LisaList2

Amazing progress!

LisaMandelbrot is a set of Mandelbrot set plotters that I wrote a while ago. You can find it here: https://codeberg.org/stepleton/LisaMandelbrot
That page looks sparse because there are three varieties: "Port" which runs on the Office System, "Pro" which runs in the Workshop (no extra features, it's just that the workshop seems like the place for "pros"), and "Solo" which is a standalone program (i.e. boots and runs without an OS). Solo is quite small. Anyway, click through to any of the three to see more detailed information.

My standalone programs (including the Selector) don't really exercise all that much of the Lisa's capabilities; for a start, they all leave the MMU in the boot-up "flat" configuration. So it's not a big surprise that they run. For this reason I wouldn't think there's much point in running my stunt standalone Forth port for Lisa, as it is just as gentle on the machine (the Forth part can't even use RAM above 64k!).

Alex's SRAM idea touches on a project I was thinking of attempting but was in my project pile: the Smallest 2Meg RAM Card On Earth. I had a vision of an SRAM-based RAM card that would be comically small inside of the card cage, and I'd even had my eye on this single, somewhat pricy RAM chip, with its 16-bit data bus and (IIUC) +5V tolerance. But I hadn't started to sweat the details yet, and realistically it is a project that would have sat on a back burner for months at least. All of which is to say: Alex, if you wanted to stretch your SRAM plans slightly to make the Smallest 2Meg RAM Card On Earth, it would be pretty cool, and maybe that IC is worth knowing about 

Fantastic work!

LisaMandelbrot? I will have to look into that.

After reading some more about the theory of the Apple ][ floppy state machine (which is basically identical to the Lisa's) and tracing through the states, I discovered that I had wired one of the pins on the ROM to the QH pin of the shift register instead of the QA pin, causing it to clear the shift register every time it shifted in a bit instead of only after a full byte was shifted in. And after fixing that, I can boot from floppy! Here's the status of booting various things from floppy, I'm assuming anything that's failing is because of my tiny 256K of RAM:

BLU - Works
Selector - Works
NewWidEx - Works
LisaMandelbrot - Works
MacWorks XL - White screen, floppy activity for a while and then hangs
MacWorks Plus - Gets about halfway through the Loading... screen and then hangs
MacWorks Plus II - Gives error about PFG since we don't have a PFG installed, if we choose to continue it loads about half the sectors from the floppy before hanging
UniPlus - Immediate error 75, I think my UniPlus floppy might just be corrupted
Xenix - Gets to the screen where it prints the Lisa system type, expansion slot contents, and free RAM, then kernel panics
GEM - Can boot to the command line, starting the GUI causes it to hang midway through loading
LisaTest - Error 49 (Line 1010 or 1111 trap)
LOS/Workshop - Error 10727 (Memory exhausted)

I don't have enough room in the FPGA to go to 512K of RAM, and I can't move the RAM to my board's external SPI flash because the write speed is too slow. My board has a DDR3 RAM chip on it too, but I really don't feel like interfacing with that, and I'm worried the latency would be too high anyway. So I think it might be time to design a custom board with an external parallel (or maybe SPI) SRAM before I continue. Unless anyone's got any better ideas (which I would love to hear), I think this will be my next step, and so it'll probably be a little while before another progress update. I guess I can go ahead and try to fix the intermittent ProFile read problems that I was having, but that's about all that I can do with the current version of the hardware.

Quote from: Lisa2 on October 14, 2025, 11:24:27 am

Quote from: TorZidan on October 13, 2025, 06:06:12 pm

The "wireless connection through blue SCSI" that bmwcyclist currently uses to get on the internet is  basically some software on the BlueSCSI card that emulates a DynaPort SCSI Ethernet adapter (along with emulating a SCSI hard drive): https://bluescsi.com/docs/WiFi-DaynaPORT

AFAIK, this is the easiest way to get old MACs and Lisa-s on the internets (along with PiSCSI, which is very similar to BlueSCSI).

I disagree.

Rick, are you saying that there is an easier way (than using a BlueSCSI) to get a vintage Mac or a Lisa on the Internet? Please give us more details : what is the extra hardware and software needed?

I don't intend to answer for Rick.

I do want to clarify a few things.

I think there is a difference between "getting on the internet" and doing some of the more useful things on the internet. Using my Lisa under MW and 2 megabytes of RAM, about all I can do is use terminal software and ping. Using my XLerator card and 4 megs of RAM, I can (just barely) use an early browser (Mac Web) and some remote access software.

So far, I have achieved all of this with a BlueSCSI through an XLerator or Sun SCSI card.

I hope to now start trying to encapsulate AppleTalk through IP networks and connect to a remote Mac at my friend's house to play RoboSport.

