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New Lisa! Restortion tips needed.

NeXT

NeXT

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2008
Messages
8,149
Location
Kamloops, BC, Canada
With a lot of thanks from Erik and my friend SAQ from Nekochan.net, I amnaged to come in ownership of a Lisa 2 for a VERY reasonable sum of money.
Save for the mouse (working on that), it's all there and a ProFile drive is on the way.

Now without further chit-chat, here she is! Lisa Serial # A4191631

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...Yeah. Well right off the bat we can clearly see that someone decided it would be cool to spraypaint the system black. At least they didn't cover over the apple logos or the identification badging. I don't know what kind of paint was used (normal stuff or that plastic bonding stuff) but if the painter is reading this, please chime in as you will be immune from prosecution.
Regardless, I need to somehow get it off.
The second thing is a bit more serious.
Like most Lisas, the battery has decided to spooge all over the board it sits on and the backplane.

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It does not look really bad so hopefully all that happened is it ate away the coating over the traces and not the traces themselves and any broken spots can be patched with wire.

The other issue I need insight on is the mouse. I'm working on getting one but for now all I got is a IIe and Mac 512 mouse and I don't dare try either with the lisa until I'm sure it will work. Being the top-of-the-line system for Apple, I would not be suprised if it was propreitary to everything else they had (except the ProFile which pretty much ran off a parallel port...)
 
Very nice problem to have. Good find :) Certainly looks like it'll need some TLC. As long as it's not a multi-layer PCB I think you'll be ok with jumping over the bad traces. Is that second board also the motherboard or another card? That one looks pretty rusty but could just be the picture. No chance of this being some dev model eh? Pretty positive that it was a user or teenager paint job? I would guess it's probably just spray paint but as for removing that and not damaging the plastic I'm not an expert in paint removal. I suppose you could try a few things if you figure out the paint job on a modern computer or plastic (maybe a 5.25 slot cover or something).
 
The second board is effectively the system backplane and the ram,CPU,I/O, and expansion cards plug into it. Because it's sits below the battery, it got pretty mangled up as well.
I'm unsure exactly when this particular unit was made. The backplane states a 1982 date stamp on it and it has a 4191 manufacturing code. It's possible this was a Lisa 1 that got upgraded to a Lisa 2.
Again, I have absolutely no idea about the paint job. It just came to me like that as-is. I can't experiment either because I don't know they kind of paint used.
 
Cleaning went well.
The backplane was pretty much saved by the dust that was on it and there is no trace damage at all. the connectors however are still very dirty. I don't know how to clean them.
The memory and CPU boards were okay and received no damage. The I/O board had three visual breaks which I patched up using wire.

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Anyways, I assembled the system again and powered it up.
For starters, the power bulb is burnt out and wow, there are no fans in this system. It's dead silent.
Second, all I got was a white screen with angled lines.

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:stern:
I then started troubleshooting:

Try to power system on with just the I/O boarad installed - OK. system powers on with nothing on display.
Install I/O and CPU board and listen for a low tone beep and possibly a pattern on the screen - Beep heard but no pattern. Just the white screen with the lines seen above.
Install memory board and try again for response, if that fails try the other. If that fails, try again in the other slot.

That last one was where things got weird. The first slot didn't do anything but it wasn't until I tried the second board in memory slot 2 that I got two high tone beeps and a low tone beep. I still got a white screen.
At this point my finger fell off the PSU interlock and I had to power the system on again. this time I got three high tone beeps and still a white screen. I then added in the other memory board into slot 1 and tried again. Same three beeps and white screen.
Moving the boards around now pretty much just gives me three beeps and a white screen.
Okay, so this means that the system is at least doing something but because I'm not getting one but three beeps, something is wrong and there is also a possibility that something is funny with the video circuirty.
Also, I would like to mention that during the tests, the floppy drive was unplugged. I did not note the orientation of the connector and which connector was used during disassembly and I don't dare try to plug anything back in until I know how it is connected.
 
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I can't help but keep us updated. I love reading about these restoration jobs. Looks like you've cleaned it up real well. Do the beeps mean something? By that I mean did Apple use beeps to flag a problem similar to what IBM did with it's POST beeps?

Tez
 
Gah! A dead CPU board? It was one of least damaged of the bunch too.i
Anyways, because my PSU and boards seem to be ok I'll try to see if I can borrow my friends lisa to see what happens. I'm really hoping that the video issue is not what you said and I'm seeing the result of dirty edge connectors. I really wish I knew of a way to clean them up because as far as I know, the video signal could be having trouble reaching the screen.
Say, did the Lisa video ROM output video to both the screen and the video output jack simultaneously from power on or after it was switched on in software?
 
I've never removed paint from a Lisa, but in my other life, I've had to remove paint from other surfaces, both plastic and metal, frequently. My favored juice is called Purple Power or Super Clean. The easiest place to find it is auto parts stores.

