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Picked up a Lisa for testing and evaluation and questions to follow

I have not yet perused the links that NeXT very helpfully provided above, since I don't have a Lisa in my collection at this time. But if the keyboard communication protocol happens to be documented sufficiently in the technical documents, or if somebody with a working keyboard is able to reverse-engineer the protocol, then maybe it wouldn't be too hard to make a protocol translator to allow some other keyboard to be used. Finding a matching Lisa keyboard would be best, but it's not the end of the road if one can't be found. I considered doing something very similar for my TRS-80 Model 12 before I found a matching keyboard for it.

My dad's Lisa (running the Mac software rather than the Lisa software) was the second computer I ever used, after my TRS-80 Color Computer. I wouldn't mind acquiring a nice Lisa one of these days. I didn't like the original Macs at the time because their screens were just a bit too small for my preference, but the larger Lisa screen didn't have that limitation. I really liked how modular the hardware was on the Lisa. It was always a fun machine to pull to pieces and then put back together again.
 
I am still wondering if an original Macintosh keyboard will work on a lisa? Of course would have to modify the mac's phone jack type of cable to a 3 conductor 1/4 phone jack. Has anyone tried this?
 
Hi Frank and others,

Things have been so busy in my life, I have not keep up with the VCF boards. Good to see a Lisa restoration going on.

I've got two Lisas. One is a Lisa 2 with the Widget (Lisa 2/10 or Mac XL) and the other is a Lisa 2/5. The I/O board is different between them. It's the Lisa 2/10 Widget one that has the board with the IWM chip.

I do have a spare keyboard. Unlike a lot of Lisa keyboards this one actually works because I replaced those pads under the keys. HOWEVER, it's not perfect because it does have streaky keycaps from a over-enthusiastic Retr0Bright episode. See
http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2011-04-11-lisa-keys-retrobrighting-misstep.html

That being said, you're more likely to find original keycaps from a non-working keyboard you can use to replace them than a keyboard that works.

I was keeping the keyboard as a spare, but am amenable to selling it. Anyway, if you are interested send me a PM.

Tez


Chromedome45 said:
Tezza's board looks different than mine. I have a Lisa 2 board I think and only has the rom chip at the far left hand corner and a 6504 next to it. No IWM chip that I can find on it unless the 6504 is acting like an IWM.

Well I guess I will need to attempt to find a Lisa keyboard.

FYI I have the "H" version ROM

See pic of my I/O board

Almost the same as this one minus the chip in F1: http://www.textfiles.com/bitsavers/pdf/apple/lisa/pcb_pictures/620-0117-R_LISA2_IO_T.jpg

@NeXT thanks for the input and location of some software. Plus other good to have stuff.
Click to expand...
 
Ok so got passed the Error 57 it was a bad RAM chip one of the NEC 444c-3 chips that I subbed with a 2114. Also located a mouse for it. Now I get a keyboard icon for a few seconds and now it is looking for a floppy boot disk. Were there any boot disks that used HFS file system? if so I need names please.
 
Has anyone ever heard of or seen a Mitek keyboard For the Apple computers? It has a 9 pin connector on either side of the of the keyboard and was wondering if it could be used with a Lisa? The cable has 4 conductors. Thought maybe plug it in to the mouse port? Don't want to plug it in and blow the I/O board.
 
Doubtful. We are talking about a machine that existed years before the market for replacement third party keyboards cAme into existence.
 
That's what I thought. Well see if I can locate another drive for it. The one that was in there originally is bad. Using one I pulled from an external 800k 3.5 I used with my IIGS. It worked then. Oh and this Lisa does have the 800K ROM in it. Also weird is if I format a floppy it shows it as only 4k! Might be the OS. But not sure.
 
It's Alive! It all works except the eject but am still working on it.
 

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If the eject doesn't work but you can hear it try, you probably broke one one the plastic eject motor gears. The drive might need a cleaning to remove "petrified" grease but it might be too late. I've done this twice. I've also had one 800k drive I could not fix so I reused that eject motor gear :)
 
You have an 800k drive so it's easier to make MacWorks disks if you have any sort of Apple computer. I use a TAM (Tentieth Anniversary Mac) to make my 800k disks. For 400k disks, I use a Mac Plus. Do you have a Mac?
 
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