LisaList2

General Category => LisaList2 => Topic started by: blusnowkitty on September 23, 2020, 08:40:10 pm

Title: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on September 23, 2020, 08:40:10 pm
Was looking at ToastyTech's old pages on Lisa screenshots, and found where he asked if anyone had a  list of all the software developed for the Lisa (http://toastytech.com/guis/lisa3.html). So I decided to take a shot at it and was actually quite surprised at what I found - did anyone realize there was potentially this much software available? I'm sure much of it is vaporware but it seems to hint at how rich the future could have been.

Sources are what's generally available on the Internet, and a couple of docs from Bitsavers. There's also a few other links to Google Books which I think at least indicates certain titles were available to purchase - whether anyone actually did is another story.

Let me know if anyone has any sort of proof any of the titles here existed or if there's any more concrete evidence for some of the ones I think made it to market!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1STG0Le_8dMHRLf026x6YfXzRQm2hD0igeZVb2Hx0Lxo/edit?usp=sharing
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on September 23, 2020, 09:18:00 pm
I mean... https://lisafaq.sunder.net/single.html#lisafaq-sw-los_about

Best proof is to get disk images up on bitsavers and other places. :)

Some updates to your spreadsheet:

IDOL and Thoroughbred accounting software is for Xenix. I have disks for these but they have errors and won't image properly

There is a C language addon for LPW, that exists, there are docs on bitsavers for it.

Don't know about a Xenix SDK, but the development disks for it are part of the xenix distro, so presumably that's part of it. I don't know if a separate SDK was available.

Lex I think is the unix lex command, i.e. flex/yacc, etc. see: https://arcb.csc.ncsu.edu/~mueller/codeopt/codeopt00/y_man.pdf - I don't think this is a word processor. It's used to build syntax for languages and help build compilers.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on September 23, 2020, 09:52:40 pm
I mean... https://lisafaq.sunder.net/single.html#lisafaq-sw-los_about

Best proof is to get disk images up on bitsavers and other places. :)

Some updates to your spreadsheet:

IDOL and Thoroughbred accounting software is for Xenix. I have disks for these but they have errors and won't image properly

There is a C language addon for LPW, that exists, there are docs on bitsavers for it.

Don't know about a Xenix SDK, but the development disks for it are part of the xenix distro, so presumably that's part of it. I don't know if a separate SDK was available.

Lex I think is the unix lex command, i.e. flex/yacc, etc. see: https://arcb.csc.ncsu.edu/~mueller/codeopt/codeopt00/y_man.pdf - I don't think this is a word processor. It's used to build syntax for languages and help build compilers.

Thanks for this, I've updated my list. The largest source was the February 1984 Marketing Binder (http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/apple/lisa/marketing/Lisa_Sales_Marketing_Binder_Feb84.pdf) up on Bitsavers starting at Page 268. The "XENIX SDK" in my document is a little bit shaky admittedly; the Apple document lists a separate "XENIX Software Development Environment" as its own product, and the "Lex" product as a word processor. It could be the document's wrong; Wikipedia says that Yacc's first full spec was first published in '75 so it very well could be that this UniPlus Lex is an implementation of that. Hard to say without having the software...

I assume your IDOL and Thoroughbred disks are Sony 3.5" disks?
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on September 24, 2020, 09:27:34 am
Apple document lists a separate "XENIX Software Development Environment" as its own product, and the "Lex" product as a word processor. It could be the document's wrong; Wikipedia says that Yacc's first full spec was first published in '75 so it very well could be that this UniPlus Lex is an implementation of that. Hard to say without having the software...

I assume your IDOL and Thoroughbred disks are Sony 3.5" disks?

Although it's possible, I'd be surprised if lex wasn't included in both Xenix and UniPlus as it's pretty standard.

Yes, IDOL/Thoroghbred disks are all 3.5" floppies, they came with a Lisa that had a Widget, and Tecmar Quad Port Serial card installed, and a batch of also deteriorating bad Xenix floppies. I'm pretty sure I imaged them with CopyIIMac to dc42 and set the ignore errors flag, but pretty much every single floppy had many bad sectors. (The Widget on this drive had MacWorks installed and Lotus Jazz, which is the one that's on Macintosh Garden now.)

One thing that's missing from the Lisa and hasn't ever surfaced was LisaPaint. It ofc became MacPaint, but I don't think it was ever released. I'd love it if it made its way to bitsavers. Possibly it was buggy or whatever, and then just got ported to the Mac.

Inversely, there was a MacDraw (as well as MacTerm, MacProject, MacWrite.) I don't think that Calc, Graph, List, were published for the Mac, likely because they would compete with MicroSoft Word, and Jazz, and other third party products, and drive away developers, or something.)
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on September 24, 2020, 12:23:35 pm
Yes, IDOL/Thoroghbred disks are all 3.5" floppies, they came with a Lisa that had a Widget, and Tecmar Quad Port Serial card installed, and a batch of also deteriorating bad Xenix floppies. I'm pretty sure I imaged them with CopyIIMac to dc42 and set the ignore errors flag, but pretty much every single floppy had many bad sectors. (The Widget on this drive had MacWorks installed and Lotus Jazz, which is the one that's on Macintosh Garden now.)

One thing that's missing from the Lisa and hasn't ever surfaced was LisaPaint. It ofc became MacPaint, but I don't think it was ever released. I'd love it if it made its way to bitsavers. Possibly it was buggy or whatever, and then just got ported to the Mac.

Inversely, there was a MacDraw (as well as MacTerm, MacProject, MacWrite.) I don't think that Calc, Graph, List, were published for the Mac, likely because they would compete with MicroSoft Word, and Jazz, and other third party products, and drive away developers, or something.)

Thanks, got all that added as well. I've also found this article (https://www.apple.asimov.net/documentation/applelisa/AppleLisa-DevelopmentTeam.pdf) which had a couple test apps listed for development; if I'm going to list the BBC weather app why not any known internal apps too? Smalltalk-80's in there as well now. Interestingly there's a mention of "Lisa Unix" there - I have to wonder if that was a working title for XENIX or UniPlus, or if Apple themselves licensed and intended to port UNIX.

Also, I noticed that Lisa Workshop C made it to Bitsavers just a couple months ago so I might have to see about playing with that to see if you can write Office System applications in Lisa C. Pascal is interesting; I don't really know the syntax but I do a lot of C# work and well, Pascal just feels like a much more primitive version of that. http://bitsavers.org/bits/Apple/Lisa/c/
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on September 24, 2020, 12:56:15 pm
UniPlus comes from real AT&T unix (lowercase I believe), made by UniSoft - they made bespoke unix software for many vendors, Apple included. A/UX comes from UniPlus as well, but possibly a later versions. bitsavers has source code for some of the kernel and tools.

