A Lisa Inside An FPGA

[karmann68]

Can the FPGA run a real widget drive?

Sure, just plug it into the external ProFile port with the appropriate cable and set the ProFile switch to EXT! You'll have to power the Widget separately though; the board doesn't have a Widget power connector on it.

Even though my Lenovo mouse fully works in the boot menu, once I get into LOS the pointer moves but I can't seem to click on anything. Does this sound like a mouse compatibility issue or something else?

Hmm, I don't see any reason why a mouse would work in the boot menu but not in LOS. Is it just double-click that doesn't work, or is single-click (like pulling down a menu) broken too?

After some more testing I realised that the Menus weren't even showing up.

I tried the Macworks image and it worked fine. So then I tried switching the I/O ROM Select switch to the left, rebooted to LOS 2.0 and it now works!

Now re-reading the Readme to understand what that switch does again. (EDIT: OK, got it. 400/800KB Floppy or Twiggy ROM select).

 

[AlexTheCat123]

Yeah, that explains it! If the switch is flipped to the right (40 position), LOS will hang forever unless you have Twiggies connected.

[joeventura]

Yeah, there were just so many ports, buttons, and switches that I had to squeeze on here and I didn't really see a better way of doing it without making the board absurdly long. And I figured that having ports/buttons on all 4 sides would be better than making it really long and more expensive but with ports on only 2 sides, so that's why I made that decision. Defintiely not ideal though.

Just to reiterate, you are the rockstar in this equation, and I am not worthy to shine your shoes. But if I can humbly suggest that if you ever make another version of this board you add an edge connector that all the buttons run out to that would be awesome and then folks could create a case where they have button control in one centralized location. But again I am merely a mortal.

[Lisa1]

If you are determined to use an Apple USB keyboard, I have been able to do so by putting the LisaFPGA into Lisa keyboard mode and then using James Denton's usb2Lisa keyboard adapter. It's a bit of a roundabout solution, but it works.

[AlexTheCat123]

Yeah, the usb2Lisa adapter has a dedicated USB host controller on it instead of bit-banging USB like I'm doing, so it should be able to handle pretty much any keyboard out there.

[karmann68]

Can LOS 1.0 used without a Twiggy Drive and just with a floppy emulator or physical Sony drive? And where do I find the twiggies.image file? Thanks