I've just released my new ProFile emulator and diagnostic tool on GitHub, called ESProFile (https://github.com/alexthecat123/ESProFile).
A couple years back, I developed the ArduinoFile ProFile emulator (https://github.com/alexthecat123/ArduinoFile), with the goal of coming up with something that was inexpensive and easy to build. While I believe that I succeeded in accomplishing both of those things, ArduinoFile had a lot of shortcomings that made it impractical for a lot of Lisa users.
ArduinoFile worked great with the Lisa 2/5 (and presumably the Lisa 1, although I'm not sure if anybody's ever tested it on one), but things started falling apart if you tried to use it with a Lisa 2/10, a parallel card, or an XLerated Lisa. The Arduino was already being pushed to its limits on the 2/5, but the faster strobe pulses on these other Lisa configurations were just too much for it to keep up with. With some help from ArduinoFile users, I was able to come up with a couple patches that made ArduinoFile kind of work on the 2/10 and parallel card, but it was still really unreliable. And it still doesn't work with an XLerator at all!
So I decided to develop a replacement that's based around the ESP32 instead, hence the name ESProFile. And wow, it's a massive improvement! Emulation now works with every Lisa configuration I've been able to get my hands on, including with the 16MHz XLerator, and the cost is even lower than with ArduinoFile because of how cheap ESP32s are.
And, in an attempt to make things more accessible to people who don't know how to solder (and also easier for those of us who do), I've designed everything with JLCPCB's assembly service in mind. Just upload the Gerbers, the pick and place file, and the BOM to their site, and they'll fabricate and assemble 5 boards for you for about $30 or $40, including the cost of parts. You just have to add the ESP32, an interface cable, and an SD card, and you're ready to go!
ESProFile also comes in two different board versions: an internal one and an external one. The external one is designed for use outside a Lisa like a ProFile, while the internal board mounts right inside your drive cage like a Widget.
Porting the emulator mode over was fairly straightforward, although there were several major roadblocks and I also added quite a few quality-of-life improvements. However, ArduinoFile also had a very rudimentary diagnostic mode that allowed you to connect it to an actual ProFile and send over a couple basic commands for troubleshooting a drive (although it was pretty buggy). ESProFile's diagnostic mode has been greatly improved over ArduinoFile's, to the point that it now supports pretty much every command in the ProFile command set, including the 5MB and 10MB diagnostic Z8 command sets and all of the Widget's special commands. And it also has a lot of useful utility functions like drive backups and searching your disk for a particular string.
ArduinoFile didn't have enough flash to hold both emulator mode and diagnostic mode at the same time, so you had to upload new firmware to the board to switch between the two modes. But this has been solved on ESProFile, and you can change between modes by simply flipping a switch on the board!
If you think you might want to build one for yourself, feel free to check it out (https://github.com/alexthecat123/ESProFile)!
Fantastic work, sir! Looking forward to putting one together!
Thank you!
Congratulations! Looks like a fantastic little gizmo. I've thought a few times how there ought to be an ESP-powered ProFile emulator, and it sure looks like you didn't just do it halfway!
The docs and the design for production are impressive. Now, I've always been bad at arithmetic, but do I have it right that (without the cable) we're looking at a unit cost of below fifteen dollars?
QuoteNow, I've always been bad at arithmetic, but do I have it right that (without the cable) we're looking at a unit cost of below fifteen dollars?
Yeah, that's right! I was pretty shocked that it ended up being that low; one of my biggest goals was to make it cheap, but I wasn't expecting it to be quite that affordable. Granted, if you're doing assembly through JLCPCB, you'll have to end up paying $30 or $40 for the minimum quantity of 5 boards, but that gives you 4 extra assembled boards that you could give (or sell) to your friends!
If anyone is building a batch can you count me in for one?
Quote from: Verault on January 22, 2025, 11:38:07 AM
If anyone is building a batch can you count me in for one?
I have large batch in production now, PM me.
Rick
Quote from: AlexTheCat123 on January 20, 2025, 07:55:51 PM
I've just released my new ProFile emulator and diagnostic tool
An impressive amount of work for sure -- I'm looking forward to trying it out!
This is great news - I was interested in your original emulator.
Am I correct to think I can effectively create a monster drive of test programs - basically all the different tests available for the Lisa 1 through XL.
I think the obvious answer is yes, but how would do we handle those running programs that are intended to run upon boot.
A review of the github didn't show anything obvious how this could be handled.
Anyway, thanks again for the work - I will definitely want to get a couple one way or the other. :)
If it works like ArduinoFile and Cameo/Aphid, the SD card would potentially have multiple drive images, with the one named 'profile.image' being the one that gets loaded by the Lisa and presented as a real ProFile.
If you use the Selector image (Tom's program) and name that as profile.image, it will boot into a custom "boot menu" of sorts, allowing you to choose a bootable image to (re)boot from.
All of this is VERY slick and much appreciated.
James is absolutely correct!