I first learned Basic, then 6502 assembly on the commodore lines (first Pets, then vic20, then c64, then c128), then in high school had access to real IBM 5150 PCs and learned turbo pascal. I really liked Pascal, but mostly because of the IDE. That is, until I learned C and then never looked back at Pascal again. :) I dislike pascal now. Like you said, too primitive. I know some folks around these parts like it and will defend it.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: D.Finni on September 24, 2020, 01:11:23 pm
Also, I noticed that Lisa Workshop C made it to Bitsavers just a couple months ago so I might have to see about playing with that to see if you can write Office System applications in Lisa C.
Don't count on it unless you have an early beta version of Workshop C. The newer versions of Lisa Workshop C are cross-compilers only for Macintosh.

I have only a single Workshop C disk, version 0.9.6 (https://macgui.com/downloads/?file_id=34897).
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: stepleton on September 24, 2020, 01:19:24 pm
Whoa, what? When did these Lisa C things turn up? I think I need to subscribe to some kind of newsfeed...

That marketing binder mentions that there was a company out there working on an APL environment for Lisa, if memory serves. I would love to get my hands on anything like that, assuming it ever saw the light of day!

It does occur to me that there are a few more recent pieces of Lisa software that are absent from your list :)
Minimally I think BLU ought to be mentioned---it's probably one of the most popular Lisa programs around!
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: D.Finni on September 24, 2020, 01:23:54 pm
I just investigated the Workshop C on Bitsavers (http://bitsavers.org/bits/Apple/Lisa/c/Lisa_Workshop_C.zip) and on Disk 2 it has headers only for Macintosh, dated August 1985. I think it's safe to say that this is the Macintosh-only version of Workshop C.

As for my single Workshop C disk, I am less sure. But the file catalog shows an awful lot of Mac-only files.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on September 24, 2020, 02:31:57 pm
I suppose if someone really wanted to, they could adapt the Macintosh C SDK into a Lisa C SDK. If the compiler runs on Lisa...

New tab's added for more modern-day releases like BLU and Tom's various github releases.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on October 02, 2020, 11:00:18 pm
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Informix-V3-11-for-SCO-Xenix-for-the-Apple-Lisa-2-Complete-Disk-Set-Verified/402471817430

Rare find on eBay tonight - Informix 3.11 for XENIX 3.0! Since the price wasn't too bad I went ahead and bought this set, and hopefully the disks are still good and can still be read. Plus I always wanted some of those manual shutter floppy disks anyway...

Dumping should be fun though. My Lisa's decided to not play nice over serial again, so I'll probably pull out the Powerbook 150 and try to dc42 dump them that way. This is now a confirmed release on the list!
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on October 06, 2020, 12:52:10 pm
Found a few more XENIX applications from the same seller I bought my copy of Informix from... unfortunately, they all sold before I saw them. Here's some pictures anyway, and once again the list is updated!
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on October 06, 2020, 01:08:42 pm
Found a few more XENIX applications from the same seller I bought my copy of Informix from... unfortunately, they all sold before I saw them. Here's some pictures anyway, and once again the list is updated!

So that Cobol was a loss unless whomever bought it images it and puts it online. The other disks, Text Processing and Development I think are already up on bitsavers, text processing might be listed as Lyrix, I don't recall, but it should be a word processor, either that, or it's standard stuff like sed, ed, vi, grep, etc.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: compu_85 on October 06, 2020, 10:02:22 pm
I think Lyrix is different than text processing IIRC, which has things like wc, spell, cut, and formatting for typesetters.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on October 13, 2020, 08:12:47 pm
Got my Informix disks in today and there were no file issues as far as I can tell! Unfortunately, there's another issue - the program requires activation which we can no longer do. It calls /once/brand to serialize the installation, so perhaps some inspiration from OS/2 Museum can be applied here? http://www.os2museum.com/wp/tales-from-the-xenix-crypt/

If anyone wants to take a "crack" at it, I've uploaded the images in a ZIP archive to the Files subforum. Have fun! Anyone got Al Kossow's contact info?
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on October 13, 2020, 09:08:23 pm
Got my Informix disks in today and there were no file issues as far as I can tell! Unfortunately, there's another issue - the program requires activation which we can no longer do. It calls /once/brand to serialize the installation, so perhaps some inspiration from OS/2 Museum can be applied here? http://www.os2museum.com/wp/tales-from-the-xenix-crypt/

Excellent!

If anyone wants to take a "crack" at it, I've uploaded the images in a ZIP archive to the Files subforum. Have fun!

Oh I plan to have lots of fun with this! I've seen this kind of thing before.

Anyone got Al Kossow's contact info?

He's on here, you can DM him: https://lisalist2.com/index.php?action=pm;sa=send;u=45 or try aek (a) bit savers {dot} org.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: compu_85 on October 15, 2020, 09:15:27 am
rayarachelian defeated the brand software for Multiplan a few years ago :)
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on October 15, 2020, 11:07:03 am
rayarachelian defeated the brand software for Multiplan a few years ago :)

Yup: https://lisalist2.com/lisalist1/2496.html (warning, it's full of Rick and Morty memes)

I'm not sure if this will work the same or not, but I plan to use the same approach. But basically there, I went around brand and modified the multiplan executable itself after seeing how brand works. though yes, I started with brand.

However, this is also an excuse for me to try to get Xenix going on LisaEm as well - the issue seems to be that it doesn't like my profile emulation, so I'm going to try to either placate Xenix or if I can disassemble enough of the driver, to use High Level Emulation to get around it.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on October 15, 2020, 04:07:45 pm
I feel honored to have contributed to LisaEm in a roundabout way :P
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on October 15, 2020, 04:20:11 pm
I feel honored to have contributed to LisaEm in a roundabout way :P

Hey any contribution is a good contribution. :-D
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: snuci on January 14, 2021, 09:24:22 pm
Got Keystroke Database and Report Generator recently...

Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on January 16, 2021, 10:00:14 pm
Awesome! Any info on version, what OS it runs on?
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on January 18, 2021, 11:06:45 am
And also could you scan in the manual and put a disk image up of it, either here or on bitsavers?
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: snuci on January 18, 2021, 08:38:08 pm
Awesome! Any info on version, what OS it runs on?

