LS) just like the bottom three (highlighted in red).
I finally got the LS parts and swapped those in.
Much to my surprise the card now seems to work perfectly, at least with MacWorks!
Thanks to @iconicbits for reminding me!
Let’s talk.. AppleTalk! The #AppleLisaClone will happily connect to my RaspberryPi running MacIPGW via LocalTalk (with 25 pin adapter) via EtherTalk bridge. It also can see my desktop running Mini VMac via LToUDP with an AirTalk.
So much media conversion but yet it just works.
The #AppleLisaClone printing from MacWrite over LocalTalk to a HP LaserJet. Still amazed this all works!
Another #AppleLisaClone update! I was experiencing some read and write errors in the Finder copying files while using MacWorks. I’ve been hammering away at the hardware but ultimately it looks like it was software! I added some finer grained timeouts to the code and it seems to be working much better now! @DosFox@tech.lgbt confirmed today that it’s working on their rig!
To celebrate, have some flying toasters!
If you’re curious, you can read about the R/W issue I was having with the #ArduinoFile in this GitHub issue.
It’s #AppleLisaClone update time! I got the next rev of my Lisa breakout card (power, floppy, keyboard, sound, etc.) and put one together.
It powers on correctly but doesn’t progress to the system test, it’s stuck at the very early power on stage.
Voltages all look correct and in the right places. FloppyEmu powers on. If I hit reset a few times, it randomly progresses to an error 40 (MMU fault) but I think this is a red herring..
If you're curious, I've started a page on GitHub with the schematic and the board. Maybe you can spot what I did wrong?
Another #AppleLisaClone update! You’ll remember I was debugging my new #AppleLisa breakout board. I was getting strange behavior: system would boot only once when cold, reboots after would hang and not progress to POST.
I focused most of my time on my board. Cutting traces, bodging, testing. Nothing was improving.
It wasn’t until I put in a new CPU card when things suddenly began working 100%!
Soft power, floppy, Mac keyboard input all working!
I also discovered an issue with #ArduinoFile that was preventing it from accessing data in hard drive images over ~16MB in size (while in MacWorks). Figured out the issue and now I’m almost running out of space on a 32MB image
MacBASIC on the #AppleLisaClone. This drawing rendered pretty slowly
Wait, what’s this? It looks like an Atari ST screen? And it’s running on my #AppleLisaClone?!
This is #GEMDOS from Digital Research (the CP/M folks) for the #AppleLisa.
The Lisa and GEMDOS was the first development kit for Atari ST TOS which I find fascinating.
It can boot from both floppy (#FloppyEmu) or install it to the ProFile (#ArduinoFile).
I followed these instructions:
https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/gemdos-on-the-lisa-can-be-built-again.35896/
There’s also an apps disk with a couple of programs. I think well behaved Atari ST programs will run on Lisa GEMDOS directly.
This is 1st Word Processor which I believe was for Atari ST. The font in the document is a little weird but otherwise works fine!
Here’s DR Draw on GEMDOS on my #AppleLisaClone
If you want to try GEMDOS on your Lisa, the key for me was you need to have only 1MB of memory installed.
TIL that Apple quietly released a game in 1984 called Through The Looking Glass. It was initially started on the Lisa and transitioned to the Mac.
It’s a rather unusual game of chess and quick thinking that I wasn’t able to master well!
There’s a discussion about if the Lisa version exists, which would be cool to see! Anyone have a copy??
https://lisalist2.com/index.php/topic,461.0.html
Here it is running on my #AppleLisaClone on MacWorks.
During my #AppleLisaClone build, I’ve created some new hardware and software that others might find useful for building a clone or use with original hardware.
First up is the Lisa Breakout Board which makes using the card cage outside of a Lisa case easier.
Next is the Lisa PROM adapter which allows use of a EPROM as a 6309 PROM for use in the CPU and IO cards.
Finally I wrote some scripts to assist with MacWorks images from an ArduinoFile or cameo/aphid ProFile drive emulator. This enables you to use those images on a Mac emulator like MiniVMac and then convert them back to use on a Lisa. A huge time saver!
With the aforementioned scripts making it easy to put lots of files on the Lisa for MacWorks, I can focus on MacFlim! I was able to compile the converter so I could make my own flims in all their 1-bit glory! As there’s no sound on the Lisa, this music video felt appropriate.
Built a second #ArduinoFile (v4 boards) for the #AppleLisaClone. Happy with how it turned out. In an effort to keep the cable as short as possible, I turned it into a “backpack” of sorts by securing the DB25 to the board with some twisted wire. Neat and tidy! And of course, using rainbow cable is a must!
I’ve finally added the expansion card edge slots to the #AppleLisaClone motherboard. These had to be modified by cutting a slot in the end of each connector because Lisa expansion cards are only notched on one side!
These are the edge connectors I used: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/edac-inc/395-056-520-202/107777
With expansion slots on the #AppleLisaClone installed, I can now add a SCSI card and a #BlueSCSI v2! This is the Lisa GALSCSI card and the 25 pin BlueSCSI v2. Booting from this is noticeably quicker than using the ArduinoFile.
However, I'm having some puzzling issues though with the #AppleLisaClone that seem to be related to either the SCSI card or the #BlueSCSI.
I'll go through them in the next two posts.
Also experiencing quite a bit of hard drive image corruption with the #BlueSCSI and the #GALSCSI card. Here’s what I’m seeing:
I decided to try the desktop 50 pin version of the #BlueSCSI V2 and the #AppleLisaClone seems to work great with it! Pings work, telnet works, apps don’t corrupt on exit, disk parity errors are gone!
