General Category > Lisa Troubleshooting and Repair
Restoration of a Lisa 1
snuci:
Hi All,
I am a fairly experienced Lisa owner. I have several variations including two 2/5s and three 2/10s with enough drives to cover most configurations including a Widget drive, 5 MB Profile, 10 MB Profile, 20 MB SunRem and X-Profile. I recently got a hold of a Lisa 1 with Twiggy drives that still had the batteries in it :( The motherboard and I/O boards are in the process of being restored (just got my replacement card edge connectors today). In the meantime, I am using parts from other units to get it running.
I don't have any Twiggy disks so I haven't gotten that far yet but I have bought some HD floppies so I will try to make some. If someone has a template, I would appreciate it. Up to this morning, I was getting an Error 48 when trying to boot from one of two Profiles that were in the lot. The second Profile has an issue with power on self test as it basically doesn't do it and the stepper motor doesn't move like normal. The needs some attention too. My ROMs are 341-0175/341-0176 Rev B and I have confirmed they are okay.
My latest update is using one of my existing 5MB Profiles to boot but it gets part way and hangs. I may have MacWorks Plus on it so I'll have to check that. Anyway, thought I'd post about the progress.
stepleton contacted me through Facebook where I have posted pictures. His explanation of Error 48 (Illegal Instruction error) had me down the trail of CPU or memory board issue as is stated in one of the guides but I could be trying to boot from a data Profile which makes total sense. I don't know what is on either of the Profiles.
Anyway, glad to be here and I hope it ends up in a working Lisa 1. I'll post as I progress through this. I would like to have the original motherboard and IO board in the computer but I need to figure out how to make some Twiggy floppies first.
rayarachelian:
There's a hires (relatively) image here: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/apple/disk/twiggy/photos/3M_Fileware.jpg
you can print it out and cut it. You can then use it as a template. The square notches should be easy to cut with scissors.
You'll need some way to open the jacket, remove the cookie without damaging it or touching it (or wear gloves), and cut the 2nd set of oval windows in the jacket. They should be the same size as the normal ones, just on the other end. And you'll want blank disks without labels on them.
I'd guess an xacto knife would work well, but perhaps you can build something by bending sharpening a can of tuna with a whetstone and then use pliers to bend the shape of the window and then pressing down hard.
You can probably still buy them from here: https://www.athana.com/html/diskette.html not sure if you'll need HD or DSDD, I'd try with both and see which work better. Maybe degauss them before you format them if they're PC formatted.
You should be able to restore the disks with BLU, likely you'll need to install BLU to a hard drive first, and then use it to transfer twiggy images to restore.
snuci:
--- Quote from: rayarachelian on April 28, 2020, 06:57:18 pm ---There's a hires (relatively) image here: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/apple/disk/twiggy/photos/3M_Fileware.jpg
you can print it out and cut it. You can then use it as a template. The square notches should be easy to cut with scissors.
--- End quote ---
Thanks Ray. That is helpful. I'll give it a shot. I have some floppies I've ordered but I may be able to find a spare 5.25" HD diskette somewhere.
I will also use my X/Profile and make a BLU hard drive image and see how that works out. Have to take apart another Lisa for that.
Santo
stepleton:
Attached is an image of my measurements of the various "extra" notches on an Apple-branded FileWare diskette (original image from Wikipedia). I don't think sub-millimetre accuracy is required, but I've added it all the same. Otherwise, using another 5.25" disk as a stencil for cutting the second read/write head window is the way to go.
If you have a working Twiggy drive+disk, I wouldn't think it necessary to install to a hard drive---you can write the serial-bootstrapped BLU directly to the floppy and then boot from that in future, reading and writing hard drive images over the serial port all the while. At least, that's how I like to do it :-)
One thing I might be careful of is to make sure that the sense hole next to the spindle hole determines where you cut these extra notches.
snuci:
--- Quote from: stepleton on April 28, 2020, 07:53:25 pm ---Attached is an image of my measurements of the various "extra" notches on an Apple-branded FileWare diskette (original image from Wikipedia). I don't think sub-millimetre accuracy is required, but I've added it all the same. Otherwise, using another 5.25" disk as a stencil for cutting the second read/write head window is the way to go.
--- End quote ---
Thank you. Those measurements help a lot. I was thinking about creating and 3d printing a template but let's see where I get. I am still working during these times so I don't have as much time as many others seem to and I am okay with that.
--- Quote ---If you have a working Twiggy drive+disk, I wouldn't think it necessary to install to a hard drive---you can write the serial-bootstrapped BLU directly to the floppy and then boot from that in future, reading and writing hard drive images over the serial port all the while. At least, that's how I like to do it :-)
One thing I might be careful of is to make sure that the sense hole next to the spindle hole determines where you cut these extra notches.
--- End quote ---
Sounds better than taking apart another Lisa. I'll try the serial method first.
Thank you!
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