The SDTemplate folder in the ESProFile repo is already set up with a disk image of the Selector (and backup images of it in the rescue folder), so you just copy that over to your SD card and you're ready to go. I don't talk about how to use the Selector in the readme since Tom already has some great documentation about it, but I did link to his documentation somewhere in there. But if you don't feel like going back through the readme, you can also find his Selector manual here (https://github.com/stepleton/cameo/blob/master/aphid/selector/MANUAL.md).
With the Selector, you can put as many images as you want onto your SD card, and then just pick one to boot from whenever you start up your Lisa. It's really awesome; thanks again Tom for making such a great program!
Quote from: Lisa2 on January 23, 2025, 12:52:34 PM
Quote from: Verault on January 22, 2025, 11:38:07 AM
If anyone is building a batch can you count me in for one?
I have large batch in production now, PM me.
Rick
I have had several requests to get in on this batch. All of the boards are accounted for now.
Thank you,
Rick
Last night I had a small production line going building these.. ;)
I also have a handful of each, should someone want one.
It's nice to start seeing these things out in the wild! If anybody runs across any problems or has any feedback, please let me know. I want to be sure that ESProFile is as reliable and easy to use as possible!
I know this is a Lisa site but..
For fun, I tested a ESPROFILE with my Apple ///. Unfortunately it did not work. Good news it that no magic smoke was let out!
Using a blank 5M profile image, I tried to format the ESPROFILE with the SOS system utilities, but it throws an error and will not initialize. Then using BLU on the Lisa, I copied a known good A3 profile to the ESPROFILE. BLU was able to copy the data fine, but that also did not work on the A3. Also tried A3 CP/M but no bueno... :(
The A3 profile card does not use the VIA chip like Lisa has, I am guessing there is some sort of interface incompatibility. My X/Profile works perfectly on the A3.
If anyone has any luck with ESPROFILE on a A3 let me know.
Rick
Yeah, I've been waiting for someone to say something one way or the other about Apple /// compatibility. My Apple /// isn't with me right now, so I haven't been able to test it on one yet and I can't do any Apple /// debugging at the moment, but I'd like to look into that once I get my hands on it again.
The Apple /// sends faster strobe pulses than the Lisa because it uses DMA to transfer data to and from the ProFile, so it's basically the worst case in terms of emulator compatibility. I've never actually measured them, but I believe the strobe frequency is about 1MHz. I'm 99% sure that's what the problem is, but the only way to know for sure is to hook up a logic analyzer and start messing around!
Just a quick update: I noticed an issue where I would sometimes experience some weirdness when using ESProFile with parallel cards under certain OS's in certain configurations, and I was able to trace it down to a simple issue involving the timing of the BSY signal. The parallel card just expects it to be asserted much more quickly than the built-in port. And I have now fixed that problem, along with adding a couple SD card-related optimizations to improve disk access speed.
If you've had any problems with using ESProFile on a parallel card, go back and download the latest firmware, and you should be good to go. I actually fixed this problem about a week ago, but I just wanted to make an annoucement since people probably didn't notice!
Alex, your ESProFile is becoming famous!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwdE017c7yw
Yeah, I saw that this morning! He was originally planning on making an ArduinoFile, but I reached out to him in December and sent him a prototype of ESProFile instead since it's so much better and more reliable.
It's a shame that he's having some problems installing LOS, but I emailed him about it and hopefully we can get it figured out. I'm pretty sure that something's wrong with his Lisa as opposed to his ESProFile because I tested that board in a 2/10 before I sent it to him and everything was working fine. Plus, I know of plenty of other people using them in 2/10s without issue. But I'll definitely let everybody know if we end up finding and fixing some kind of weird bug that only shows up under really specific circumstances!
Thank you so much for making the ESProFile. It has been a fantastic help with my LISA restoration and usage.
Quote from: bmwcyclist on March 03, 2025, 11:36:59 AM
Thank you so much for making the ESProFile. It has been a fantastic help with my LISA restoration and usage.
I'm really glad you've been enjoying it!
Thank you as well! Heres to hoping someday soon someone makes some new software for the old girl.
Quote from: Verault on March 03, 2025, 11:46:06 AM
Heres to hoping someday soon someone makes some new software for the old girl.
It's nothing super impressive, but I'm working on something in 68K assembly right now. It's not an LOS app or anything, but it's still something that people will hopefully find pretty neat!
Anything is far better than the vast nothingness that has been LISA development.
So, this opinion is one you've expressed on vcfed for a few years now. If you want some Lisa apps, why not make them yourself? The tools are out there:
https://bitsavers.org/bits/Apple/Lisa/workshop_3.0/
https://bitsavers.org/bits/Apple/Lisa/toolkit_3.0/
and so is the documentation:
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/apple/lisa/workshop_3.0/
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/apple/lisa/toolkit_3.0/Package_2_Examples/
And that was the exact thing you said to me there..............
I really have no clue how my wishing there was new Lisa software is so upsetting to you.. But it obviously is.