It's a 3.5" disk and runs on Lisa 7/7.  It's version A-1 and the manual indicates there was an earlier version.

And also could you scan in the manual and put a disk image up of it, either here or on bitsavers?

I scanned the manual and have it here:  http://vintagecomputer.ca/files/Apple/Lisa/documents/KeystrokeforLisaManual.pdf

I have not yet imaged the floppy.  What is the best method to do this?  I do have an Apple Sauce imager.  Will it do a 7/7 compatible disk?  I've never tried it.



Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on January 18, 2021, 10:05:43 pm
I have not yet imaged the floppy.  What is the best method to do this?  I do have an Apple Sauce imager.  Will it do a 7/7 compatible disk?  I've never tried it.

I would probably say booting up BLU and dumping the disk over RS-232 is your best bet
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on January 18, 2021, 11:20:40 pm
I scanned the manual and have it here:  http://vintagecomputer.ca/files/Apple/Lisa/documents/KeystrokeforLisaManual.pdf
I have not yet imaged the floppy.  What is the best method to do this?  I do have an Apple Sauce imager.  Will it do a 7/7 compatible disk?  I've never tried it.


Great! If you can attach a serial cable with hardware handshaking to Serial Port B of your Lisa and something with XModem support on the other end (i.e. minicom, Zterm, hyperterminal, etc.) you could boot off a BLU floppy from here: http://sigmasevensystems.com/BLU.html

Otherwise, if you have a classic Mac (i.e. System 9 and lower with a floppy drive), you can use Disk Copy 4.2 to image it and then find a way to transfer that file to a modern machine.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on January 18, 2021, 11:51:44 pm
Hang on, the manual says there's two disks... do you have both disks?
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: snuci on January 19, 2021, 09:43:22 am
Hang on, the manual says there's two disks... do you have both disks?

Bummer.  I only got one disk with it.  At least we have the manual and know it exists.  I guess there's not much point at archiving the one disk :(
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on January 19, 2021, 10:39:05 am
Bummer.  I only got one disk with it.  At least we have the manual and know it exists.  I guess there's not much point at archiving the one disk :(

do it anyway, the first disk might be enough, maybe the 2nd disk is for examples, etc.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on January 19, 2021, 06:45:07 pm
I'll second Ray - better to have something preserved than nothing at all!
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: fri0701 on February 07, 2021, 10:21:34 am
Hi everyone,
I recently purchased the copy of Art Department (the 3rd-party LisaDraw clipart package) that was for sale on eBay. I've scanned everything included, and I've uploaded it all to an archive.org project here: https://archive.org/details/apple-lisa-art-department/

I don't own a Lisa with Twiggy drives, but I'm hoping to be able to meet up with someone post-pandemic who can help me dump the included disk.

@blusnowkitty - you may be interested to know that in the manual I received, a reference is made to the clipart being on "One 5 1/4-inch diskette or two 3 1/2-inch microdiskettes (Parts A and B)", so it does seem like this clipart package did make it onto the Lisa 2. The hunt continues...

Things included in the archive:
- scans of the case (I apologize for the streaking - the outer graphics are sealed in a warped plastic "envelope")
- scans of the included disk and sleeve
- a PDF scan of the manual
- scans of the clipart index. These fold-out cards were included so the user could put them in their LisaDraw binder and reference the available clipart. They are pretty long, so I scanned them in pieces and put them together digitally to visualize what they look like when laid out flat.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on February 07, 2021, 03:21:10 pm
Many thanks @fri0701! This is awesome!
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on February 09, 2021, 10:47:47 am
Cool, I've updated Art Department's entry on the list. Thanks!
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: stepleton on February 09, 2021, 07:07:08 pm
Note the Lisa image on page 8/13, under "Equipment"
https://archive.org/details/apple-lisa-art-department/Office.jpg

Look familiar? The clue for me is the screen image generically showing us some "Presentation Graphics". That's the image that's on the front of all of David T. Craig's collected documents.

@fri0701: as time and conditions allow, I'm always happy to try and recover Twiggy disk data. The disks have to make it to London somehow. Whether I'm a good option for you or not, how do the disks look --- is the media surface in good condition, or is it mouldy or degraded?

Thanks for scanning these!
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: fri0701 on February 12, 2021, 10:18:03 pm
@stepleton - I appreciate your offer, but I'm in the US and would prefer to avoid shipping internationally. To be honest, I'd prefer to avoid shipping *altogether*, but we'll see how that works out.
I don't notice anything odd about the media surface - it all looks to be in pretty good condition.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on April 06, 2021, 02:35:34 pm

@blusnowkitty - you may be interested to know that in the manual I received, a reference is made to the clipart being on "One 5 1/4-inch diskette or two 3 1/2-inch microdiskettes (Parts A and B)", so it does seem like this clipart package did make it onto the Lisa 2. The hunt continues...


Just found a copy of Art Department for the Lisa 2 over here as part of this package deal: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Lisa-2-10-w-keyboard-mouse-software-manuals-books-and-extras/393235786106

Seller won't split anything up unfortunately.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on April 06, 2021, 10:14:08 pm

Just found a copy of Art Department for the Lisa 2 over here as part of this package deal: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Lisa-2-10-w-keyboard-mouse-software-manuals-books-and-extras/393235786106

Seller won't split anything up unfortunately.

That Lisa's a bit overpriced, but going by ebay prices a full set of the LOS manuals + disks is somewhere between $300-$500, but the disk folder's spine is ripped at the top and the labels are getting eaten off by the glue - not sure what the value of Art Department is. That older Owner's Guide is worth maybe $150.
Not sure about MacWorks, but it's not MacWorks II+ so not quite all that much. Maybe another $150?
Not sure how much the keyboard shortcuts are worth, though I don't see the full set in the photos, just one. There should be 3.
That's a Lisa 1 mouse, which is worth $500-$900 in ebay prices.
The good news is that this is a 2/10 so it won't have the leak issue, though I really question $3.5K for a dead Lisa. The odds of the Widget working are low.
The odds of the power supply being repairable by recapping is high, but still annoying.
The keyboard would be worth $200-$300 (if it was fully rebuilt with all the keys working.)
The missing apple logo on the faceplate is not great, would cost you $100-$200 for a new faceplate.
It's also missing the front feet, those could be replaced with non-authentic ones for a couple of bucks.
But who knows if something else is terribly wrong, like maybe the analog board.

