• Updated 2023-07-12: Hello, Guest! Welcome back, and be sure to check out this follow-up post about our outage a week or so ago.

Apple Lisa questions

ried

Well-known member
Moved it up to my office to finish tinkering. I know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but man... these look amazing.

IMG_6376.jpeg
 

fri0701

Well-known member
Nice work! That's a good step forward.
It looks like your video board needs some adjustment (and recapping that wouldn't hurt, either). Once you take off the back and front panels, there are two hidden screws under the back lid that will allow you to take the top plastic of the machine off. From there, you can access the video board and its trimpots. I'd recommend at least playing around with those to see if you can eliminate the display "folding" on the right side. You can probably get rid of the white scan lines on the edges of the display by turning the brightness down a bit with one of the potentiometers on the power supply.

If you do decide to recap the video board, make sure you use high ripple current capacitors to keep the video stable. I learned that the hard way a few years ago - you can follow that repair and my findings here: https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/lisa-ac-interference-coupling.35554/post-384411

Tinkering with the video board will expose you to high voltages from the CRT, so as always, be careful when doing so, and make sure you properly discharge the tube.
 

stepleton

Well-known member
Congratulations!

When you turn on the Lisa, does the LED for the Widget ever go solid? What noises does the Widget make when it turns on --- can you hear the head actuating? This will sound a bit like a chirping bird, or perhaps a bit like a squeaky hinge. There should also be a clear "CLICK" noise after the disk spins up --- that's the head actuator brake solenoid disengaging the brake.

Error 82 is "unexpected response", which means that the Widget probably didn't respond correctly to a basic handshake. This is as good an on-ramp as any to the long road of debugging the device, if that's what you'd like to do. Of course, do the basic stuff first: check cables, make sure chips and boards are well-seated, and so on.

If that doesn't work, I wrote a utility that can help the diagnostician:
But it helps to build a good understanding of the drive's inner workings first. For that, reading pages 81-135 of the ERS document is your tuition payment to Widget University :)

Congrats again on your working machine!
 

ried

Well-known member
@stepleton When I switch the Lisa on, the Widget's green LED flashes for a split second and then remains off. No additional flashing, much less a steady light. There's a bit of whirring noise from the drive bay, but I'm unable to distinguish between the fan noise near the floppy and the Widget itself. I suspect the Widget's platter may not be rotating; it's pretty quiet.
 
Last edited:

ScutBoy

Well-known member
@stepleton When I switch the Lisa on, the Widget's green LED flashes for a split second and then remains off. No additional flashing, much less a steady light. There's a bit of whirring noise from the drive bay, but I'm unable to distinguish between the fan noise near the floppy and the Widget itself. I suspect the Widget's platter may not be rotating; it's pretty quiet.

For what it's worth, my Widget sometimes doesn't have enough torque to start spinning on its own after sitting for while. With the front off (be sure to defeat the switch in the lower front of the case) I power up the machine and give the platter a gentle push with the eraser end of a pencil. Once it's spinning, then it's fine.

If I use the machine consistently it's usually OK to sit for a couple of days, but much longer than that and it most always needs "persuasion".

Proceed at your own risk, but may be worth exploring.
 

ried

Well-known member
@stepleton I need to update that statement about the Widget's green LED. I just realized there are two of them! There's one right next to the drive itself, which flashes for a split second after pressing the power button. There's another green status light on the Widget controller board, which may be the one you were asking about. Here's a video of both during power on, and the subsequent error sequence.


I loaded your utility onto FloppyEmu and checked for Last Status, Drive Info, and Full Status with the following results:

Last Status
IMG_6387.jpeg

Drive Info
IMG_6391.jpeg

Full Status
IMG_6409.jpeg
 

ried

Well-known member
For what it's worth, my Widget sometimes doesn't have enough torque to start spinning on its own after sitting for while. With the front off (be sure to defeat the switch in the lower front of the case) I power up the machine and give the platter a gentle push with the eraser end of a pencil. Once it's spinning, then it's fine.

If I use the machine consistently it's usually OK to sit for a couple of days, but much longer than that and it most always needs "persuasion".