Quote from: AlexTheCat123 on February 27, 2025, 04:27:15 PM
Just a quick update: I noticed an issue where I would sometimes experience some weirdness when using ESProFile with parallel cards ...
Speaking of the parallel card, I came across this for the connecting cable. I think it should work. While I know the parts from Digikey are listed on the github site, just figured that some people might not want to make their own.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07S8WN57B/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A1THAZDOWP300U&psc=1
Quote from: JaDaveIII on March 04, 2025, 03:06:52 PM
Quote from: AlexTheCat123 on February 27, 2025, 04:27:15 PM
Just a quick update: I noticed an issue where I would sometimes experience some weirdness when using ESProFile with parallel cards ...
Speaking of the parallel card, I came across this for the connecting cable. I think it should work. While I know the parts from Digikey are listed on the github site, just figured that some people might not want to make their own.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07S8WN57B/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A1THAZDOWP300U&psc=1
Neat! So this should work on the external ESP device? Thats great.
Quote from: Verault on March 04, 2025, 03:16:13 PM
Neat! So this should work on the external ESP device? Thats great.
Yeah, that should work fine. It can be a pain to squish those connectors onto the ends of a ribbon cable, so a ready-made solution like this is really nice! I might add it to the readme next time I update it.
Thanks for the link. Im going to buy one myself.
I dont need two so if someone in the states wants the second one for the cost of postage let me know.
Quote from: JaDaveIII on March 04, 2025, 03:06:52 PM
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07S8WN57B/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A1THAZDOWP300U&psc=1
Those should work and are a less expensive alternative to building your own if you don't already have some length of ribbon cable, DB25/IDC26 connectors, and the crimping tool. It also might be long enough if you install the internal version into a 2/5 and use the Twiggy connector for power but need to snake the DB25 out the back.
If you're using stock Apple motherboard and parallel port or card you will likely need to snip Pin 7 in the top center.
Quote from: Verault on March 04, 2025, 07:54:24 AM
And that was the exact thing you said to me there..............
I really have no clue how my wishing there was new Lisa software is so upsetting to you.. But it obviously is.
Lisa development isn't exactly trivial, and up until ~2 years ago there were some wonky bugs in LisaEm that impacted development in Lisa Workshop. There probably still are bugs there, but the main contributor to LisaEm is no longer available to work those out. So, we're left with a small pool of hobbyists that 1) have actual Lisa hardware available and 2) are adept enough to fire up Lisa Workshop and the limited amount of available documentation to actually build a "useful" application. I don't know if anyone has kicked the tires on Workshop in LisaEm lately to know if it will output a working application.
But, as Tom pointed out, there's some Pascal and Toolkit docs out there that can point a willing individual in the right direction of drawing circles and squares to make the first-of-its-kind Lisa Solitaire program (should they be so inclined).
Oh I never thought it was trivial in the least. Im sure its quite the opposite.
Quote from: Verault on March 04, 2025, 04:31:51 PM
I never thought it was trivial...
This is the issue for me... what software would be worth the effort?
The only thing that has tempted me over the years is a hex file/disk editor, but even that is a stretch now that we have ProFile emulators.
More recently now that we have LOS source code, I would add a SCSI driver to the list of possible software projects.
Still, I think being able to recompile and install LOS would come first... but the scale of the project... !
Things like Tom's Selector, LisaEm, and dare I say
BLU probably give a more immediate benefit from cycles invested. ymmv
There's a few things I would like. If I were retired and could buy a few extra years for my life, I'd like to make a powerpoint clone for the Office System: it's a part of the modern office suite that's missing on Lisa and it also tells you how much fun I am at parties.
Somehow about nine months ago this new piece of Lisa software went up on Github (https://github.com/stepleton/teslerpoint) as a bit of a stopgap. And I did actually haul my Lisa 1 into work and give a slide show presentation with the thing --- it was a fun stunt.
Solitaire is a great idea and is probably more fun to program than presentation software. QuickPort (the limited but easier way to "port" Workshop apps to the Office System) would probably do the job here, although my recollection from LisaMandelbrot (https://github.com/stepleton/LisaMandelbrot/tree/master/Port) is that drawing bitmaps (like you'd probably have on the cards) is a bit awkward, hence warnings like these (https://github.com/stepleton/LisaMandelbrot/tree/master/Port#usage-instructions-and-notes). It might be better to make the card designs with ordinary draw commands. This reminds me that I'd like to make a LisaMandelbrot from ToolKit someday.
To add to the media drivers idea: I'd love to see some kind of networked storage option, similar to FujiNet perhaps. Most? (all?) ESP32s have WiFi, and being able to exchange files over the network would be amazing. This Lisa Device Drivers Manual presumably provides the additional guidance one would want in order to write the drivers:
https://www.applefritter.com/content/lisa-device-drivers-manual
and now that we have the OS source code, we ought to be able to build the units (=libraries) that drivers need, which I don't think are included in the standard Workshop install. Just like so many other things, device drivers seem perhaps a bit overdesigned for the application and can be loaded or unloaded from the OS without rebooting. In fact, you can mark drivers so that they're dynamically loaded and installed only when you use a device that needs them! Another thing about Lisa that's technically and puzzlingly impressive.