So it's not a terrible deal, but it's certainly not a good one either. It might be worth buying, fixing, and reselling, but for $3.5K? That's a bit of a stretch there.
Yes, I see there's a crazy person who's listed a Lisa 2 for $9K. Not sure about the math on that one, but it's not from this reality.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on April 17, 2021, 11:41:55 am
Looks like that Lisa with the 3.5" Art Dept. floppies is being sold by MJ Posner, and he's lowered the price to a more reasonable value. Looking again at the description of all the included stuff, I think it's worth getting if anyone here is looking for a good chunk of Lisa items. (So I'm adding a reply to update my original assessment from above.)

Just be sure you're able to do the soldering needed to recapping the power supply. (That's not actually hard since it's all through-hole.) Likely a full set of capacitors would be under $50 and would take an hour or two depending on your soldering skills.

It may be possible the Widget is completely toast, he mentions a connector failure, but it could be much worse. Sadly Widgets aren't always easy to fix or as reliable as ProFiles.
It could be as simple as blowing the dust out of it and cleaning the edge connectors, or reseating the large square chip in its socket (which is known to gather dirt under it), or freeing the spindle motor by hand, or fixing the gap in the clamp brake, which are very easy fixes.  Or it could be needing to replace some of the boards on the Widget, or catastrophically, the optical track sensor has fallen off internally. So that's an unknown.

Most likely, unless you're trying to recover whatever data may be on that Widget (which I'd encourage you to do - never know what goodies you'll find not on the included floppies), you're better off with an Aphid/X/ProFile/IDE:File, (and a FloppyEmu with the switch option.) So factor in that you'd likely spend another $100-$500 to make this Lisa fly.

But all the included original items (manuals, disks, etc. keyboard with pull out cheat-sheets, Lisa 1 Mouse, ) make it worth it, and especially since this is a 2/10 and not a 2/5, there's no leaky NiCADs to have caused huge damage to the I/O board, so it's probably a decent price for all the included extras.

I already have 4 Lisas (all of them needing some repairs, mostly to the analog boards and all but two needing power supply recapping) and am paying off my toy budget credit card, so not going to buy this myself, but in case someone here wants a 2nd Lisa or even first Lisa, it's not a bad choice.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: DAVID CRAIG on April 29, 2021, 11:18:21 pm
Ray wrote about LISAPAINT being a Lisa program he would like too see. Me too.

I believe LisaPaint was called LisaSketch when BILL ATKINSON wrote this on the Lisa as a testbed for his QUICKDRAW graphics packet. I don't know if SKTECH evolved into PAINT, but suspect it was mostly re-written for the Macintosh.

Suggest contacting BILL ATKINSON and seeing if he could find and ask Apple to release LISASKETCH source. See attached CHM interview.

~ David Craig
~ Cochiti Lake, New Mexico, USA
~ dtc.bayern [at] gmail.com
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on June 10, 2021, 08:18:02 pm
Somewhat exciting news tonight. While searching for more serial numbers, I came across a listing for what I think is a 2/10 that was loaded with the BPI Systems General Accounting package that was briefly mentioned in the 1984 sales binder.

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/apple-lisa-powers-software-1947564050

ETA: XENIX 2.3 for Lisa 1 has also been found. https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1983-apple-computer-xenix-lisa-1-1903057713
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on October 14, 2021, 10:54:23 am
So, there's a new Art Department listing on 3.5" disks on ebay here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/384444956314 (https://www.ebay.com/itm/384444956314)

I tried to make an offer for this, but got back "Sorry, the seller is not accepting bids or offers from you at this time. This may occur for various reasons. For example, the seller might have a limit for the amount of items that can be purchased within a given time."

Not sure if the seller doesn't like my specific account, or if they're not accepting Make an Offer. The price is quite high for "just a bunch of clip art."
...Edit: and... it sold for $235. Hope whoever got it will preserve the disk images once they receive it.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on October 18, 2021, 02:58:59 pm
Hope whoever got it will preserve the disk images once they receive it.

Check the Files subforum :)

I'd show it in action but while I was installing my Lisa decided to have a cascading disk failure that trashed the filesystem on both of my real Profiles and my X/Profile. Welp. All the file contents do appear to be on the disks, though.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on October 18, 2021, 04:02:36 pm

Check the Files subforum :)

Well done, thank you for this. Much appreciate. While not something of personal interest to me, totally would want this archived and saved for posterity.


I'd show it in action but while I was installing my Lisa decided to have a cascading disk failure that trashed the filesystem on both of my real Profiles and my X/Profile. Welp. All the file contents do appear to be on the disks, though.

Ouch! Sorry to hear, hope you've got backups or can recover. :( Hope your Lisa and her drives are ok. :(

Please let me know if you need help scanning the manuals.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on October 18, 2021, 11:49:47 pm
Ouch! Sorry to hear, hope you've got backups or can recover. :( Hope your Lisa and her drives are ok. :(

Well I don't really care about the data that was on the disks, most of the stuff was just me screwing around with the Office System. Unfortunately I think the best thing to do is retire the Profile disks; one of them keeps trying to seek out past the final sector on the disk and crashing into the head stop, and the other probably needs to be LLFed but won't even come ready with the LLF ROM installed. With the normal Profile Z8 installed it tries to do the startup seek but it takes around 30 seconds per sector before it advances which sounds like it's having some severe read issues to me.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: andrew on January 10, 2022, 11:08:34 am
I'd also love to see LisaPaint/LisaSketch/SketchPad. I love doodling in MacPaint and it would be a joy to be able to do similar drawings on my Lisa.

Then again, after taking another look at the page on Folklore (https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=MacPaint_Evolution.txt (https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=MacPaint_Evolution.txt)) it seems like many of the more interesting features of MacPaint were developed well after Bill had switched to Macintosh development. I wonder how much of a technical challenge it would be to port MacPaint back to the Lisa. The source code is out there, after all, but certain parts of the original code were moved to the Macintosh ROM so I'm guessing the whole thing would be a nontrivial undertaking.

Regardless, a barebones version of LisaPaint would be better than nothing!
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on January 10, 2022, 03:19:24 pm
I wonder how much of a technical challenge it would be to port MacPaint back to the Lisa. The source code is out there, after all, but certain parts of the original code were moved to the Macintosh ROM so I'm guessing the whole thing would be a nontrivial undertaking.

Regardless, a barebones version of LisaPaint would be better than nothing!

