Re: Lisa Floppy HELP!!!

From: ruderman <ruderman_at_email.domain.hidden>
Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 21:54:20 -0800

Thomas,

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

I have discussed my issue with an early Apple Engineer who was there at the time of development. He still remembers some of the issues.

The unit that I have has SUN ROMS, a 5GB internal Widget, and a 800k floppy. I have been successful in the past of installing LOS 3.0 and Mac OS via MacWorks. This unit has original video and 1mb RAM.

The unit that I have was working with the 800k drive without any mods.

My Apple Elder is convinced that the issue is SuperDrive 1.44 related. I have gone into my attic and dug up old 400k install floppies (hidden with the old HP pocket computer stuff and Osborne Executive.)

The Lisa booted and installed perfectly! So the issue that I experienced had to be directly related to the Q700. Come to think of it, I was pretty sure that I wrote those 400k floppies five years ago on the Quadra. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe I'm going crazy playing with a 20 year old computer.

I stopped by the local junk store and found a external 800k drive ($3). I was thinking about putting the 800k floppy drive in the Q700 just for writing 400k. I assume that this should solve my disk writing. Maybe another night. Tonight I'm installing Panther Server.

BTW: I do have a original 512k with 400k floppy. The drive was in need of a lube and sensor cleaning. I just formatted the HD20 and installed System SW on it. Now I wrote 400k disks just fine with the Q700. Why would it work just fine on the 512k and not read on the Lisa? Weird.

Thanks again...

JP.

> Hi JP
>

>> I had Floppy problems, and have found 3 800k floppy drives from older Macs
>> to use.  I have cut the pins on the drives as per the original 800k.

> If you use a 800k Floppy, which you modified to use in your Lisa, you of
> course noticed, that it works and it will be only a 400k after that
> modification - but it works very slow !
> This is because your I/O Controller wasn't programmed for those floppies.
> It's routines are written down in the ROM on the I/O Board located at A2,
> top left on the board.
> You should find an EPROM there with a label like: 341-0281 or 341-0290 or
> sth. like that. These are not extremeley different versions of the same
> routines in that ROM.
> But they all can support only 400k floppy-drives !!!
>
> A few weeks ago, I wrote this modification of a newer floppy - by cutting
> off some of the pins - to replace a lost one or totally defect one in a
> Lisa. But this is only for testing ! ;-) REALLY
>
> To get your so modified floppy-drive now perfect working, you will have to
> tell your controller, how-to-do-now. You can do that with hours of soldering
> and hardware-programming, and you need "higher knowledge" about the pipes
> for data and control commands comming from the drive and communicatin with
> the IO-Board. I would not recommand this if you aren't an
> electronic-engineer and familiar with that :-) else:
>
> The second way is to replace the socket EPROM on the I/O Board to an EPROM
> which supports 800 k Drives. It's an 341-8003.
> Then your modified new floppy-drive works perfect.
> There are then a few more known different problems, after you change the
> ROM. Your Lisa can have difficulties with reading 400 k floppies, perhaps.
> Depends on the boot-ROM-Version... and conflicts with the -8003
>

>> Now my problem is every time I try to boot from a floppy, I get a 10726
>> error. (10726 Profile error, problem with boot tracks).

> Yes, of course. Your floppy-drive works to slow. The routine waits for some
> seconds and then the Error-Routine comes up with the message 10726. This is
> not the correct one, cause the programmer could not know, that this kind of
> drive is set to work in a Lisa at this time. Usually hard-disks show that
> delay and so that message could appear.
>
> A second Error, concerning this message, could be:
> Your Floppy is corrupted, or your floppy-drive doesn't work properly. Check
> this first with a second Lisa (if available), it will be less work.

>> 
>> I am using a Quadra 700 running 7.5.5 to write the disks.  The Quadra's
>> floppy drive writes 400k floppies just fine and can be read by my Mac 512k.

> Oops ! Only if you have a Mac 512k with an 400k-drive and there it will work
> perfect, then everything is ok with the disks.
> I recommend to use a Mac128k, 512k or Plus to write the disks. If you use a
> Quadra, there are known problems, due to it's built-in 1,44 MB Super-drive.
> Try to write the disks with your 512k, and everything should be ok.
>
> greetings:
> TOM from Bavaria, the country of the alps...the original octoberfest
>

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Received on 2004-01-06 14:14:13