Proceed at your own risk, but may be worth exploring.
Will do! Thank you for the advice.
 

ried

Well-known member
@ScutBoy Your advice worked :cool: (y) A few gentle shoves with a pencil eraser was all it needed to start moving on its own. It gradually sped up like a jet engine (and sounds like one).


Still trying to make it fully functional.
 

stepleton

Well-known member
Ah yes, if it's not spinning, you need to get it going :)
Do you hear the "click" after it gets up to speed?
 

ScutBoy

Well-known member
@ScutBoy Your advice worked :cool: (y) A few gentle shoves with a pencil eraser was all it needed to start moving on its own. It gradually sped up like a jet engine (and sounds like one).


Still trying to make it fully functional.

Oh yeah - I've heard that noise many times. It _should_ get better after a while, but no guarantees.

As @stepleton says, after if comes up to speed, you should hear the big click/clunk as the brake releases, and then the squeaky mouse noise as the heads seek.

Larry Pina's book "Macintosh Repair and Upgrade Secrets" has a chapter on the Lisa, and it includes making the adjustment on the brake if necessary. You can find the book online if you poke around. If you don't get the brake release even after the adjustment, then there might be other things going on.
 

ried

Well-known member
No click after it gets up to speed as far as I can tell. Now generating an "81" error on startup. Hmmm...

I did make progress on the screen. There is a bit of burn-in from its previous life, but not terrible.

IMG_6478.jpeg

Also, MacWorks boots from FloppyEmu just fine. Neat!

IMG_6467.jpeg
 
Last edited:

stepleton

Well-known member
Well, you definitely don't have the screen mod! :)

81 is, appropriately, "disk not ready". That's at least progress, but it's not too insightful for us: it just means that the Widget is holding the BSY signal line active. Unfortunately, we're not at the stage yet where NeoWidEx is too useful as a debugging tool: the Widget still isn't ready to talk to anyone.

Investigating the brake is a good next step. There could be a variety of things going on: maybe dust is preventing it from moving, or it could be that its driver circuitry is burnt out. Or maybe the drive still isn't getting up to speed to the motor controller's satisfaction, or maybe the sensor that detects rotation is on the fritz, or...

It might not hurt to let the thing just run for a little while first: maybe some operation will free up the spindle a little bit and help the drive start making speed.
Or if you do that, the bearings could seize up and ruin the drive forever ;-)
You never know with Widgets...
 

ried

Well-known member
Thank you, @stepleton! I'll tackle the brake next, and @ScutBoy's recommendation to hunt down "Macintosh Repair and Upgrade Secrets" is a good one. From page 262:

"Without further information, many people assume that they need a whole new hard drive. Rather than spend the money, they shelve the computer. Well, it's time to dust them off! Error code 81 simply means the brake is out of adjustment. You can fix it, easily, in under an hour, with a #1 Phillips-head screwdriver and a 012-inch feeler gauge.Here's the complete procedure:

1. Disconnect the computer's power cord from the wall outlet.
2. Remove the disk-drive cage as shown in Figures 13-1 to 13-3. 3. Disconnect all data and power cables from the installed drives.
4. Turn the cage upside down. This puts the relatively light disk drive on top and the relatively heavy hard drive on the bottom.
5. Use a #1 Phillips-head screwdriver to remove six screws (three on each side of the cage) which hold the hard drive in place.
6. Lift the drive cage straight up.This leaves the hard drive upside down on the table.
7. Use a #2 Phillips-head screwdriver to remove four screws from the sheet metal support bracket as shown in Figure 13-25. Lift thebracket away and put it aside.

13-25.png

8. Locate the solenoid marked "Inertia Dynamics, Collinsville, CT USA." Insert a 0.012-inch feeler gauge as shown in Figure13-26.

13-26.png

9. At the time of failure, clearance might be as much as 0.075 inch. Loosen the solenoid holding screw and adjust for 0.012-inch clearance.

Tighten the screw, reverse steps 7 through 1, and everything should be OK! If not, repeat steps 1 through 9, allowing a little more or a little less clearance, until you get the brake working again."
 

ried

Well-known member
Adjusted the brake and that is now clicking upon startup as hoped. So that part is done! But I still do not hear any squeaks / chirps from the head, and we're still getting error 81.