No idea, never tried, but a few things incase you're interested in this:

1. QuickDraw routines should likely be the same or at least close.
2. Fonts might be handled very differently, but not sure about the calls for those.
3. Lisa Office System lacks a resource manager, so anything that requires it will need a rewrite.
4. File Save/Open won't existing in LOS, so would need to be save on every change, etc. and have a tear off stationary available.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: stepleton on January 11, 2022, 04:59:40 pm
In re file save/open, my recollection of the ToolKit documentation is that there's pretty good support for serialisation of the object state of your program, and that the creation of a stationery pad is also handled automatically by the Workshop program that installs a tool onto your Office System desktop. See Segment 2 of Lisa ToolKit Self-Paced Training (http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/apple/lisa/toolkit_3.0/Package_2_Examples/04_Lisa_Toolkit_Self-Paced_Training.pdf), "What is a Document?", especially this quote on PDF page 23:

Quote
The end user can put a document away using a command in the File/Print Menu. The document heap (holding the view, the panel, the window, and whatever else had a hand in managing your document's data) is copied into a file. Then the file gets closed. Finally, the window frame goes away, leaving an icon as the sole reminder of the document.

What's not clear in this quote is that the ToolKit does this all for you --- you don't have to write code that does it yourself. So as far as #4 goes, I think you get all that for free if you use the ToolKit. #1 is also the case as I understand it, though ToolKit apps make use of a thin layer on top of QuickDraw that uses 32-bit X and Y coordinates for drawing instead of QuickDraw's 16-bit values. For everything else: a journey through creating the world's first substantial new ToolKit application in decades (so far as I know) awaits you! Good luck!  :D

(I know that must sound sarcastic, but it would be incredible if you or anyone else made a new ToolKit app. Someday I'll get around to trying it myself...)

ETA: Having neither attempted to author a ToolKit program nor having examined the MacPaint code, I'd be surprised if there was an easy way to get the MacPaint code to run on the ToolKit. There may be a different way to write code for the Office System that's a little easier --- maybe QuickPort would be a better choice?
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on February 13, 2022, 04:58:38 pm
Found a copy of Videx Desktop Calendar on eBay today. We already have the dc42 image but now we know what the physical disk looks like.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: stepleton on February 13, 2022, 05:42:39 pm
I found a discussion of this style of "AUTO SHUTTER" diskette here (https://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/hpmuseum/archv016.cgi?read=92675).
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on February 14, 2022, 04:48:37 pm
Yep, I mean; now we know what the label looks like :) And soon I'll have another manual shutter disk in my collection...
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: compu_85 on February 15, 2022, 11:44:29 am
I found a discussion of this style of "AUTO SHUTTER" diskette ...

I have one of the "interim" auto / manual shutter disks, and made a video of it: https://youtu.be/Sz8FBE7Ka7s?t=551

-J
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: snuci on February 16, 2022, 11:04:30 am
I know we are getting off topic here but just for reference, I have both the original manual shutter Sony diskette (no spring) on the left and an HP auto shutter diskette (has a spring but you squeeze the corner to close) on the right.  This drive is in a homebrew Z80 based computer.  This Sony drive does allow for normal spring loaded diskettes as well.

Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: compu_85 on February 20, 2022, 12:24:46 pm
That's cool!!

Those very early drives are only 35 tracks, too.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: pintoguy on April 20, 2022, 01:02:36 pm
Only reading this thread now. I have Omnis 3 for Lisa 7/7 with invoice, manual etc... Comes with Omnis 3+ for Mac. Will try to image later this week.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on April 20, 2022, 02:28:12 pm
Excellent find!
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: pintoguy on April 21, 2022, 12:18:43 pm
Unfortunately, the Lisa OS diskettes are not readable, and I see some wear marks on the disk surface.

Omnis was made by "Blyth Computers Limited" from the UK (not Organization Software Corporation as the spreadsheet says). The company still exists today. See here https://www.omnis.net/about-omnis/ (https://www.omnis.net/about-omnis/). They even have a photo of the founder using the Omnis 3 software on a Mac (pic below). I have sent an email to them, asking if they still have images of these floppies.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: stepleton on April 21, 2022, 04:27:34 pm
If they'd prefer to deal with someone in the UK (and you're not here), feel free to enlist me!
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: pintoguy on April 22, 2022, 12:40:16 pm
Thanks @stepleton. No reply yet, but will surely call on you if needed.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on April 28, 2022, 10:38:23 pm
@pintoguy - not sure but perhaps BLU can ignore the bad sectors and enough of it can be recovered?If not BLU, then maybe something like CopyIIMac?
Might be worth trying to recover these anyway, perhaps the damage is to unused sectors or sample files.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: pintoguy on May 03, 2022, 01:50:46 pm
Thanks Ray. All the floppies I got when I bought that particular Lisa threw errors. I suspect they had been stored in a garage that was very hot in the summer. They all show patches of hazy stuff on the surface, and I plan on wiping them with IPA before trying to read them again. Thanks for the tip on using BLU. I will try.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: stepleton on May 03, 2022, 03:29:30 pm
Quote
I plan on wiping them with IPA before trying to read them again.

Heaven knows I love the 'propes, but there are people who know better than me who tend to argue against IPA as it apparently can dissolve certain parts of the media. For these folks, the solvent of choice (of options available today to most buyers) is cyclomethicone, which sounds exotic but turns up in places like cosmetics and deodorants. You can find it at cosmetics supply outlets.

Here is an earlier LisaList2 discussion on the topic. (https://lisalist2.com/index.php?topic=100.0)
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on May 03, 2022, 06:21:46 pm
Heaven knows I love the 'propes, but there are people who know better than me who tend to argue against IPA as it apparently can dissolve certain parts of the media. For these folks, the solvent of choice (of options available today to most buyers) is cyclomethicone,

"Seconded" (as Scruffy would say) - but yeah if the media itself is falling apart, I'd be super careful to not clean it. I'd rather clean the heads of a floppy drive instead after trying to get whatever was still readable off it. I wouldn't use something like Disk Copy if there are errors because it stupidly aborts rather than letting you save what was available for reading. You're better off with something like CopyIIMac which will let you duplicate a bad disk and ignore the errors, and then you can image the copy from it with DiskCopy 4.2 or CP FastCopy.

Certainly if this is the very last copy of a specific piece of software, the odds are grim, but you never know when a second copy with a different set of bad sectors will turn up, and in that case you can merge the good sectors from image to another. In fact, this is why I wrote this little beastie: https://github.com/rayarachelian/lisaem/blob/unstable/src/tools/src/dc42-copy-selected-sectors.c

I had picked up a pre-release version of a MacWorks floppy that had errors on, but every time I imaged it, I got a slightly different image (with errors) so wanted to merge in bits of files from the release version, but couldn't get a working copy. Still, I'm all about small sharp tools...

