I would be highly interested in this. I would be willing to contribute to a crowdfunder to produce open, high-quality scans of the Lisa 2, or preferably, Lisa 1 face plates, as well as the rest of the plastic.

On Wednesday, September 5, 2018 at 9:58:05 PM UTC-4, Ray Arachelian wrote:

Saw this the other day:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/28/science/plastics-preservation-getty.html

While so far neither of my Lisa's cases have been damaged, I think it
would be good idea to at least build open source 3D models of the case
skins in Blender or Cura, etc. (and possibly a Lisa 1 faceplate replica)
that could then be 3D printed as needed. The Apple logo might be
problematic due to copyright/trademark issues, but perhaps two versions
could be built, one with the logo and one without, so depending on the
location of the person printing, they could pick the one for their need.

There were/are 3D printed replacement gears for the eject mechanism of
400/800K floppies that have failed, so certainly we have seen some of
the plastics used in our machines.
i.e.
https://www.shapeways.com/product/M84R343FR/4-x-gears-for-macintosh-512k-vintage-floppy-drive

Certainly PLA isn't anywhere near as good as whatever injection molding
Apple used to build the Lisa case panels, and home sized 3D printers
won't be able to produce the large sizes required, but perhaps we can
find some 3D printing house that can reproduce them. maybe even from
other materials such as carbon fiber, copper PLA, etc. which could then
be painted to the proper shade of platinum and avoid worries of yellowing.

Thoughts?


As a side note does anyone know what color a Lisa should really be? What
did an actual Lisa look like out of the box when it first came out? I
see some advertising material where it's near platinum and others where
it's a bit more yellow?
For example, this Lisa 1 ad is pretty yellowed:
http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Apple/Apple.Lisa.1983.102634506.fc.lg.jpg
as is this one:
https://www.macobserver.com/images/news/2001/20010214lisa/outside_thumb.jpg?x53324
But then, this Byte cover shows a platinum one:
http://www.vintagecomputer.net/apple/lisa/thm_byte_feb-83_cover.jpg