drybones99
Active member
I recently figured out how to use BLU (Basic Lisa Utility) to transfer an image of the entire Widget hard disk on my Lisa 2/10 over a null-modem serial cable to my MacBook Pro as what appears to be a raw binary file. The file size is about 10 MB, which seems appropriate, and by looking at it with a hex editor, I can clearly see some of the data in there, including some of raw text data found in the documents that were written in LisaWrite. I wish to be able to use this disk image with a Lisa emulator, such as LisaEm or IDLE, but so far, I have had little luck. IDLE uses .raw files, but when I rename my disk image to "profile.raw", which is the file name that IDLE expects for the virtual hard drive, it fails to boot, with profile error "84". I have tried this with IDLE in both "Lisa 1" and "Lisa 2" modes. According to The Apple Lisa FAQ at "https://lisafaq.sunder.net/single.html#lisafaq-hw-hd-error_84", this error means that the drive is either damaged, improperly connected, or has damaged system files. I doubt that any of these things are true, since the initial process of creating the disk image appeared flawless, and the Widget drive in my Lisa has 0 bad blocks, according to BLU, and has not exhibited any signs of damage or failure. It appears to me that the file format is simply wrong.
LisaEm expects the Widget or Profile image to be in .dc42 format, so perhaps I might have more luck there, if I could somehow convert the raw BLU binary file to a .dc42 file. I have already attempted to use the raw file by itself with LisaEm, but after renaming it to "lisaem-profile.dc42", LisaEm simply acts as though there is no virtual disk, asking me instead to create one. This makes sense, given that it expects a .dc42 file, not a raw BLU binary file. Does anyone have suggestions for what I can do to work with this disk image? My ultimate goal is to be able to use this image with any Lisa emulator just as though I were using a real Widget with a real Lisa 2/10. I have also attempted to use a hex editor to try to fit the raw data into a working virtual disk image, to no avail. If it helps, I have attached the raw disk image file obtained from the Lisa with BLU.
(NOTE: The original file had no extension, but for some reason, this website adds a long extension consisting of random hex code, along with underscores in place of spaces, and some other slight changes.)
View attachment __-_BUILT-IN_PARALLEL_PORT_(10_MB_Widget_Hard_Disk).e32be7a88805689cf1c9393d79ffb35e
LisaEm expects the Widget or Profile image to be in .dc42 format, so perhaps I might have more luck there, if I could somehow convert the raw BLU binary file to a .dc42 file. I have already attempted to use the raw file by itself with LisaEm, but after renaming it to "lisaem-profile.dc42", LisaEm simply acts as though there is no virtual disk, asking me instead to create one. This makes sense, given that it expects a .dc42 file, not a raw BLU binary file. Does anyone have suggestions for what I can do to work with this disk image? My ultimate goal is to be able to use this image with any Lisa emulator just as though I were using a real Widget with a real Lisa 2/10. I have also attempted to use a hex editor to try to fit the raw data into a working virtual disk image, to no avail. If it helps, I have attached the raw disk image file obtained from the Lisa with BLU.
(NOTE: The original file had no extension, but for some reason, this website adds a long extension consisting of random hex code, along with underscores in place of spaces, and some other slight changes.)
View attachment __-_BUILT-IN_PARALLEL_PORT_(10_MB_Widget_Hard_Disk).e32be7a88805689cf1c9393d79ffb35e
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