LisaList2

Quote from: Huxley on January 22, 2026, 09:54:18 AMEDIT: I just saw a couple posts from Ried referencing similar painful outcomes due to a card shifting and shorting other components. Given that I experienced this failure immediately after plugging the ProFile back into the Parallel card, I'm suspicious that maybe I did something similar...

I know a couple other people whose Lisas have also been fried due to a shifted expansion card, so this is what I'm guessing too. Especially if the card doesn't have the card stop on it, but this can also still happen even if it does have the stop.

Thanks!

FYI, I can't test again right now but as documented in a previous thread that did not work for my 2/10

Thanks for the calm and reassuring reply, @stepleton - I appreciate it. I'm super bummed but as you noted, these are extremely complex machines with countless components that are probably 2X-4X beyond their expected service lives.

A couple quick notes:

• Good to know re: Imgur - I'll keep that in mind going forward! I'll try attaching the clip to this reply, hopefully it's not too large to work. Turns out this board doesn't allow video attachments, so I uploaded it as a YouTube (very) Short
• I did see the smoke through the drive cage area but at the time this happened, I had the drive cage fully removed, so I can't really say with certainty that it came from that side of the machine
• Great suggestions re: giving the cards a closer expansion and testing again with the Parallel card removed. I'll try that later today!

I'll update again once I have something worth sharing.

EDIT: I just saw a couple posts from Ried referencing similar painful outcomes due to a card shifting and shorting other components. Given that I experienced this failure immediately after plugging the ProFile back into the Parallel card, I'm suspicious that maybe I did something similar...

Sorry to hear about this failure! Don't beat yourself up too much, it's a Lisa, these things happen.

Ordinarily smoke and cracking sounds owe to RIFA capacitors blowing in the PSU, but that doesn't usually affect the picture, and it's the wrong side of the machine if you saw smoke through the drive bay. That's the side that has the expansion bay and (an edge portion of) the logic cards.

The fact that it still powers on (presumably when you press the power button) and gives you a raster is a good sign and means that probably you haven't e.g. experienced the +12V rail shorting onto the +5V rail and blowing all of your chips to smithereens (which to be clear I have never heard of happening). In other words, this can almost certainly be fixed.

Since you saw smoke, that means that you should be able to find a component somewhere that looks distressed. You haven't spotted it yet, but I think you should keep looking. It may be just a single component like an IC that has a scorch mark on it somewhere. Consider also using your nose (seriously!).

Your parallel port card has been giving you trouble. What happens if you take it out and power on the computer? The card also has a plastic cover, which may mean some damage is concealed. Either way, you'll probably want to leave it out when you're troubleshooting this problem (and disconnect other things too, like the ESProFile and maybe also the Widget and the floppy drive). It narrows things down.

If the Lisa still doesn't work, then the troubleshooting journey begins. Step 1 in my opinion is always to check voltages (although actually I would still keep looking for the broken component for a while before doing that). You will want to find some way to access and monitor the voltage rails as you attempt to power on the computer, particularly the +5V rail. (The power connector going to the Widget is a good place to do this.) If it isn't close to +5V, then that's likely to be the issue! If it is, we'll think of something else.

Good luck!

(PS: Imgur geoblocks the entire UK, so I can't see your video from here, unfortunately!)

I've had a lovely evening tinkering with my Lisa 2/10. I was playing around with using BLU from my ESProFile (connected to the internal Parallel port) and seeing if I could get it to recognize my 5MB ProFile connected to the troublesome 2-Port Parallel card.

After reconnecting the ProFile and letting it spin up to "Ready" status, I powered on the Lisa. Instead of its usual boot routine, I heard a rapid series of crackling / popping sounds from the speaker. A moment later I saw/smelled a puff of acrid smoke from the rear of the machine (I saw it through the empty drive bay), and at the same time, the display showed a rapidly-shifting checkerboard pattern. I immediately pulled the power cord and let the machine cool off. I also pulled out the card cage from the rear and at least initially I don't see any obvious scorch marks.

Powering the machine back on now just shows the same flashing checkerboard pattern for a few seconds before everything goes dark. Here's a short clip of what I see on the screen.

I'm just crushed, and I honestly can't tell if I did something wrong, or if it's just some old part that finally failed. Anyone have any suggestions on what I should do next?

When using the composite output of the Lisa to drive the RGBtoHDMI the only change needed is to turn the 75R Termination On for the Lisa2/5 and Off for the Lisa2/10.  For me all the rest of the settings stay the same.
Rick

Thanks for the confirmation, @ried! I just gave it a try and got some good news / bad news:

Good news: The ESProFile works! The Lisa immediately loaded the Selector image and happily booted into a MacWorks image when prompted. Yay! 

Bad news: Presumably this means that there's something wrong with my Parallel card? Not sure what else to think 

Really grateful for all the help and support I've gotten here, and hopeful that maybe I can still get this working as intended. Ideas and suggestions very welcome!

Huxley

I believe you have it correct the way it is sitting in the photo, yes. 

Quote from: ried on January 18, 2026, 11:15:56 PMI think Alex's suggestion to use the internal Widget connector is your next logical choice. You'll find the correct cable connections shown in this post: https://lisalist2.com/index.php/topic,556.msg3998.html#msg3998

Thanks for this! In an abundance of caution, I want to double-check: is the orientation of the ESProFile cable connector the same on the external version (what I have) and the internal version (what's show in the pics you linked to)? Meaning, if I pull the ribbon cable out of my Widget and put it into the ESProFile in the same orientation, will I be good or will I murder this poor Lisa?

Quote from: Huxley on January 21, 2026, 11:48:07 AM3. I'm no programmer (getting "HELLO WORLD!" scrolling infinitely in BASIC is about as far as I go LOL) so I might play with this as a way of determining if ChatGPT can "vibe code" in Pascal 

It can absolutely vibe code in Pascal, but good luck getting it to do anything with the Lisa's APIs. I've messed around with that a bit myself out of curiosity, and it always seems to either make stuff up entirely or use things from the Mac API instead. Lisa development is just such a niche topic that there isn't much info out there for the AI to use!