Thanks for the Link!
I also hope to use the Lisa for presentations
Quote from: stepleton on March 04, 2025, 06:23:58 PM
There's a few things I would like. If I were retired and could buy a few extra years for my life, I'd like to make a powerpoint clone for the Office System: it's a part of the modern office suite that's missing on Lisa and it also tells you how much fun I am at parties.
Somehow about nine months ago this new piece of Lisa software went up on Github (https://github.com/stepleton/teslerpoint) as a bit of a stopgap. And I did actually haul my Lisa 1 into work and give a slide show presentation with the thing --- it was a fun stunt.
Here is my 3d printed ESProfile holder (from the other thread).
I have a white one also but the orange caught my eye. I have an extra if anyone wants it!
I am powering the fan from the card also.
Quote from: bmwcyclist on March 05, 2025, 06:53:27 PM
I am powering the fan from the card also.
Nice!
In the latest design revision, I've added a fan header, so you can now plug the fan straight in instead of using clips if you have the latest board!
Sigh.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/undocumented-commands-found-in-bluetooth-chip-used-by-a-billion-devices/
"The ubiquitous ESP32 microchip made by Chinese manufacturer Espressif and used by over 1 billion units as of 2023 contains undocumented commands that could be leveraged for attacks.
The undocumented commands allow spoofing of trusted devices, unauthorized data access, pivoting to other devices on the network, and potentially establishing long-term persistence..."
Ironically, I am planning on using my LISA (when I get it fully running and outfitted) to write security blogs on things like IOT devices.
thanks for the heads up!!!
Quote from: bmwcyclist on March 10, 2025, 01:40:17 PM
using my LISA ... to write security blogs
Interesting! If you proceed with that you may be one of the few using a Lisa for actual productivity/work.
I don't recall specifics as to when the first viruses appeared for the Macintosh, but I'm confident the Mac Plus could be infected, which means that if you're using MW+/II you're vulnerable.
I presume some other vintage Mac forum has info about those early viruses... something to watch for when testing old software if you depend on your Lisa for work.
Quote from: Kelly king on March 10, 2025, 06:30:32 PM
Here is a Pascal code snippet for Lisa Workshop that enables the use of a SCSI hard drive with Lisa OS 3.0.1:
This is AI written wonder if it would work?
A basic example, Yes. Also very high level.
My low level
HI (Human Intelligence) predicts this will not work... calling a SCSI manager that does not exist in the Lisa OS.
Quote from: sigma7 on March 10, 2025, 02:30:36 PM
Quote from: bmwcyclist on March 10, 2025, 01:40:17 PM
using my LISA ... to write security blogs
Interesting! If you proceed with that you may be one of the few using a Lisa for actual productivity/work.
If you're using MW+/II, you're vulnerable. This is something to watch for when testing old software if you depend on your Lisa for work.
I hope I am successful!
If I do run into one, it is not likely to get far as the O/S is contained to SD cards and floppy images....
Quote from: Kelly king on March 10, 2025, 06:30:32 PM
Here is a Pascal code snippet for Lisa Workshop that enables the use of a SCSI hard drive with Lisa OS 3.0.1:
This is AI written wonder if it would work?
(What is Lisa OS 3.0.1?)
As Lisa2 has pointed out, this program is bogus. The AI has done what they usually do when they don't know what they're talking about, which is to give you an attractive-looking lie.
The program does appear to be valid Pascal syntax, so that's a good start. What it seems to want to do is use some built-in SCSI functionality to mount a SCSI drive. The Lisa OS doesn't have any SCSI functionality at all, so this program is trying to use something that doesn't exist. And the way it uses its made-up functionality --- mount a drive --- is probably something that you could do with the Preferences program or the Workshop shell if that functionality did exist. In other words, if this program worked, there probably would not be a need for it...
The way the program is trying to invoke that functionality appears to be through a library called "SCSI" (see under "USES"). There is no SCSI library in the Lisa OS: this is something we would have to write. The library would probably make use of a SCSI device driver (or a stack of them: one for SCSI, one for storage that uses SCSI), which is also something we would have to write. The device driver manual that I linked to earlier would probably help out a lot with that, but it would still be an ambitious undertaking!
The program also appears to be using a library called LisaTypes, which I don't remember existing either. Presumably this is where the SCSIdevice record type would have been defined.
For programs that you build with the Workshop, all but the most fundamental libraries have to be listed alongside a special comment that tells the compiler where to find the library. This comment takes the form {$U library_file_name.OBJ }. You can see some of these in a real Workshop Pascal program here: https://github.com/stepleton/LisaMandelbrot/blob/master/Pro/MANDELQD.TEXT#L81
The rest of the program goes on to use the made-up SCSI library in a made-up way. Pure imagination can never be right or wrong, so there's not much to say about what you see here, other than that it won't be very helpful in getting SCSI in the Lisa OS in real life. As one final nit, though, Workshop Pascal files usually have the extension .TEXT, not .PAS.