The safest way to test it is to put some on a cotton swab, rub it on the paint, and see what happens. With any luck, it's ordinary, run of the mill spray paint, and if that's the case, the purple stuff (both cleaners are purple in color) will remove it easily. I'd test on the underside of the keyboard, if you're concerned. If that works, soaking the painted parts in a bath of it for a few hours will remove most of the paint. A little scrubbing with a toothbrush will remove what remains.
 
These edge connector sockets need to be cleaned very badly.
I cleaned up the gold fingers on the cards using an eraser but the I/O slot at least is still very picky. Sometimes it works, other times I get the I/O fault beep.
I also discovered while reseating and cleaning the socketed chips that the 8530 had a bent pin which means that someone had pulled these chips off before me and didn't do a good job reinstalling them. Anyways, I bent it back and it still seems okay.
If it's handy, I do have an oscilloscope.
 
I know nothing about the Lisa, but I would recommend you using the 'scope to trace the video. When you've suddenly "lost" the signal, you know where your problem lies. Of course, it might not even be a video problem (especially if you have a bad CPU board, I suppose).

You could also take an ohmmeter and make sure all of the pins have continuity. I don't know how reliable those edge connectors are.

Kyle
 
NeXT said:
Gah! A dead CPU board? It was one of least damaged of the bunch too.i
Anyways, because my PSU and boards seem to be ok I'll try to see if I can borrow my friends lisa to see what happens. I'm really hoping that the video issue is not what you said and I'm seeing the result of dirty edge connectors. I really wish I knew of a way to clean them up because as far as I know, the video signal could be having trouble reaching the screen.
Say, did the Lisa video ROM output video to both the screen and the video output jack simultaneously from power on or after it was switched on in software?
Click to expand...

it is absolutely recommended that you try switching the boards with your friend's Lisa.. otherwise I fear you wont be able to get her back again. The symptom from the screen shot could be a dead CPU board - but it is also possible that only the ROM's and/or the video chip on the cpu board is dead but the board itself is working. This replacement chips can be optained from john from vintagemicros.com

as said - my proposal is a not working cpu board; this board is at least easier to get than a dead video board... pls. switch the cards from a known working Lisa - it is the fastest way to get results.
 
I was thinking about that as well last night. If I want to troubleshoot the video corcuitry on the CPU board, the only thing I can swap around are the video ROMs, right?
 
NeXT said:
I was thinking about that as well last night. If I want to troubleshoot the video corcuitry on the CPU board, the only thing I can swap around are the video ROMs, right?
Click to expand...

your screenshot tells me in my experience that either the CPU board and/or the motherboard is dead. Switch the complete drive cage from your friend's Lisa - but check if the motherboard is the same: there are 2 revisions that are not compatible; if your friends Lisa is also a Lisa 2/5 (with the parallel port on the back) than it is no problem.. the motherboard from the later Lisa 2/10 - MacXL wont fit into your Lisa.

When it then boots up at least your CRT and the video board inside the Lisa are ok; then try to switch every card and the chips that are removeable on the CPU board: her it is the video rom and the ROM chips that can cause the symptoms I've seen on your screenshot

without a 2nd working Lisa it will be very very difficult to troubleshoot
 
Threw my PSU and boards into my friends lisa and....
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IT LIVES!!!
This means that the boards plus the card cage are okay. The video fault lies either in the dirty fingers of the edge connector for the power/analog interconnect or the analog board itself. It's probably dried out caps I would assume.
 
For diagnostic reason. I want to attach a monitor to the composite output on the lisa. It pretty much mirrors the main display right from the start so it's always outputting video however it seems ot be using some really weird sync. Neiher my home theater or my bench TV can't sync to it. Anyone know what frequence it is trying to sync to? the guide says it needs a multisync and another source says that it uses some oddball frequency (which they did not list) but that it was indeed composite.
 
Sorry, spent two weeks in Tokyo.

Anyways, I'll try to get back on this tomorrow. Meanwhile, how should I get the spraypaint off the panels?
A quick test with WD-40 or rubbing alcohol show that the paint is thankfully surface only and comes off with a fair bit of rubbing but what else can I use to more quickly strip off the paint but not damage the plastic?
 
So freaking bizarre......

I compared my analog board to my friends. Same year, same model, same revision. Same assembly.
Between his and mine, a single transistor has been removed from mine.

It's in location CR6.
Code: 
2N50
60GE

it's so bizarre. It's as if someone removed it.
Anyways, I'm sure that if I put a new one in, that will fix it.
 
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Hmm, okay. That didn't work. :/
The shop didn't have an exact replacement so they sold me an NCR-1006 which was pretty similar.
I soldered it in, installed everything and....still no picture. :/
Huh. I'll have to start poking around with a scope. I know for sure now that it IS the analog board.
 
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