Screen smear

[mst3k]

Greetings,
One of my Lisa 2/10's will not boot into LOS.
It has the 'H' ROMs and boots fine into MacWorks or MacPlus.
However, it has the MacXL video rom.
When I try to boot any LOS I get an instant smear of everything on screen and either enter a cycle of booting and re-booting, or, if using LOS 3, boot into an LOS error screen that crashes.
The Mac boots work fine and look OK.
The square pixel mod has been removed.
I'm reading mixed things on the interweb about burning or not being able to burn Lisa Video PROM's and tales of serial number issues even if I were to procure a good Video ROM.
So, where do I get a non-MacXL Video ROM or how do I make one?
Is there another source now that VintageMicros is down?
I guess I could keep my eyes out for an I/O card on eBay but other than that or VintageMicros reentering the world, I'm stuck?

[patrick]

The Mac XL video ROM *is* the square pixel mod. There might be an additional inductor for fine tuning, but the magic happens inside the PROM. To run LisaOS, you need the classic video ROM.

[mst3k]

The Mac XL video ROM *is* the square pixel mod. There might be an additional inductor for fine tuning, but the magic happens inside the PROM. To run LisaOS, you need the classic video ROM.

Thank you for the correction.
The 'inductor' has been removed.

[sigma7]

One of my Lisa 2/10's will not boot into LOS.
It has the 'H' ROMs and boots fine into MacWorks or MacPlus.
However, it has the MacXL video rom.
When I try to boot any LOS I get an instant smear of everything on screen

"Smear" often implies a sort of blurry streaking sort of effect, while having the wrong video PROM is often described as "scrambled" implying a sharp but unintelligible image.

The sideways smear effect can be a result of a video board problem, or perhaps an adjustment problem (ie. brightness settings way too high).

If you can boot into MacWorks (or even just the Startup-From screen) with a clear, readable image, then the hardware is working and the video PROM matches the CPU board ROMs.

If that is the case, and you do have "H" ROMs (displayed at the right end of the menubar during the self test), then you do have the correct video PROM to run LOS, and I'd suspect the LOS hard disk image may be corrupted, including winding up the brightness to maximum and causing the smear.

If it looks like I misunderstand, you might need to post a picture to clarify what you're seeing.

[mst3k]

The sideways smear effect can be a result of a video board problem, or perhaps an adjustment problem (ie. brightness settings way too high).

I pulled the top and went in to the pots on the video card.
The brightness was too high and the 'smear' (which only occurred when booting LOS) was adjusted away.

Pictures show the Lisa booted into Mac without issue, the currently installed VROM, the H/88 boot screen, and the error message received when attempting to boot LOS 3.

I'm using an ESProfile and have checked the images on another Lisa and they work fine.
I can also boot the machine into MacWorks from a Widget.

The error code received in picture 4:
• 1033: Means "No such entry found" (or a file/path entry lookup failure within the file system or program).
• 7 (Secondary code): Indicates an I/O (Input/Output) problem.

The FIX?

I went back in and changed the 'environments' setting, rebooted, and then changed it back to Office System and now everything works.

Subsequently booted LOS 2, LOS 3 (again) and the Mac images without issues.

This may make sense to you, but not me.  I will however, take it.
Thanks for the smearing fix.  I had yet to adjust the pots on this machine and there the problem sat.

[ried]

That socketed ROM on the I/O board (with the XL label) isn't related to video. That's the ROM for the drive controller. The Video State ROM is on the CPU board at location C6.

[mst3k]

OMG. 
I am losing my mind.
I just had all three from the CPU board in my hand and was trying to figure out how to replace the little guy.
Thanks for the spot.
Sheesh.

[mst3k]

I asked the Internet why the Lisa OS brightness smears the screen when the MacWorks doesn't and it says, according to LisaList2, that I should recap my video board.

In other news the 1033/7 error has returned and the 'environments window process failed' error has returned.
I'm going to reformat the sdcard and try new images.

[sigma7]

I asked the Internet why the Lisa OS brightness smears the screen when the MacWorks doesn't and it says, according to LisaList2, that I should recap my video board.

I'm confident that's AI hallucination. I can't speak for the inanimate LisaList2, but that's not advice I recall seeing recommended (although reports of doing it anyway have been seen).

The Lisa is one of the few computers with almost entirely off-the-shelf and, with some expertise, replaceable parts and readily available, complete schematics. As a result almost all troubleshooting advice is down to specific components, without 'shotgun' replacement of parts (except perhaps RIFA filter caps in the Power Supply). As the original Lisa hardware ages, this could change I guess.

If you turn up the brightness & contrast in MacWorks too, the screen will smear.

Note that the "Cont." pot on the video board, the "Contrast" or "Brightness" setting in the control panel/preferences, and the knobs on the back of the PSU all interact in this phenomenon.

[mst3k]

I'm confident that's AI hallucination. I can't speak for the inanimate LisaList2, but that's not advice I recall seeing recommended (although reports of doing it anyway have been seen).

I guess I found the LisaList2 invocation from AI interesting.  The smearing problem is already solved as per your advice yesterday. 
I may recap the Video board, but out of prudence rather than instruction.

My recurring problem is the inability to consistently boot any Lisa OS image from my ESProfile.
I reformatted three different SanDisk cards (one 16gb and two 32gb), and two PNY cards (32gb) with complete formats (not quick).
I've re-downloaded all the image files Alex points to in his GitHub.
It still is a crapshoot as to whether any of LisaOS images will load.

When they DO NOT load, I get the 'environments window process failed' error and then a death boot cycle that doesn't stop until I reset or cut power.
When they DO load, things work fine, EXCEPT for Preferences.  It usually says it can't load.  It then asks me to click in the window if I want to try again.  I of course want to try again and after a couple of tries, Preferences will load and save.
I cannot get any LOS2 or LOS3 images to load twice in a row without failing.
I've tried the SDCards, images, and ESProfile in another Lisa and everything works as it should.
All of the other images boot and work fine from the Selector.  It is just the LisaOS images that fail.
Any ideas as to what might be happening here as the issue appears to be peculiar to this one machine.

[sigma7]

I found the LisaList2 invocation from AI interesting.

I did too... hard to say if that's a good thing

My recurring problem is the inability to consistently boot any Lisa OS image from my ESProfile.
...
All of the other images boot and work fine from the Selector.  It is just the LisaOS images that fail.
Any ideas as to what might be happening here as the issue appears to be peculiar to this one machine.

I'd guess that it has something to do with the parallel port. The LOS ProFile driver is a bit different from the MacWorks one, and it may be more sensitive to some peculiarity, perhaps only revealed when using the ESProFile instead of another type of drive.

Since you have multiple 2/10s (I think), I suggest swapping parts around (you might label them all first so you can put it all back the way it was after the confusion). Assuming your drive is connected to the internal cable, then that cable, the motherboard, and the I/O board are all in the path the data follows.

And check the +5V is within spec. at the I/O Board and the ESProFile.

[mst3k]

And check the +5V is within spec. at the I/O Board and the ESProFile.

I did the easy part first.  Voltage is 5.21v on the ESProfile and 5.11v on the I/O board.

I'll start swapping.