Apple Lisa: It's all about power, right?

[BadGoldEagle]

Hi guys/gals !

Found a Mac XL for sale on the net, and I'd like to add this one to my collection. Comes with original keyboard, mouse and manuals. That's nice.

Contacted the seller as this was advertised as non working. He told me that when he posted the ad the XL would still boot up but that the Hard Drive and the FDD were not operational. Since then, the XL refuses to boot. No activity at all, not even from the power switch. 

This one was upgraded quite a bit, boasting an XLerator and a SCSI card.

I THINK this is power related. But I need you guys/gals expertise. If I am right, then it should be quite an easy fix.

This one is equipped with the supposedly more rugged 1.8 Amps PSU. I know Lisas are starting to fail because of bad caps inside the PSU.

Side questions:

• This is a Sun Remarketing Lisa, made around 1985 and has version 3A ROMs. I know one company manufactured some kind of a ROM switcher, allowing you to switch between version H and 3A ROMs, but I can't produce any evidence of it existing. Anyone seen one of these?
• Some XLs received the 800k treatment (DS drive + I/O ROM upgrade). These were designed to work with MacWorks Plus but will an 800k drive function under LOS? I intend to use this Lisa/XL as a Lisa and as a Mac. I know the XLerator and the SCSI card won't be used under LOS and that they won't create any incompatibilities. But what about the 800k drive??

Thanks!

 

[Gorgonops]

• Some XLs received the 800k treatment (DS drive + I/O ROM upgrade). These were designed to work with MacWorks Plus but will an 800k drive function under LOS? I intend to use this Lisa/XL as a Lisa and as a Mac. I know the XLerator and the SCSI card won't be used under LOS and that they won't create any incompatibilities. But what about the 800k drive??

According to the Lisa FAQ the presence of a 3A ROM means the system has the "square pixels" screen mod, which means it's *only* compatible with MacWorks. Undoing it would be both a ROM replacement and some hacks to the analog board.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

Oooh yes you're right. Forgot about that, but apart from the square pixel mod (adapter+ROMs), what else would prevent the thing from running LOS?

 

[ScutBoy]

LisaOS won't understand the 800K drive and it's ROM chip.

Square pixel mod can be undone by getting the old ROM, and you have to disconnect the little board ( B) that goes between the video circuit board (A) , and the board on the back of the CRT ©. So you are just eliminating board B in the middle - A plugs directly into C. You can leave the mod board in there unconnected if you ever want to revert back.

As you say, I don't think LisaOS will deal with the accelerator board nor the SCSI card.

 

[lisa2]

LisaOS won't understand the 800K drive and it's ROM chip.

True, but the SUN 800K upgrade does not effect the operation of the floppy as a 400K drive with the LOS.  Also, a 3rd party driver for the 800K driver exists, it allows you to fully use the 800K drive with the LOS.  It's very neat how it works, it fills one side of the disk then the other.  This allows you to take a 800K LOS disk and put in a Lisa with a standard 400K drive and still read/write the 1st 400K one side of the disk.  

The ROM switcher does exist, but today it's kind of pointless to have.  If you revert back to the "H" ROM's, you can run both LOS and MW.

http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/apple/lisa/macintosh_xl/Dafax_ROMSwitcher.jpg

 

[ScutBoy]

Thanks lisa2 -

I learn things here all the time!

I didn't know that LisaOS treated the 800K drive as a 400. The one Lisa I have with the 800K mod is running MacWorks and the screen mod, so I never tried it. I had always thought that the 800K mod precluded using LisaOS.

 

[Gorgonops]

what else would prevent the thing from running LOS?

As you say, I don't think LisaOS will deal with the accelerator board nor the SCSI card.

So, I guess that's the other question if you want to run LOS: if it won't work with the SCSI card, does the unit include another non-SCSI hard drive that *is* LOS compatible? So far as I'm aware you need an HD to run LOS.

 

[lisa2]

So, I guess that's the other question if you want to run LOS: if it won't work with the SCSI card, does the unit include another non-SCSI hard drive that *is* LOS compatible? So far as I'm aware you need an HD to run LOS.

Yes, you need a par port HD to run LOS.

Technically, a "Mac XL" is really a Lisa2/10 with an internal 10 Meg widget drive.  But SUN sold many 2/10's with the internal HD removed to be used with MW+ only.  

So unless the system has an internal par port HD (and it works, most Widgets are failing now due to age), it's will be costly to get LOS running.