Obviously we're not going to be able to recover physically damaged sectors, but for weak ones where some bits flip back and forth and it's isolatable (is that even a word?), we might get lucky and guess at the original value(s) and get a recovery.


So far I've played with CP Fast Copy, and CopyIIMac. Is there any other early Mac-era copier that could help? Preferably something that will create disk images that we can mess with?
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on May 03, 2022, 06:51:05 pm
So far I've played with CP Fast Copy, and CopyIIMac. Is there any other early Mac-era copier that could help? Preferably something that will create disk images that we can mess with?

If you wanted to go the hardware route, the Applesauce FDC claims compatibility with Lisa 400k and Mac 400k/800k disks.

https://applesaucefdc.com/what-is-applesauce/
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: pintoguy on May 04, 2022, 04:21:05 pm
Looks like they're still working on it... Here is the update I got today:

"Hi Bruno, I hope this email finds you well.

I apologize for not being able to update you yet, I would like to assure you that we are still looking into this and we should have an update for you very soon.
I don't know the absolute timeline but I should be emailing you back sometime at the start of the next week.

Thank you for your patience! Sincerely,

Arush Mankotia
Support Engineer
Omnis Software US"
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: pintoguy on May 10, 2022, 07:36:51 pm
OK so I did some work on these floppies. I have three of them. One is an Install2 disk with a serial number starting with 7IN. The other two are Install1 and Install2 with a serial number starting with 8IN.

After IPA cleanup (yes IPA works very well for me - I have revived dozens of bad floppies using it), I was actually able to read the file "Install Omnis" from the 7IN-Install2 disk on my Lisa, and copied it on the Lisa 10MB widget HDD. Installation seems to have worked if done from the HD, but failed when done from the FDD (failure to display a window). Once installed, Omnis needs to be run in its own environment. However, when launching, it requires the "Master Disk", and none of the floppy disks get accepted.

I used DiskIIMac to make floppy copies, using the "sector mode". The "bit mode" did not work too well. After writing these diskettes, I was able to make diskcopy4.2 images, which I'm attaching. Perhaps someone will be able to take it from here. Using fedit, I suspect that the the Install1 floppy is simply a Lisa 7/7 boot floppy, whereas the Install2 disks are the Omnis programs. Again, fedit tells me that IN7 is likely Omnis 3.2 whereas IN8 is version 3.3. Also 8IN-Install1 is the worst with about 40 out of the 80 tracks throwing errors, whereas In7-Install2 (one bad track #73) and IN8-Install2 (two bad tracks #51 and 79) are quite a bit better.

Finally, I was not able to successfully use BLU to read these disks. When checking them, it seems to get stuck on the first read error and requires reboot.

Thanks again for the help and great advice.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on May 10, 2022, 08:46:15 pm
OK so I did some work on these floppies. I have three of them. One is an Install2 disk with a serial number starting with 7IN. The other two are Install1 and Install2 with a serial number starting with 8IN.

Excellent!

After IPA cleanup (yes IPA works very well for me - I have revived dozens of bad floppies using it), I was actually able to read the file "Install Omnis" from the 7IN-Install2 disk on my Lisa, and copied it on the Lisa 10MB widget HDD. Installation seems to have worked if done from the HD, but failed when done from the FDD (failure to display a window). Once installed, Omnis needs to be run in its own environment. However, when launching, it requires the "Master Disk", and none of the floppy disks get accepted.

So by own environment, do you mean press Apple-Enter on start up to get the Environments window and select it from there? That's a weird way to write an LOS app, but ok.  Glad the IPA worked, there's some danger of it damaging the media, but glad it worked!

I used DiskIIMac to make floppy copies, using the "sector mode". The "bit mode" did not work too well. After writing these diskettes, I was able to make diskcopy4.2 images, which I'm attaching.
Did you mean CopyIIMac?

Perhaps someone will be able to take it from here. Using fedit, I suspect that the the Install1 floppy is simply a Lisa 7/7 boot floppy, whereas the Install2 disks are the Omnis programs. Again, fedit tells me that IN7 is likely Omnis 3.2 whereas IN8 is version 3.3. Also 8IN-Install1 is the worst with about 40 out of the 80 tracks throwing errors, whereas In7-Install2 (one bad track #73) and IN8-Install2 (two bad tracks #51 and 79) are quite a bit better.

Finally, I was not able to successfully use BLU to read these disks. When checking them, it seems to get stuck on the first read error and requires reboot.

Surprised that BLU failed, but glad you got some of the bits off. If we get lucky in the future and find some more Omnis disks, maybe we can get a full set at some point! Awesome job! Hang on to the originals, never know when some other tool/technique will come up that might help get it further.

Obviously whatever media's worn out or wiped isn't going to be recoverable, but maybe there's other things that can be done, such as using a 1.44M Apple SuperDrive floppy to read them which has a narrow head. That might help (or hinder) depending on where the damage is, and whether or not the head is slightly off-center track-wise, and if you're lucky you might hit an area that hasn't been damaged, etc.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: pintoguy on May 10, 2022, 09:37:09 pm
Yes, CopyIIMac, sorry for the confusion. And yes, Apple-Enter on startup. See screenshot pics.

I also thought about the FDD reader head, and whether a wider head would be better or worse. The cross-track width is probably similar for DD and HD (both 80 tracks per side), but it's the down-track reader length that changes, as HD floppies have twice the kbpi (kilobit per inch). My conclusion was that a SD drive with a longer reader would have a higher SN ratio, and hence be a better choice for scratched SD floppies. That would be a nice experiment to try, and it's on my list (I used an HD drive here on a Mac Classic). On the other side, BLU run on the SS/LD Lisa drive also threw errors.

Regarding IPA, since I'm a chemist by training, I always wanted to make my own opinion, since I know IPA is not a known solvent for most plastics. So I tried on dummy blank floppies from my collection (a few different brands), and then on program floppies of little rarity. I also checked a few youtube videos on the topic, and all used rubbing alcohol (aka IPA). So I guess my question to this board is: Would anyone have FIRST HAND data showing that IPA messes with the floppy, either the magnetic coating, or the plastic substrate ??
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on May 10, 2022, 10:06:46 pm
Wow, it really is it's own Environment.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on May 10, 2022, 10:17:29 pm
I wonder if there's any relevance to looking at Omnis3 for Mac or if the two are completely separate codebases... I'm too tired, I'll dig into it some more later.

https://winworldpc.com/product/omnis/3x
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: stepleton on May 11, 2022, 02:41:43 pm
In re IPA, I looked back into some old discussions. Al Kossow (who has tersely advocated against IPA here) says elsewhere that in his experience, it damages the binder (https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/new-old-stock-floppies-loosing-data.57283/page-3#post-695681) (that presumably attaches magnetic media to the substrate), and I assume not the plastic itself.