Doing this development for real will be a big lift for a human or an AI. Despite what I've said here, I do think generative AI systems could play a role here: used well and with appropriate hand-holding, they're pretty good at writing code. But I don't think they're going to know how to write Lisa device drivers "out of the box". At a minimum, I think you will need to use a model with a big context window and provide useful resources within that context window, like that device driver manual and perhaps even some of the source code for the libraries that the example code in the manual uses. You will also need to provide low-level information about the SCSI card that you'd like the driver to use, potentially including the datasheet for the SCSI IC that it employs. Ultimately, by the time you've given the AI everything it needs to do the job, you may find that you can do a lot of the job on your own anyway...
We are completely off topic, but I want to share this:
Code for a SCSI driver for early Macintosh computers, written in 1985:
https://github.com/SuperSVGA/MacSCSI/tree/main
Unfortunately, the full code is not present, only parts of it.
Quote from: stepleton on March 11, 2025, 05:12:28 AM
AI has done what they usually do when they don't know what they're talking about, which is to give you an attractive-looking lie.
I'm intrigued by the potential to train some AI thing by feeding it valid Lisa documents and known-working code. Much easier done by those who (think they) control the AI, but I think the possibility is there for those of us on the outside to influence its learning.
I tried to get Chat-GPT to help me with some 6504 code for BLU; after I managed to correct some misunderstanding it had about the 6504, it could make an improvement, but it would soon revert to its misunderstanding when I tried to get back to the original objective. So as far as I'm concerned, it wasn't ready to learn something new, but I can see how a Chat-GPT expert could make much better progress than I.
Quote from: TorZidan on March 11, 2025, 07:29:31 PM
Code for a SCSI driver ... the full code is not present, only parts of it.
The LSAC (and the QuickBoot derivative) has basic bare-metal SCSI functionality for the Lisa SCSI. I hope to open-source the code at some point, but am currently dealing with another's effort to "open-source" another piece of my work before I'm ready to do so, which isn't encouraging for the time-line.
Regardless, I may be happy to help someone else if they take on the LOS SCSI driver project.
Here is my ESProfile case for the external board that I created for my Lisa ESProfile card. The inside has slots to hold the board in place I can post more pictures if anyone is interested.
Thats pretty nice. Will you post the STL files?
I'm on vacation right now, but I'm planning on adding it to the ESProFile GitHub repo once I get back!
Has anyone used the ESProFile with LOS 1 or 1.2? I'm having an issue with an ESProFile connected to a Lisa 1 running LOS 1.2. On cold boot, it starts up and loads Selector just fine, from which I can choose my LOS 1.2 install and boot as normal. When I shut down the Lisa using the normal means, all seems fine.
However, when powering up for the second time (5v power remains constantly applied to the ESProFile), I get an Error 85 that reads "PROFILE READ FAILED." It seems the ESProFile is not resetting itself in a way that the Lisa likes and it's unprepared to support the next boot cycle.
Removing and reapplying power to the ESProFile fixes this.
Interesting! I didn't know that LOS printed out error messages; I thought all the error codes were numerical at that point in the boot process. Either I somehow completely missed that when compiling the source code, or it's just an LOS 1 thing.
I don't have a Lisa 1 or any way to install LOS 1 from Twiggies, but can anyone else who does have one reproduce this?
It's not an LOS error. It happens right after the power-on self-test, when it tries to load LOS.
Quote from: ried on November 11, 2025, 09:53:47 PM
It's not an LOS error. It happens right after the power-on self-test, when it tries to load LOS.
I know it's not something that you're getting once you're properly booted into LOS, but the LOS bootloader is what's displaying it, right? I know the boot ROM doesn't display textual error messages like that.
Quote from: AlexTheCat123 on November 12, 2025, 12:16:54 PM
the LOS bootloader is what's displaying it, right? I know the boot ROM doesn't display textual error messages like that.
I believe he is saying the ROM gives error 85 (displayed on the screen), and when he looked up what that means in a document, he found "PROFILE READ FAILED"
Quote from: sigma7 on November 12, 2025, 12:49:39 PM
I believe he is saying the ROM gives error 85 (displayed on the screen), and when he looked up what that means in a document, he found "PROFILE READ FAILED"
Oh, gotchya. Can you connect to your ESProFile over serial and see if it prints any sort of error/debug message when the Lisa tries and fails to read the boot block?
A video is probably worth a thousand words in this case. Here's the full sequence:
(deleted)
I haven't connected the ESProFile to serial for diagnostic purposes yet, but will give that a whirl at some point.
Quote from: sigma7 on November 12, 2025, 12:49:39 PM
Quote from: AlexTheCat123 on November 12, 2025, 12:16:54 PM
the LOS bootloader is what's displaying it, right? I know the boot ROM doesn't display textual error messages like that.