What's the next step after the brake is operating?

Edit: Per instructions above, it may still need further adjustment, even after the click. Will keep adjusting.
 

ried

Well-known member
After finding an excellent YouTube video showing the Widget's startup sequence from below, I decided to do the same thing so we can find out where it's getting hung up.

The brake is releasing correctly, but the armature with the head doesn't seem to be moving like it should. It makes a small, continuous attempt at movement (but doesn't successfully float over the disk?) and the error 81 eventually appears. The brake is not impeding this movement. Warning: Turn down the volume, this video is loud.

 

ScutBoy

Well-known member
Others might hurt me over this, but if it were my drive, I'd try this. With the drive off, move back the brake plate with your hand, and then VERY gently see if the arm can then move through some or all of it's arc.

You may want to wait until @stepleton or someone wiser pipes up with a better way to diagnose!

I've always like the squeaky noise the Widget makes.

:)
 

stepleton

Well-known member
If the arm is moving at all, which it is, then the brake is disengaged. I'm pretty confident that the brake is no longer a factor here.

My advice: be patient. In the same way that you've exercised the spindle so it moves freely again, it's time for the arm to wake up in a similar way. Rather than move the arm yourself (like how you bump-started the spindle), what I think you should do is repeatedly reset the drive so that it keeps attempting to move the arm all on its own.

My bet is that as you do this, you'll find that the arm moves a little bit more with each reset. If this works, it could take a while before the arm regains its full range of motion, but in time it might get there. This is something I've seen happen before.

To reset the Widget, you can always reboot the computer (if I remember correctly, I'm not 100% sure): the reset button at the back of the machine is the simplest way to do that. It may also be possible in NeoWidEx via the SOFT RESET command, but I'm not so sure.

If the arm does start to free itself up in this way, things may develop like this:
1. The Widget attempts its "post-reset arm wiggle" a few times and fails.
2. Finally the Widget gets a successful wiggle and decides to start the surface scan. But it can't make it through the full scan and eventually fails.
3. With successive resets, the scan can go further and further.
4. Eventually you get a complete scan. The arm probably could still do for more exercise, and for that some more resets is probably the easiest way. You can also use the NeoWidEx SCAN command to repeat surface scans, which of course move the heads all across the disk.

Once the Widget seems to be revived, as I hope it will do, I recommend getting a serial cable and a copy of BLU and dumping the Widget's contents before you attempt to boot from it.
 

ried

Well-known member
I just made what @omgmonsters would refer to as "a big stupid." I pulled the whole Lisa widget hard disk sandwich apart, cleaned each board and removed / re-seated all of the socketed ICs. Put it all back together and hoped that'd fix the error 81.

Well, it didn't even release the brake anymore. Shoot! Figured the drive wasn't getting up to speed, maybe? Therefore the brake wouldn't release? So I let it spin for a while to warm up.

My hand brushed against the widget controller card and I felt the 341-0289-D socketed IC, which was scorching hot. I looked more closely and saw I'd accidentally seated it the wrong way :eek:

Shut it down, flipped the chip and now we're back to operating with a proper brake release. I am amazed and incredibly relieved that I didn't destroy that unobtainium chip 🥺
 

stepleton

Well-known member
Happily 341-0289-D is only a ROM; you could make a new one. There are other, real unobtainium chips on your Widget. If I had to choose one Widget chip to fry, I'd probably choose the ROM you mis-installed.

In my best estimation:

Error 81 is because the drive isn't ready.
This is because it can't complete its startup exercises.
It can't do that because the arm can't actuate fully.
The arm is stiff because it has to free up a bearing that hasn't moved much in a long time.

I'd focus on improving this situation before trying other, generic fixes. I still think the best thing to to is to get the drive to try and free up itself rather than moving the head servo on your own.

My advice: be patient.
 

ried

Well-known member
Good advice, @stepleton, as always. I'm just going to let the drive run for a few days. Will provide an update when things change.
 
Top