LisaList2

This is a preliminary draft of a Bounty Challenge for Re-compiling the Lisa Office System.

Hopefully this can be improved to the point of officially offering it as a Bounty Challenge with a designated prize. I will pledge at least US$100, perhaps more depending on interest, other pledges, and the difficulties encountered.

Please comment or send a private message if you have ideas on how to make success of this challenge more likely.

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Thanks to the efforts of Al Kossow, we now have access to some Source Code for the Lisa Office System

There are various ideas to fix/improve/modify/develop LOS further, but before any such projects can proceed, we need to be able to re-compile the source code and install the resulting binary.

Hence this Bounty Challenge: To document a way to compile and install the LOS source.

Requirements to successfully accomplish the Challenge are:

• The development system/environment/software/hardware be readily accessible to Lisa enthusiasts without substantial expense. One may assume that a physical Lisa computer is available, eg. to run the Lisa Pascal Workshop, but it is not required that a Lisa is used to compile the software if a cross-platform compilation turns out to be a better solution.
  .
• Sufficient documentation is provided so that a knowledgable Lisa user can reproduce the successful challenge, which means:
  
  • Any source code not already provided by the CHM is supplied
    
  • All Compilers/Linkers/Binary Libraries, shell scripts, etc. required are easily obtained at no or modest expense
    
  • A method of installing the resulting binary is provided/documented such that the binary will run on a physical Lisa computer with substantially the same results as the LOS as it was distributed by Apple.
    

To break down the Challenge into more manageable parts, I suggest:

Part 1: Be able to Compile the source code without errors
Part 2: Be able to successfully Link the compiled source such that comparing to Apple's binary shows limited/acceptable differences
Part 3: Be able to install and run the binary

I think it may be best to divide these parts further to distinguish the operating system environment from the LOS Tools/Applications, and perhaps to divide further so the Applications are considered individually if any have unique difficulties.
eg. LisaWrite may be much easier to compile, link, and install than the OS itself, so may be a good place to start.

Adding the other photos of these prototype bezels here for posterity. Interesting that one of the samples is dated 1/3/1983, so we know Apple was working on the internal ProFile configuration before the Lisa 1 was even introduced on 1/19/1983.

I wonder if that's what the unused power plug, and passthrough from the drive cage to the expansion slots was intended for...

Both are still quite a mystery to me; IIRC, only the 2/10 chassis has the mystery passthrough, and only the 1/5 cabling has the mystery power plug; but maybe there is some overlap.

The passthrough appears to be sized/positioned for a chassis mounted 60 contact card edge socket, which a card in expansion slot 3 would plug into. Perhaps the Widget controller was potentially expected to be an expansion card, such that the combination allowed fitting the mechanism above a Twiggy.

I wonder if that's what the unused power plug, and passthrough from the drive cage to the expansion slots was intended for...

purchased an unpopulated Sapient  Lisa CPU board...

where can I get these BOOT ROM's 4X EVEN and 4X ODD? And where can I get the Video ROM MASTER 4x ?

The Sapient Lisa CPU design has an integrated ROM switcher, which means you have the option to install larger than usual ROMs that contain multiple CPU ROM versions. eg. Rev H and 3A would be likely choices. The switches on the CPU board then facilitate switching between those versions without changing any parts.

The standard/original size of CPU EPROMs is (a pair of) 8Kx8 (2764). The ROM switcher supports EPROMs up to 64Kx8 (27512) which provides enough room for 8 versions. The video PROM socket supports a double size PROM (512x8), so two versions of the video PROM can be used (typically one would select one for rectangular pixels and the other for square pixels).

The 4X naming refers to a set of ROMs containing 4 versions. I believe the current 4X ROMs that Vintage Micros is currently putting on their assembled CPU boards contains
versions H, 3A, D, C, but I expect this may change in the future once it is established which versions are most useful.

You can install stock/original CPU Board ROMs if you wish.

Details about combining ROM images will be in a future post. Beware that when combining Video PROMs into a double size one, the two are not consecutive in the PROM.

Now corrected: (There was an error in the drawings below when they were first attached; at the bottom right it should read "SW1 On = A13 low" (not A15 low))

another source for a suitable Quarz oscillator:

https://centuriontech.eu/product/customized_oscillator/

Is this a good company?

I'm not familiar with them; there is this topic on an amiga forum:

https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=111328

Quote

Not widget - Profile. There exist photos of an internal mount ST-506 drive - I think AlexTheCat even has one.

Yep, I sure do! It's so cool to see the type of bezel that probably once covered my drive! I wonder how many of these prototype front panels were made?

Since these are marked "SAMPLE" there were probably only a handful produced for testing purposes. Sure would be something if you could recreate the test configuration with this bezel, your internal ProFile drive and a Twiggy - with the appropriate mounting hardware. Might even be able to get a working system out of it 

Not widget - Profile. There exist photos of an internal mount ST-506 drive

Yes, that was my point --- I was aiming to support your hypothesis with an additional hypothesis that Widgets likely wouldn't have been ready yet.

Not widget - Profile. There exist photos of an internal mount ST-506 drive - I think AlexTheCat even has one.

Yep, I sure do! It's so cool to see the type of bezel that probably once covered my drive! I wonder how many of these prototype front panels were made?

Not widget - Profile. There exist photos of an internal mount ST-506 drive - I think AlexTheCat even has one.

-J