I believe he is saying the ROM gives error 85 (displayed on the screen), and when he looked up what that means in a document, he found "PROFILE READ FAILED"
Clearly I was wrong... is the error text coming from "The Selector"?
Well, first Error 85 appears and when prompted to CONTINUE or STARTUP FROM... choosing CONTINUE results in "PROFILE READ FAILED" and the prompts change to RESTART and STARTUP FROM...
Unless ESProFile is somehow getting reset (which shouldn't be possible unless the firmware is crashing and restarting itself), that error message can't be coming from the Selector because LOS will still be the selected disk image even after the reboot. So I guess the bootloader might display messages in LOS 1 after all. Interesting!
Let's try connecting to ESProFile over serial next; getting that debug data is probably the best next step! And if that doesn't reveal much, then it might be time to break out the logic analyzer...
Here's what it says over serial when Error 85 is generated:
Read Block: 000000 - Read phase 2: Host didn't respond with a 55!
Edit: Okay, this is weird. The ESProFile is still being powered by my laptop's USB port (serial communication still open) and I powered up the Lisa again and it worked, booting straight into LOS 1.2 as expected. Huh.
After further attempts while powering the ESProFile from my laptop's USB port (serial communication open or closed) and from the wall outlet USB port... sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't - power source and serial comm status don't seem to affect the issue. After plugging in the ESProFile, the first boot into Selector and then LOS 1.2 always works fine. Subsequently powering down the Lisa, then powering it up again, results in Error 85 about 75% of the time, while 25% of the time it boots as normal.
So, it seems that the host (is that Lisa? or is that something in the ESProFile?) frequently doesn't "respond with a 55" in the expected manner or timeframe which breaks things. Note that this issue is unique to the ESProFile and I haven't encountered Error 85 with a 5MB ProFile, X/ProFile + voltage regulator in a ProFile case, or the ArcaneByte Cameo/Aphid emulator on the same machine using its built-in parallel port.
Quote from: sigma7 on November 12, 2025, 10:14:58 PM
Clearly I was wrong... is the error text coming from "The Selector"?
It weren't me, guv!
I couldn't remember whether that was an error message in the Selector, my Lisa I/O routines, or my ProFile bootloader (all of which are present here), so I grepped my entire project directory.
It didn't show up in any of my source code. But it did match in the binary data of some Office System 1 disk images:
$ strings lisa_disks/bitsavers/twiggy/t001_Office_System_I.dc42 | grep -i 'profile read failed'
NuPROFILE READ FAILED(ignore the "Nu", that's just noise.)
I'm as swamped as ever, but I can see if I can find a time this weekend to try on my machine. Can you spell out a basic replication procedure? (sorry!)
My bet is that this is as likely to be an operating system bug as anything else.
Quote from: stepleton on November 13, 2025, 03:48:41 AM
Can you spell out a basic replication procedure? (sorry!)
- Connect the ESProFile to the built-in parallel port, then connect a USB power source to it.
- Power on your Lisa.
- Boot into Selector, then select your LOS 1.2 image, then press "B" for boot. (This should work fine)
- After successfully booting LOS 1.2, press the Lisa's power button again to shut down.
- Then press the Lisa's power button to start up again. This usually generates Error 85, and choosing CONTINUE will result in PROFILE READ FAILED.
Quote from: ried on November 13, 2025, 12:17:06 AM
After further attempts while powering the ESProFile from my laptop's USB port (serial communication open or closed) and from the wall outlet USB port... sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't - power source and serial comm status don't seem to affect the issue. After plugging in the ESProFile, the first boot into Selector and then LOS 1.2 always works fine. Subsequently powering down the Lisa, then powering it up again, results in Error 85 about 75% of the time, while 25% of the time it boots as normal.
So, it seems that the host (is that Lisa? or is that something in the ESProFile?) frequently doesn't "respond with a 55" in the expected manner or timeframe which breaks things. Note that this issue is unique to the ESProFile and I haven't encountered Error 85 with a 5MB ProFile, X/ProFile + voltage regulator in a ProFile case, or the ArcaneByte Cameo/Aphid emulator on the same machine using its built-in parallel port.
Weird that it works sometimes but not others; I'm guessing it's a really subtle timing issue or something! The "not responding with 0x55" thing means that the host (Lisa) didn't send an 0x55 back to your ESProFile as part of the command confirmation phase of the handshake. The Lisa successfully sent the command bytes (as evidenced by ESProFile saying that it intends to read from block 0), at which point the Lisa is supposed to assert /CMD, followed by ESProFile sending the Lisa an 0x02 and asserting /BSY. When the Lisa sees this, it's supposed to send the 0x55. But something's going wrong here.
Could you send me your LOS 1 disk image? I'll try to fire it up on a Lisa 2/5 and see if I can reproduce things.
@reid - What ROM version are you running? Wonder if there's a difference between how something like the D ROM operates vs F/H in this particular scenario.