 

[lisa2]

OK, it appears the system this guy is referring to is here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Lisa-2-for-repair-or-parts-/191944905590?hash=item2cb0ced376:g:e6QAAOSwdzVXrXhl

First of all, it's not a Mac XL, but a Lisa2/5 with a bunch of upgrades.

The batteries have leaked, this means that the IO board is ruined (this is why it won't power up).  Most likely the MB is also damaged.  My guess this is why they aren't showing the card cage pulled out.  The system was incorrectly stored on it's back, and that's why there is acid damage on the back cover.

The listing claim's it has an XLertaor 16  and 2 meg slot ram, but no photos prove it.  They also claim it has the SUN 20 drive, (you can see the cable), they always fail with age and are harder to service than the apple drives.

The most valuable this I see here is the Lisa mouse (if it works).

I would not pay the asking $1800 for this system, it will cost thousands just to get it running again.  Buyer beware.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

Hi Lisa2! This is indeed the listing in question. But I sure as hell wasn't gonna pay that much for a dead Lisa and I was actually thinking about making an offer.

I knew this was originally a 2/5, but the PFG (Programmable Frequency Generator) made me think this was more of an XL than a 2/5 (I know the XL didn't come with that either, but this one clearly only works with MacWorks. This is an XLe as in 'enhanced'  ). I think it comes with version 3A ROMs as well. So what are the differences between this and an XL (apart from the Accelerator, the SCSI card, the 800k drive, and of course the serial number tag)?

I would have preferred a proper 2/10. By a country mile. Damn batteries!

The Widget is probably easier to fix than this Sun HD (easier: not as hard and painful as). The only thing that I'm really interested in is that Mouse.

I think I'll pass out on this one and get myself a 2/10.

You look to know what you're on about, so what are the main perils of buying a 2/10? I mean, since they don't have batteries, the CPU, I/O and RAM cards "should" be fine. Only that HD could be tricky to fix. But BLU (and its low level format feature) and the Lisa Do-It-Yourself Guide are sufficient to fix most of them.

And finally, how much would you pay for a non-working unit with an HD, keyboard and mouse with no manuals at all? eBay prices are horrendously high...

Thanks 

 

[lisa2]

To address your original post: PS (and other) caps are not big Lisa issue, and while it's good maintenance to recap them, most of the time a non-functioning Lisa is not due to caps.  Other than battery corrosion on the 2/5's, most any Lisa you find will need the keyboard re-foamed, the floppy drive fixed or replaced, and will have dead or dying hard disk.

Due to the battery issues, finding a working 2/10 should be easier than finding a good 2/5.  They are mostly the same as 2/5's and are most definitely still a Lisa (and not a Mac), and if not "screen modded" run the LOS just fine (look for "H" roms).  While BLU can help with formatting issues, BLU will be no help to repair a SUN 20 drive or solve the mechanical issues that the widget's and profiles have.  If you really want a Lisa that works long term, you will have to invest in an X/Profile or IDEfile, it's just a fact that the apple 30+ year old hard disks are all going to fail, they were not that reliable even when new.

So even if you find running system for sale, regardless of the price,  deduct $400 to cover the cost replacing the HD.  Consider any 2/5 system with leaking batteries to be totaled, be wary of any 2/5 that had battery damage and was "repaired", once the corrosion starts, it will never stop, and will negate the repair eventually (unless the boards are replaced).  Also be warned Lisa's are big and heavy to ship, expect to at least $100+ just for shipping.  

Hope this helps, good luck.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

To address your original post: PS (and other) caps are not big Lisa issue, and while it's good maintenance to recap them, most of the time a non-functioning Lisa is not due to caps.  

Thanks for all that info. I thought PSU caps were responsible for "dead" Lisas. What exactly goes wrong in them apart from caps then?

I'd like to get a "cheap" 2/10. Who wouldn't? And you can get good deals on non-working units that don't power on, right? 

I found a 2/10 in Germany, it works great (maybe floppy and keyboard problems) for 2500€. I think that's too much and I think i'm gonna make an offer. 1700€ seems fine to me. 

Those Lisas are getting more and more expensive. In the 1980s you could have a Series 1 Jaguar E-type (XKE in the US) for literally nothing, now it costs upwards of $250,000. 

Vintage stuff costs more money than new stuff, which is odd.

 

[Gorgonops]

Those Lisas are getting more and more expensive. In the 1980s you could have a Series 1 Jaguar E-type (XKE in the US) for literally nothing, now it costs upwards of $250,000. 

