Save This LISA!

[D4Dave]

I have a LISA 2/10 in the attic and am seeking advice about what to do with it. I used it for years and have great respect for this machine but I am gradually facing the fact that I will never again be geeky enough to do anything with it. I would like to see it put to good use rather than wonder about whether it will end up in a landfill. I could post it on eBay but I'm not sure that would ensure its highest and best use.

It was converted to a Mac XL but I have all the original parts. I also have the original 7/7 software and a bunch of program disks, mouse, keyboard, and an Imagewriter (II?). It all worked when it was last turned off but that was a long time ago.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

 

[luddite]

My first thought would be to turn it into a web server or run a BBS off it... but I'm sometimes a bit of a masochist ;-)

 

[Scott Baret]

Now THERE'S a project for RetroChallenge!

Lisa Office System is pretty capable (it even has spell check built in, a rarity for 1983 software) and integrates better than Office, iWork, AppleWorks, or just about any suite of apps released since. Since you have a printer I recommend using it for something, perhaps a short word processing project with a table and a drawing. I think you'll be impressed.

 

[Bunsen]

Take lots of pictures so we can all ooh and aah at its pristine attic ripened beauty

 

[GnatGoSplat]

If you don't have a use for it, personally, I'd put it on eBay.

I could be mistaken, but they go for hundreds of dollars on there. Anyone willing to drop several hundred dollars on a vintage computer is most likely going to be a collector. Nobody's going to drop half a grand on a vintage computer for it to end up in a landfill.

 

[barana]

keep it. in the meantime, this community should be able to convince someone to do a port of browser6. you could be our lead beta tester. - ppl in retro communities with lisa's tend to be scarce. - apart from mothballers.oops i mean collectors

 

[barana]

would u consider setting it up so we can dial in to it with telnet for the purpose of software development?

 

[barana]

give it to me for the postage (shipping) and i will port lwip to it.

Failing that, sent it to my frined in North Carolina so we can set up a terminal dial in type of arragenment so i can do the same over the net....

 

[barana]

The postage cost paid by me of course..

 

[Baboon!]

give it to me for the postage

We can all find inspiration in this man's ballsiness.

 

[Mars478]

This thread is fully of weirdness.

 

[barana]

Well the reason I wont settle for an emu for developing software is primarily a reason I didnt want to mention, but as ur painting me in a shade of grey, I will mention i would like to put my energies into building an ethernet board for it. after lwip and a maybe port of browser6(under LOS browser3? )

and if you think that an ether board is farout, it isnt. There are ether boards/carts for atari 8 bit and 16bit machines, apple II's (two) c64's (two) amiga 68000^(many) ad many more..

After of course learning Clascal - Lisa's object orientated pascal language...

The reason it seems weird is i dont want to pay for a very heavy machine to come over in a shipping container, possibly being lost at sea (100,000 -300,000 containers get washed off deck every year,worldwide)

So I asked my friend in North carolina in America if he would keep it there(less postage) and set it up with a webcam for visuals, an old plotter mechanism hooked up to his unix box sitting over the KB to type with (with a type buffer!) and the mouse port hooked up to his serial port somehow.

That would allow software dev

For HW dev? well, 1 step at a time

Now does that seem cool, or weird? :/

 

[Baboon!]

Seems cool to me. I wasn't trying to make a monkey out of you.

 

[Mars478]

Aren't you a monkey?