Quote from: jamesdenton on November 13, 2025, 12:09:13 PM
What ROM version are you running? Wonder if there's a difference between how something like the D ROM operates vs F/H in this particular scenario.
Now THAT is a very good question! This is an earlier Lisa 1 and it has C ROMs.
Alex, zipped image file attached.
Quote from: ried on November 13, 2025, 12:13:27 PM
Quote from: jamesdenton on November 13, 2025, 12:09:13 PM
What ROM version are you running? Wonder if there's a difference between how something like the D ROM operates vs F/H in this particular scenario.
Now THAT is a very good question! This is an earlier Lisa 1 and it has C ROMs.
Ahh, now that's even better. A peek thru the ROM notes mentions some Profile-related changes between C->D->F->H.
3/15/83 - Extend Profile timeout for case where drive may be parking head. (bug RM016)
4/20/83 - Add fixes for: 4)Never ready Profile (bug RM011)
...
5/12/83 - Create and release rev D of boot ROM
9/1/83 - Add retry for hard disk booting. (CHG016)
...
10/20/83 - Release as rev E for Lisa and Pepsi systems.
12/15/83 - 3)Extend timeout for hard disk ready. (CHG031)
...
1/25/84 - 1)Add code to properly initialize Profile-reset and parity-reset lines for Profile booting (CHG036)
Needless to say, whatever you're experiencing might've been addressed by the time D/F/H and 3A came along.
https://www.applefritter.com/content/lisa-boot-rom-modification-history
Edit: Pure speculation that might not amount to anything.
Makes perfect sense! Can the ESProFile extend its compatibility (and behave the way other drive emulators do) to a Rev. C machine with a minor software update?
Quote from: ried on November 13, 2025, 08:27:16 AM
- Connect the ESProFile to the built-in parallel port, then connect a USB power source to it.
- Power on your Lisa.
- Boot into Selector, then select your LOS 1.2 image, then press "B" for boot. (This should work fine)
- After successfully booting LOS 1.2, press the Lisa's power button again to shut down.
- Then press the Lisa's power button to start up again. This usually generates Error 85, and choosing CONTINUE will result in PROFILE READ FAILED.
I found a spare moment. All my attempts to replicate the problem on a Lisa 1 with D boot roms have failed. Everything worked fine.
There are at least two or three people in the universe who could possibly use this fix, I'm sure :D
Quote from: ried on November 13, 2025, 12:13:27 PM
This is an earlier Lisa 1
Does the I/O Board have R41 intact? This is a pullup on the /BSY signal of the parallel port and its removal was directed for the Lisa 1 - 2 conversion.
I'm not aware of the symptoms that removing it was supposed to address, but perhaps you've discovered one.
R41 is above UF5
Similarly, C55 was added on Rev D of the schematic, and on the last revision of the boards, C55 is replaced with a pull-up resistor with an insulating sleeve. This is connected to the /Strobe signal of the parallel port VIA.
C55 is above UC5
If you have additional I/O Boards with different R41/C55 configurations, you could see if they make a difference with this issue. Perhaps disconnect the twiggy drives while fiddling with this.
Thank you, sigma7. While R41 and R47 are both present, I do not see C55 on the board at all so perhaps this is an earlier layout?
Quote from: ried on November 13, 2025, 03:30:46 PM
R41 and R47 are both present, I do not see C55 on the board at all so perhaps this is an earlier layout?
Yes, that's an earlier layout. In your picture, C55 is the capacitor tacked-on to pin 6 of UF4.
Looks like we have found an intermittent issue that is likely dependent upon having Rev. C ROMs and perhaps also a specific I/O board revision. Given the tiny universe of people who have these and might want to use an ESProFile, this is probably an academic exercise that's going to fall pretty low on Alex's priority list :P
Thank you for the insight, everyone.
I just stuck a set of C ROMs into my 2/5 (which is actually what it came with when I first got it, interestingly enough), and I can reproduce the issue!
It tries to boot the first time around before hanging a while into the startup process, and I think it would probably boot fully if I had I/O ROM 40 installed. But regardless, there's lots of disk activity and we get the inverted cursor at the bottom-left of the screen before it hangs, meaning that the OS is fully loaded and running. But then when I reboot, I get the PROFILE READ FAILED error just like @ried does.
I vaugely remember something coming up about weird behavior under the C ROM a few years ago (maybe somebody emailed me about it), but I think they just ended up switching ROMs instead of asking me to try and figure out the actual problem. Maybe this is a good time to actually look into it!
Amazing. Thank you for confirming, Alex.
Wow, this sure is weird!
After rebooting the Lisa and waiting for it to fail with the PROFILE READ FAILED error, I figured I'd go into Service Mode and take a look at what it actually read into RAM off the ProFile to see if there was data corruption. Maybe that was why it was saying that the read failed; the loader was doing a checksum on the block, saw that it was bad, and printed the error?
Well no, it turns out that the entire block was read in perfectly. Every byte was good. So I decided to try and execute the block straight out of RAM instead (with Call Program in Service Mode), and sure enough, the system booted!!!