Vintage stuff costs more money than new stuff, which is odd.

Comparing a Lisa to a Jaguar is... surprisingly apropos in some respects, I suppose. Neither was produced in particularly large quantities nor possesses a particularly great reputation for reliability.

In any case, I'm not sure what's really "odd" about either eventually appreciating in value well after passing through a low point in which you couldn't even give one away. Even then, not sure where you're getting $250,000 for an E-type; a random Craigslist search turns up a ton of them, and a running restoration candidate goes for a tenth of that while a decent driver is more like $50-120k. Sure, that's a lot of money compared to when a thrashed-out beater might have gone for in 1980, but they're a lot rarer now than they used to be and they're more widely acknowledged as "classics". A mint-condition Cocours winner might go for a quarter million bucks, I guess, but it's easy to pay that much for just about any classic car if it's a great enough specimen. ('56 Chevys regularly trade in the six figures now.)

Or, we could look at it another way: according to an inflation calculator based on their original prices a new E-type *should* go for around $48,000 today, which is well on the cheap side of what a modern exotic imported sports car will cost you. Given that the prices of E-types actually look pretty reasonable; maybe a little inflated compared what they'd cost if you could time-machine one from a dealer in the 1960's with zero markup, but not really bad at all considering. Running the same CPI comparison for the original price of a Lisa 2 suggest that a new-condition one "should" cost on the order of $12,000 bucks. Here's a working one with a $2,999 Buy-it-Now so... I dunno, maybe the prices aren't that ridiculous, at least from a "collectors" point of view.

 

[lisa2]

Thanks for all that info. I thought PSU caps were responsible for "dead" Lisas. What exactly goes wrong in them apart from caps then?

What goes wrong (other than 2/5 battery issues):

1. the keyboard foam pads break down, the cord gets stretched out.

2. the floppy drives go bad: broken eject gears, frozen grease, electronic issues, and the 800K copal drives SUN used burn up.

3. all the apple hard drives are junk

4. the pots on the video board go bad

5. the plastics dis-color

6. the frames and other metal items can rust if stored in humid areas.

I have had very few issues with the PS, card cage and boards, mouse, crt, power switch, speaker.

Back in the day, these were very expensive systems built to mini-computer/workstation standards.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

Yeah but what about systems that refuse to boot up at all, which show no activity, even from the power switch? Isn't this PSU related? I've seen a lot of Lisas for sale with this kind of problem.

Maybe some connector on the card cage is damaged, but isn't it supposed to light up in some way even with the card cage out?

 

[Elfen]

Most of the time it is the PSU. Sometimes it is that 10-cent fuse that goes out that takes down a $10,000 machine.

You need to check the boards on a good Lisa, clean out the cage and sockets in the cage and the edge comb on the boards. Check the memory board first and get them out of the way. And then the CPU board on the working Lisa with 1 of those memory boards. It all that checks out, then changes are that it is a PSU or cable harness problem.

Also that power switch fails over time. You can try to spray WD40 into the switch and click it several times to work it in and it will clear things up most of them. But sometimes the contacts in the switch are too corroded and it needs to be replaced entirely.

I had 2 Lisas/Mac XLs in the 90's. Sorry I had to sell them on ebay, needed the money at the time.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

Thanks elfen! 

Now I'm finally prepared. 

Will report back once I get a Lisa. 

 

[Gorgonops]

I might be off base on this, but doesn't the Lisa have a fairly deviously sophisticated (for the era) soft power system? It would seem to me, without researching it any further of course, that if that's the case there are any number of things other than the power supply that could go wrong that would prevent it from showing signs of life when the power switch is flicked.

 

[lisa2]

I might be off base on this, but doesn't the Lisa have a fairly deviously sophisticated (for the era) soft power system? It would seem to me, without researching it any further of course, that if that's the case there are any number of things other than the power supply that could go wrong that would prevent it from showing signs of life when the power switch is flicked.

Exactly, this is my 4th post in this thread trying to get this point across!  Many folks also mistake the case interlocks doing their job as an PS issue.  I agree with the poster (who sold his Lisa's 16+years ago) that stated that many issues with other "vintage" systems are PS related (some simple like caps and fuses), but this is just not my experience with the Lisa.  I have 3 Lisa's that I power up often, all with original power supplies  (one 1.2 amp and two 1.8 amp versions.)  I have repaired many other Lisa's, and only ever had PS go bad in 30+years.  This is my personal opinion only.  YMMV.