So let’s try this thing out! I put the Lisa Clone #BBS back up again (it may be a day or two old from the last time it was run, sorry, disk corruption!)
Telnet to bbs.mc68000.com port 6400 and try it out!
Also, the #BBS is still up on the #AppleLisaClone The desktop #BlueSCSI has been running like a champ providing both disk and network.
Telnet to bbs.mc68000.com port 6400 and try it out!
Although I've had issues trying to upload files to it. SyncTERM says the file was skipped by reciever. Subtext says "no temp file"
In case you thought I had an actual Lisa.
No my friend, this is cardboard
@sxpert Yep! All the boards are available. Scroll up in this thread where I documented it over the past two months.
Info and links to the boards: https://hackaday.io/project/192235-a-brand-new-apple-lisa
@paulrickards it came with the Mac I bought in 1984. Played it a number of times!
@paulrickards what's with the bluepill?
@mmu_man I’m not sure I understand?
@paulrickards what is the UC used for?
@paulrickards "You have a Mac M0110/A keyboard" ah ok, keyboard encoding
@paulrickards @jcs Hmm, the Lisa wiki page says it had memory protection but the 68000 didn't support it. They reference page 34 of the Lisa OS ref manual but there's no talk of protection in there either...
@damieng You can do quite a bit of memory protection at the memory remapper, outside the CPU. (Source: I put together a mostly-serviceable MMU, together with hard memory protection, for #z80 , which doesn't know the first thing about memory protection, segmented addresses, or even supervisor mode, this summer. If I had more time, I'd clean it up and sell it as an add-on MMU card kit for @rc2014 .) @paulrickards @jcs
@riley @rc2014 @paulrickards @jcs Did the Lisa actually do any of that though? Or is the wiki editor doing some wishful thinking and liberal interpretation of the manual?
@damieng I don't know for sure. Early m68k had 24-bit physical address space, which was sufficient for a lot of stuff back then, so Lisa didn't have a pressing need to do any MMU. I suspect there might be wishful interpretation of software-level customs of memory access pattern in a shared memory space, kind of like what early Macintosh ended up doing, but I'm not entirely sure about that, either.
@damieng Yes, Lisa had a hardware MMU, and did segment remapping: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/apple/lisa/development_history/articles/Daniels_-_The_Architecture_of_the_Lisa_Personal_Computer_198403.pdf
@riley @rc2014 @paulrickards @jcs Cool, mystery solved. I might even update the Wiki to point to that instead.
@paulrickards @jcs These things warm my lowresolution pixilated heart.
@paulrickards scsi_accel_rp2040_finishRead is a SCSI-level problem and probably not related to the SD card. I saw it in development of the Wi-Fi stuff with my Mac Plus. Do you have a bluescsi.ini? A Mac Plus needs some tweaks to boot (see https://ini.bluescsi.com/), I wonder if the Lisa needs some similar things.
@jcs@jcs.Interesting! Yeah I do have the Mac Plus flags enabled, since the Lisa is pretending to be a Mac Plus.
[SCSI]
Debug=1
Quirks=1 ; Apple
SelectionDelay=0
EnableUnitAttention=0
EnableSelLatch=1 ; On
WiFiSSID=xxx
WiFiPassword=yyy
# Optional - Each Pico-W will generate its own MAC address, so normally not needed.
# WiFiMACAddress=00:80:19:C0:FF:EE
@paulrickards Do you have a SCSI2SD? I've had luck using one of those when other SCSI options have not worked properly.
@Recta_Pete Yep! I'll give one of those a try as well. Bummer is they don't do the DaynaPORT emulation which I reallly hope I can get working
@paulrickards yeah, that is a great feature
@paulrickards just logged in briefly (as GUEST). worked great!
@d6 Great, thanks!
@paulrickards @nulleric @jcs Successfully logged in as Guest using A-Shell app on iPhone.
@paulrickards can't get on if it's busy does it just not answer? or ?
@arcadeshopper Ahhh sorry I had to take it down to work on something and didn’t turn it back on. When working, it does do multi node (5 or 6 I think) plus a modem which I want to try again at some point.
@paulrickards still not getting on.. did I get blocked?
@arcadeshopper Try it now? Power was off! The Lisa isn’t making a good BBS platform
@paulrickards I'm in very laggy tho
@paulrickards I thought you had a twiggy drive!
@paulrickards nice is that a real case or a reproduction? I was going to ask you about how you were going to encase it once done.
@ericgus It’s cardboard with a laser printed picture of a Lisa. And of course the salvaged iPad LCD as a display. I think it completes the illusion
Don’t know of any reproduction cases at the moment. It would be quite big for 3D printing but not impossible I suppose.
As for a long term solution, I’d love to eventually find an empty case and put the cards inside to make a real Lisa.
@paulrickards that’s kinda great though. It’s as useful as the real thing but a LOT cheaper and still looks great on a shelf :)
@GrantMeStrength @paulrickards I kind of want one to use as set dressing for videos.
@mos_8502 @GrantMeStrength Imagine a whole fleet of unobtanium machines as cardboard front panels. They’d stack so neatly too.
@paulrickards @mos_8502 @GrantMeStrength have a shelf full of Apple I’s that you show for like 2 seconds during an “overview of my collection” video but deliberately not mention them at all
@GrantMeStrength And it’s super thin