Lubrication is cited as an additional cyclomethicone benefit, although it obviously cannot help this way once it has evaporated away.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: pintoguy on May 11, 2022, 03:00:04 pm
Thanks @stepleton.

If Al Kossow is reading this, can he provide more detail ? Perhaps a hard error count (e.g formatted capacity of a blank floppy) before and after wiping. I'll try to gather such data myself and will report.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: Lisa2 on May 11, 2022, 03:39:08 pm
maybe there's other things that can be done, such as using a 1.44M Apple SuperDrive floppy to read them which has a narrow head..
Not to muddy the waters here, but I don't think size of the head is any different on a SuperDrive.  SuperDrive's have the same TPI and number of tracks that standard DS drives have.

I have SuperDrives installed in all four of my Lisa's, and they function exactly the same as 800K drives.  The only benefit is that the SuperDrives are newer and a little more reliable mechanically.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on May 11, 2022, 05:44:19 pm
I have SuperDrives installed in all four of my Lisa's, and they function exactly the same as 800K drives.  The only benefit is that the SuperDrives are newer and a little more reliable mechanically.

Well, you're using them for at most 800K access so you wouldn't see any difference in normal use. (BTW, perhaps you could document how you've wired them to work with the Lisa's controller?)

However, they are capable of reading and writing ~2x the rate of normal drives, which means that the heads are going to be more sensitive. Now this might be done by increasing the data rate of the shift register used, and/or playing with the speed.

In general some later read/write heads also have an erase coil that runs just before the r/w head - this erase head is going to be wider than the r/w head so as to leave some space around to prevent data bleed to other tracks. So when the heads go off center, you wind up with that drive being mostly able to read/write from its own disk and do a marginal jobs of accessing media written to by other drives.

This gap is what we're after:

Code: [Select]
Assuming a liner track, it might look like this:

             trk1            trk2
   | gutter| data | gutter | data | gutter |
   | gutter| data | gutter | data | gutter |
   | gutter| data | gutter | data | gutter |
   | gutter| data | gutter | data | gutter |


Now when trying to do data recovery, we don't care about the erase head at all, and the width of the track, we just want to access the data:


Code: [Select]
Here XX's show mechanical damage to data:

   | gutter| data| gutter |
   | gutter| data| gutter |
   | gutter| daXX| gutter |
   | gutter| daXX| gutter |
   | gutter| XXXX| gutter |
   | gutter| daXX| gutter |
   | gutter| daXX| gutter |


In this second case, using a more sensitive head, and purposefully forcing the drive head to go off center, can recover the "da" data bits, but not the XXXX case. This is a moonshot ofc, damage is not always going to be offcenter, and could span multiple tracks depending on the geometry of the damage. But you might be able to get some more data out of it than not.

And yes, I am suggesting that you modify the drive to get at the data. This is called microstepping. This is a step too far perhaps for some as it will render that drive usable only for recovery use. Also, you may need to change this in both directions - once to be slightly to the left, then try to read multiple times and see if you get different data, and then once to the right, again, with repeated attempts to read the damaged areas.

This will give you a whole bunch of data that's going to be different (and fail checksum). So next you'd have the massive task of trying each of those passes to see if any got you further or not.

If you take a look at the opposite problem, on how fully destroy magnetic media, you see that multiple write passes are required with various patterns. This is so you remove any left over signal. see: https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html

Quote
In conventional terms, when a one is written to disk the media records a one, and when a zero is written the media records a zero. However the actual effect is closer to obtaining a 0.95 when a zero is overwritten with a one, and a 1.05 when a one is overwritten with a one. Normal disk circuitry is set up so that both these values are read as ones, but using specialised circuitry it is possible to work out what previous "layers" contained. The recovery of at least one or two layers of overwritten data isn't too hard to perform by reading the signal from the analog head electronics with a high-quality digital sampling oscilloscope, downloading the sampled waveform to a PC, and analysing it in software to recover the previously recorded signal. What the software does is generate an "ideal" read signal and subtract it from what was actually read, leaving as the difference the remnant of the previous signal. Since the analog circuitry in a commercial hard drive is nowhere near the quality of the circuitry in the oscilloscope used to sample the signal, the ability exists to recover a lot of extra information which isn't exploited by the hard drive electronics (although with newer channel coding techniques such as PRML (explained further on) which require extensive amounts of signal processing, the use of simple tools such as an oscilloscope to directly recover the data is no longer possible).

Using MFM, we can go even further than this. During normal readback, a conventional head averages the signal over the track, and any remnant magnetization at the track edges simply contributes a small percentage of noise to the total signal. The sampling region is too broad to distinctly detect the remnant magnetization at the track edges, so that the overwritten data which is still present beside the new data cannot be recovered without the use of specialised techniques such as MFM or STM (in fact one of the "official" uses of MFM or STM is to evaluate the effectiveness of disk drive servo-positioning mechanisms) [7]. Most drives are capable of microstepping the heads for internal diagnostic and error recovery purposes (typical error recovery strategies consist of rereading tracks with slightly changed data threshold and window offsets and varying the head positioning by a few percent to either side of the track), but writing to the media while the head is off-track in order to erase the remnant signal carries too much risk of making neighbouring tracks unreadable to be useful (for this reason the microstepping capability is made very difficult to access by external means).

Now the difference between using highly specialized equipment and doing the above is that reading a 0.95th of a "1" signal is that we lose the indication that it was 0.95 and not 1. A fact which might have proven useful when doing data recovery. In other words, we don't have access to the analog levels of the bit strength which might provide a clue.

Imagine the magnetic media gets scraped by something, but not fully all the way down to the plastic part of the cookie. So maybe, think of it as a road with a pothole, but it hasn't gone down all the way to sand. If the road were magnetized, there might still be 25% of the media there, and its orientation is still readable.

But because the circuitry past the head has a discriminator that wants a whole 1 or whole 0, you cannot read this "1" bit and get a zero bit instead. This is the big issue here. But if we had access to analog levels with some degree of sensitivity, the original data might be recovered.

OFC, when the road is scraped all the way down to the sand layer underneath the concrete and asphalt, there's no way to get at the direction of the tiny magnetic fragments as there are none to see.