Quote from: TorZidan on October 13, 2025, 06:06:12 pm

The "wireless connection through blue SCSI" that bmwcyclist currently uses to get on the internet is  basically some software on the BlueSCSI card that emulates a DynaPort SCSI Ethernet adapter (along with emulating a SCSI hard drive): https://bluescsi.com/docs/WiFi-DaynaPORT

AFAIK, this is the easiest way to get old MACs and Lisa-s on the internets (along with PiSCSI, which is very similar to BlueSCSI).

I disagree.

Rick, are you saying that there is an easier way (than using a BlueSCSI) to get a vintage Mac or a Lisa on the Internet? Please give us more details : what is the extra hardware and software needed?

Quote from: TorZidan on October 13, 2025, 06:06:12 pm

The "wireless connection through blue SCSI" that bmwcyclist currently uses to get on the internet is  basically some software on the BlueSCSI card that emulates a DynaPort SCSI Ethernet adapter (along with emulating a SCSI hard drive): https://bluescsi.com/docs/WiFi-DaynaPORT

AFAIK, this is the easiest way to get old MACs and Lisa-s on the internets (along with PiSCSI, which is very similar to BlueSCSI).

I disagree.  The BlueSCSI card's SCSI Ethernet emulation is handicapped by it's WiFi connection.  Here is why:

Appletalk over Ethernet uses a different Ethernet frame type than common modern TCP/IP over Ethernet does.   Most WiFi routers don't pass this frame type, so unless you have the right router, Appletalk data goes nowhere.

Using MacTCP you can directly connect to a TCP/IP network, but many MacTCP compatible applications require System 6.08 or better and that requires you run MW+II.   For MW+II you will likely need more RAM and possibly an XLerator.

Rick

Interesting!

I hope to be playing with a number of these options soon.

I just purchased a SCSI-Ethernet (Asanti) adapter off of ebay, I have 2 BlueSCSI v2 units with wifi and I am also awaiting a serial to localtalk cable (vintage Lisa) from ebay, as well as 2 Raspberry Pi v4's to run as "routers".

(I was trying to hold out for some Gatorboxes but none have shown up for sale, I would love to see if I can setup a site to site link/tunnel with them)

One thing I have found as frustrating, and this is not limited to old Mac stuff, is that the terms bridge, router, and gateway (as in protocol translation, not as in 'default gateway'/'default router', which is a legacy term for gateway) are so often misused. I always need to locate the documentation and hope it clarifies which OSI layer the device operates on. Don't mind me, though, I still get agitated when someone says 'cable modem' and I have to bite my tongue to keep from asking "exactly where is the modulation-demodulation happening?

The "wireless connection through blue SCSI" that bmwcyclist currently uses to get on the internet is  basically some software on the BlueSCSI card that emulates a DynaPort SCSI Ethernet adapter (along with emulating a SCSI hard drive): https://bluescsi.com/docs/WiFi-DaynaPORT

AFAIK, this is the easiest way to get old MACs and Lisa-s on the internets (along with PiSCSI, which is very similar to BlueSCSI).

I disagree.  The BlueSCSI card's SCSI Ethernet emulation is handicapped by it's WiFi connection.  Here is why:

Appletalk over Ethernet uses a different Ethernet frame type than common modern TCP/IP over Ethernet does.   Most WiFi routers don't pass this frame type, so unless you have the right router, Appletalk data goes nowhere.

Using MacTCP you can directly connect to a TCP/IP network, but many MacTCP compatible applications require System 6.08 or better and that requires you run MW+II.   For MW+II you will likely need more RAM and possibly an XLerator.

Rick

1. The poll should allow more than one choice!

2. I am too new to the LISA scene to know anything useful about collecting prices. However, I have been buying, restoring, and selling vintage and antique motorcycles for many decades.

If we assume that there is some cross-over when it comes to collecting, repairing, using ,and selling vintage stuff then perhaps there are a few things worth considering:

a. With vintage motorcycles, some people buy with the intent of fixing and reselling them as an investment. Very few have managed to make a living, let alone a reasonable part-time hourly wage, doing this. Typically, it is a "labor of love". More commonly, it is a person wanting to make enough money to move on to the next project.

b. With vintage motorcycles, the price bump comes mainly from people who have become successful later in life and then go back and buy the motorcycle they either had when they were young or the bike they always wanted but did not get when they were young. These bikes are the ones that tend to see the big bump in resale value for a few years, then settle down again.

c. Some buy vintage motorcycles because they are attracted by the older technology and unique designs. Basically, gear-head nerds.


I fall squarely into B. and C. for both motorcycles and vintage computers.

I have restored from the ground up several extremely unique and rare motorcycles that are true museum pieces. I doubt I will get much more out of them than I spent restoring them, if you count my time as well as the parts.

https://youtu.be/VDUVjnkTJW4

.https://youtube.com/shorts/N7PbNoo6so8

Thanks and correction made - I'd lean to constructive corrections not so much criticism least that was the intent!

A small correction: the Computer History Museum (aka CHM) being criticized in this post is located in Mountain View California, not in Boston.

A small correction: the Computer History Museum (aka CHM) being criticized in this post is located in Mountain View California, not in Boston.