This seems really odd to me. Why would the boot ROM's routine that loads the block and then immediately jumps to it cause the block to not execute properly, whereas me executing it manually after the boot ROM loaded it causes it to execute just fine? I don't even see how this is a ProFile-related issue since the problem is happening after the block is already properly loaded into memory, but clearly it has to be...
Edit: I think I might've made a discovery, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow!
Good news, I think I fixed it!
It turns out that most of my confusion last night was stemming from me misreading the logic analyzer trace. A few dozen milliseconds after the successful read of block 0, there was a small blip on one of the ProFile signals, but I wasn't paying full attention and thought that it was noise on PD7. Nope, it turns out that it was actually /CMD (right below PD7 in my trace), and it was of course the boot ROM's attempt at reading the next block, block 1.
But for some reason, ESProFile wasn't responding by asserting /BSY when the Lisa asserted /CMD. And given the really short timeout period of the C ROM, the Lisa gave up before ESProFile had time to respond, whereas it waits long enough to get a reply in all the later ROMs.
Why wasn't it responding though? Well it turns out that it was related to interrupts, just as I had guessed earlier. The way that the code previously worked is that it would disable interrupts during the time-sensitive parts of the ProFile operation (the parts where /STRB is being pulsed) and would re-enable them afterwards. But the re-enabling would sometimes cause the code to go service interrupts for several milliseconds since several had queued up while they had been disabled, primarily generated by FreeRTOS. And when the Lisa lowered /CMD to read block 1, we were still off servicing interrupts and didn't see it until it was too late and the ROM had already timed out.
After reviewing the code, I realized that I wasn't actually doing anything that used interrupts, so I could safely get away with permanently disabling them instead of only disabling them during the time-critical parts. I had already turned off the interrupt watchdog timer by directly writing to some ESP32 config register a while back, so the ESP32 wouldn't notice it and get mad at me. And sure enough, that did it!
The error 85 that you would sometimes get was thanks to a minor bug with handling /PRES that only appeared with the comms sequence of the C ROM, which I've also fixed now.
I've attached the fixed firmware here, so I'd appreciate it if @reid (or anyone else with a C-ROM Lisa 1) would try it before I put it up on GitHub. I've tested it with a bunch of OS's on a 2/5 with the H ROMs put back in to make sure it didn't break anything there, but it still needs to be tested with the XLerator to make sure everything still works there as well. I don't have my XLerators handy right now, so I'd appreciate it if someone with an XLerator installed could test it booting XLerated MW+ or MW+][ as well!
Downloaded the test firmware, updated the board. Now I get an Error 85 immediately at the first attempt to boot. Hmmm...
Edit: Yep, confirmed. I updated two ESProFiles to the test firmware and now both generate Error 85 immediately when trying to load Selector (first boot). The errors over serial are the same on both boards:
Read Block: 000000 - Read phase 2: Host didn't respond with a 55!
Another ESProFile that I have not yet updated behaves the same as before, so this does seem to be an issue with the test firmware.
Wow, that's so weird. I just re-tested, and it works perfectly fine for me on C ROMs. What happens if you try starting up from your ESProFile a second time after getting the error 85? Does it give you another 85, or something different?
Error 85 every time. Neither unit loads Selector under any circumstances. They both show up in the boot menu, but instant Error 85 after being chosen to boot.
Interesting, I wonder why I can't reproduce it on my end? Other than you having Twiggies and me having a Sony drive, we should have the exact same configuration.
Do you have a logic analyzer you could hook up to the ProFile bus? Without that sort of data, I'm not sure how much further I can go given that I can't reproduce the problem.
I do not. I suppose this one will have to remain an unsolved mystery :P
Quote from: ried on November 15, 2025, 01:47:42 PM
I do not. I suppose this one will have to remain an unsolved mystery :P
Is your ESProfile connected to the built-in parallel port or off a 2-port parallel card? Might be one variable to compare.
Always the same built-in parallel port.
One option would be for me to burn C ROMs and see what happens on my Lisa 1. Don't know if I have chips for that and it would probably be a while before I got round to it, but it could offer some insight.
Quote from: stepleton on November 16, 2025, 04:37:54 AM
One option would be for me to burn C ROMs and see what happens on my Lisa 1. Don't know if I have chips for that and it would probably be a while before I got round to it, but it could offer some insight.
If you ever get around to it, that would be great!
Thanks to my work on the LisaFPGA project and its fully-integrated ESProFile, I've been considering redesigning ESProFile around the ESP32-S3 and having the ESP chip be soldered to the board instead of being a plug-in module like the current version, just to make it more compact, more integrated, and easier on the user. And I'd also switch it to SDIO for more speed on SD card accesses and probably move to SMD components whereever possible too, just to eliminate the issues some people have had with parts shortages. Any thoughts/criticisms?
And keep in mind that it might be a while before I get around to this; the FPGA project is still the first priority and I just want to get peoples' opinions on these changes!