So this would give you maybe a 10%-20% chance of improvement.

Now if you were to build your own analog floppy controller and make it very sensitive, well, that would increase your chances a lot more. This is very difficult and would need a lot of processing power as well as a lot of code to write, but would allow us to recover a whole lot more. You may also need to do other things like read the data a lot more slowly, etc. and have some way to distinguish between different types of damage.

And ofc, the unmentioned thing here is dirt. Cleaning both the drive heads and the media is useful. However we have to be careful to not dissolve the media or damage it by doing this. I'm not an expert in this area at all, so not going to comment on IPA vs other substances, and leave that to those who have done it before. It's certainly possible to clean the media and then read it and recover it as well as causing permanent long term damage such that it won't be readable again some time in the future. This is going to be the same argument for/against retrobrite on cases, etc.

Final edit: all this said, this is theoretical, I personally don't know if you can modify a 2M Sony SuperDrive so the track is slightly off center, perhaps someone here has done that repair and can help describe it.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: pintoguy on May 11, 2022, 07:16:48 pm
I always wondered whether in fact the head dithers a bit off track when trying to recover from a read error. I know modern HDD's do it. Looks like perhaps FDD's do not ?
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: fri0701 on December 03, 2022, 02:43:56 pm
With help from Tim Colegrove and his Lisa 1, we were able to finally dump my Twiggy disk of Art Department. I suspect the included files are the same as on the 3.5" Art Department disk images that showed up since my last post, but for the sake of completeness, I've added the image to my archive.org entry here if anyone is curious to try it out: https://archive.org/details/apple-lisa-art-department
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: rayarachelian on December 10, 2022, 10:44:21 am
With help from Tim Colegrove and his Lisa 1, we were able to finally dump my Twiggy disk of Art Department. I suspect the included files are the same as on the 3.5" Art Department disk images that showed up since my last post, but for the sake of completeness, I've added the image to my archive.org entry here if anyone is curious to try it out: https://archive.org/details/apple-lisa-art-department

Thank you for doing this. :)
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on January 04, 2023, 10:23:28 am
https://www.ebay.com/itm/314303619003

I doubt anyone's got a spare $6000 laying around, but this 2/10 claims to have XENIX, Open Systems Accounting, and SMC Business BASIC installed. It at least has the Tecmar four-port serial card installed which lends credence to it being a UNIX box.

Has the 1984 Sales Marketing Binder on Bitsavers been updated? There's a bunch of new pages in the PDF now that I don't remember seeing when I first listed things in the spreadsheet. http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/apple/lisa/marketing/Lisa_Sales_Marketing_Binder_Feb84.pdf
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on May 21, 2023, 10:34:30 am
My daily eBay searches for Lisa stuff turned up something interesting this morning.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: bedroom on May 24, 2023, 07:57:45 pm
I'm not sure if it's been mentioned yet, but the Migration Kit (https://www.ebay.ca/itm/174950364302 (https://www.ebay.ca/itm/174950364302)) by (I think) Sun Remarketing was some really interesting software that allowed users to convert their Lisa files into Macintosh files.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: Lisa2 on May 25, 2023, 02:12:18 pm
the Migration Kit .... was some really interesting software that allowed users to convert their Lisa files into Macintosh files.

The Macintosh Migration kit is available to download here:

http://www.macmothership.com/lisacontent/util_lisa.html (http://www.macmothership.com/lisacontent/util_lisa.html)


Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: fri0701 on June 24, 2023, 12:01:20 am
My daily eBay searches for Lisa stuff turned up something interesting this morning.

I purchased this set of disks, and I'm (slowly) working on getting them archived. Follow the progress and see the intermediate results in the Files section: https://lisalist2.com/index.php/topic,412.0.html
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: blusnowkitty on June 26, 2023, 04:13:43 pm
Good to hear, hope we get something recovered.
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: compu_85 on September 03, 2023, 08:26:59 pm
A seller on ePay has some disks from the estate of Paul Barker.


https://www.ebay.com/itm/256204214388

Looks like a lot of master disks including ones for MacWorks and the workshop.

-J
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: ried on September 04, 2023, 12:00:12 am
I've been in touch with that seller, having acquired several Twiggy disks that he recently offered. He has several Paul Baker items that have not yet been listed, too.

Regarding these disks, I went through the Apple software that he's offering and haven't seen anything that's hard to find. The Workshop supplements, etc. are available in the Apple Technical Information Source CDs - which is actually why I posted that thread earlier today. What am I missing? What's special about the disks from the seller?
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: andrew on February 24, 2024, 04:30:46 pm
Just found out LisaMandelbrot (https://github.com/stepleton/LisaMandelbrot) exists. Maybe this should be added to the list!
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: applefreak on March 01, 2024, 03:55:51 am
Back in 1984, i visited the Flanders Technology exhibition (Belgium) experiencing the Apple Lisa and Radar CH (first version of ArchiCad) very promising.
I am a Archicad user since 1989, version 3

In 2003 I contacted Graphisoft, asking for a copy, but never got an answer.

GRAPHISOFT SE. Graphisoft Park 1, H-1031 Budapest, Hungary
https://graphisoft.com/


Radar CH   1984   Apple Lisa   Separate 2D and 3D module

https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Getting-started/Archicad-versions/ta-p/304207
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: andrew on March 01, 2024, 12:34:46 pm
Back in 1984, i visited the Flanders Technology exhibition (Belgium) experiencing the Apple Lisa and Radar CH (first version of ArchiCad) very promising.

I'd love to get of a copy of this. Do you remember if they mentioned if the software was past the prototype stage on the Lisa?
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: applefreak on March 01, 2024, 03:31:01 pm
I'd love to get of a copy of this. Do you remember if they mentioned if the software was past the prototype stage on the Lisa?

You are not the only one

Radar CH is listed in the ArchiCAD versions, I don't think they are doing this with a prototype
Title: Re: List of All Lisa Software
Post by: andrew on March 01, 2024, 06:42:22 pm
I only ask because so far, after a little bit of digging, I've been unable to find any direct screenshots or more detailed information about it, although I found what appear to be screenshots and video of ArchiCAD v1.0 for the Mac. Hopefully this wasn't a case of them developing it for the Lisa originally, only to pivot to a Mac version when it was clear the Lisa's OS wasn't going to be widely supported in the future.

Video of ArchiCAD v1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-6vEIy4ccI)

There's also this manual for sale on ebay. I'd buy it but they don't ship to the US. Maybe this will have more information? (https://www.ebay.com/itm/233858275210)