Garage Finds: Lisa / MacXL (+ Sony CRT)

[nickpunt]

This find was fun: my friend had a Lisa 2/10 / MacXL in his garage for ~30 years. We'd talk about it over the decades, but it was really hard to access so never did anything about it. Yesterday we pulled it out, turned it on, and it booted right up. Overall it's in great shape. Only issues were the monitor was flickering badly (sync issue), and it showed error code 81 on the Continue / Startup From boot screen. However after 20 minutes the (1.8A) power supply let off a terrible smell and we had to unplug it and air the place out.

It's a basic model with 1mb ram cards and it has the MacXL switch for Lisa/MacOS along with the board labeled "Rev C, Serial No. A1146" containing 1983 and 1985 copyright ROMs. Haven't checked if the floppy is 400k or 800k, guessing 400k since it's a tall one.

I think it only requires a power supply recap, and the flickering was due to low power to the monitor. Now I'm on the hunt for anyone in the SF Bay Area who I can hire to do a recap.

Also got a Sony CPD-100VS 15" VAIO monitor. Great speakers, decent picture. Worked for a little while but died. Looks pretty good inside inc flyback, but I guess it needs a recap too. If anyone has a lead on recap place that'd be awesome.

 

[DarthNvader]

Can't help with the recap, but great find, I got to get a better class of friends

 

[LaPorta]

Can't help with the recap, but great find, I got to get a better class of friends

No joke…

 

[LaPorta]

I have to admit, I always cringe when I see “stored in a garage”, but I’m glad it actually was ok.

 

[DarthNvader]

I have to admit, I always cringe when I see “stored in a garage”, but I’m glad it actually was ok.

If you want to call it going up in smoke ok!

Better to recap first, then power it on!

Live and learn, I just hope it didn't take anything else inside the Lisa out with it when it went.

No great loss to someone sitting on it for 30 years and never turning it on, but we are talking a collectors item worth several thousand dollars.

Not that I would have likely done anything differently as far as wanting to power it on first, but sometimes I'm not wise either.....

 

[stepleton]

The PSU problem is almost surely RIFAs. Other PSU caps may be in decent shape, but recapping isn't a terrible idea. The rest of the Lisa will probably be fine --- well, the Widget hard drive probably doesn't work, but that's not the fault of the RIFAs letting go.

I had never heard of a Lisa/Mac switch before. It sounds like it could be this thing:

https://bitsavers.org/pdf/apple/lisa/macintosh_xl/Dafax_ROMswitcher.pdf

 

[cheesestraws]

Nice find!

However after 20 minutes the (1.8A) power supply let off a terrible smell and we had to unplug it and air the place out.

If you want to call it going up in smoke ok!

That'll probably be the RIFA caps going. Impressive smell, isn't it. In case you need the reassurance, OP, that won't have caused any damage to the PSU (beyond whatever decrepit state it was in already).

 

[nickpunt]

Yeah we figured if anything the RIFAs would go and the risk was pretty low turning it on. Yes, a very impressive smell @cheesestraws, the place reeked. We did a full visual inspection before the attempt and there weren't any cap leaks or signs of problems. Even after the smell started releasing it was still working and there was no actual smoke. Main takeaway from the teardown is the Lisa is an incredibly well built machine.

@stepleton yep that looks like it! Those are the codes for the rom chips it's got. I'm really happy it came with it so I can play with both Lisa and MacOS.

This garage is quite the treasure hoard with a bunch of SE's and various old monitors etc. There *may* be another Lisa in there too, but we don't know where to look for it. From the SE's and other stuff we recovered, so far it seems there's very little wear and tear from being in the garage; several booted right up. It's in LA so it's always pretty temperate and relatively dry, but we're bringing them indoors now since cleaning is underway.

 

[maceffects]

Recap the video board and use a lot of Deoxit to clean the trim pots working each back and forth many times. The V-hold is common to do what yours is doing. The RIFAs in the PSU are easy as well. So recap the PSU and video board, then make adjustments and you should be good to go.

 

[maceffects]

If you need an X/ProFile (Widget Emulator) let me know as I have an extra I can sell.

 

[stepleton]

The advice to clean the pots on the video board is very good advice. You can still buy those pots new if that doesn't work, but I bet it will.

@maceffects , I don't mean to rain on your sale, and @nickpunt , the X/ProFile is a very dependable, proven emulator worth considering. But there is a brand new option out there this week with a per-unit cost under $15 if you're a little handy and don't mind buying the all-populated-except-for-the-esp32 boards in sets of five (find some friends?). More info here https://lisalist2.com/index.php/topic,556.0.html and here https://github.com/alexthecat123/ESProFile

 

[nickpunt]

Thanks @maceffects for the suggestions, will do both video & power then! @stepleton yep its fortuitous timing, I stumbled across ESProFile the day after I got the Lisa back, going to get that set up next! I'm also looking at Alex's GALSCSI card after everything is set up.

 

[nickpunt]

Update: Lisa video & power recapped, boots up great! Few notes here:

1. Next is sort out getting the picture rotated and centered which I think means messing with the yoke. Screwing the pots around only makes it wobbly.
2. Unfortunately when switching the aftermarket Mac/Lisa switch over to Lisa ROMs (after turning off ofc), I only get a thin vertical stripe. Guessing the rectangular pixels of the Lisa are angry at something.
3. The power switch can turn it on, but apparently not turn it off. Not sure this is normal.
4. Definitely need to clean off the connectors of the boards in the back, if the ram board gets unseated (which it does easily) it checkerboards on boot.

Also these aren't garage finds but just picked up a CPD-210GS and CPD-420GS in perfect condition, super excited to get these running on old & new games.

 

[nickpunt]

Another garage find: Original Mac 128k in great condition. Trying to figure out what the mod is on it with the 74F253 chip, or if that is stock. Serial decode:

Manufactured in: F => Fremont, California, USA
Year of production: 1984
Week of production: 38
Production number: 17W => 1424
Model ID: M0001 => original Macintosh 1984 (128k)

Your original Macintosh 1984 (128k) was the 1424th Mac manufactured during the 38th week of 1984 in Fremont, California, USA.

Also found this unusual Apple adapter/splitter that I can't figure out what it goes to. I think it might be 9pin serial to Mac serial but

 

[shiroi]

Also found this unusual Apple adapter/splitter that I can't figure out what it goes to. I think it might be 9pin serial to Mac serial but

That’s a DE-9 LocalTalk transceiver for use with Macintosh 128K and 512K. Those models used DE-9 serial ports.

 

[olePigeon]

If you can find one, there are DE-9 PhoneNet adapters, too. Easier and cheaper.

 

[adespoton]

Yeah; the LocalTalk transceivers were the expensive solutions at the time; every network I knew of went for the much cheaper PhoneNet adapters. Farralon was an awesome company back then.

 

[cheesestraws]

I think it might be 9pin serial to Mac serial but

That’s a DE-9 LocalTalk transceiver for use with Macintosh 128K and 512K. Those models used DE-9 serial ports.

Note that the 9 pin D-type connector on the 128 and 512 does not use the same pinout as a PC and it's RS422/485 not RS232 (most of the time).

 

[mg.man]

Trying to figure out what the mod is on it with the 74F253 chip

I think you'll find the memory has been replaced with MT1258 256k chips, so that 74F253 is likely the additional address decoding. If working, you should have 512k RAM.

 

[Unknown_K]

That Sony Vaio monitor looks like the one that matched my Vaio Pentium PC.