Can You Determine what LISA this is by the Photo?

[uniserver]

my buddy just dropped 1700 on this lisa, we are trying to determine if this is a Lisa II or Macintosh XL, or Macintosh Professional

the PSU is bad. He wants to know if he has been taken.

does that look like a 800k or 400K Drive in there?

are those HD's in there?



any helpful info would be highly appreciated.

the box does say Sun Re-marketing on it, but the old man might have placed his other LISA II in this box.

 

[uniserver]

 

[krye]

So he spent $1700 on a broken Lisa not even knowing what model it is? Wow. I've seen people selling broken Lisas for $500 and I thought that was bad.

 

[Gorgonops]

Broken, for $1700? Ouch.

Just eyeballing it I'd say that Lisa is just what it says on the box, which is a used Lisa from Sun Remarketing with a third-party hard drive fitted. (The photos are way too muddy to really make much out, but that doesn't look like a "Widget" mechanism to me. I'm somewhat curious why the cables appear to just be draped loose over the drive cage instead of plugged in.)

Really there's only two major Lisa revisions, distinguished by different motherboards and I/O boards. (And obviously you can't see the motherboard in these pictures) This:

ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/documentation/applelisa/Lisa_Do-It-Yourself_Guide.pdf

describes the differences. Basically there's the "Original Lisa/Lisa 2/5" guts, which is the Twiggy Lisa parts + an adaptor to use the 3.5 inch drive, which were almost always sold with external Profile hard drive, and the "Lisa 2/10", which had an updated I/O and motherboard and was designed to use an internal "Widget" hard drive in the empty space left over from the now-absent second Twiggy drive. The 2/10 also has a larger power supply, 1.8 instead of 1.2 amps, to power said hard drive. A "Macintosh XL" is identical to a 2/10 other than the stickers. (As for the "Macintosh Professional", that was Sun Remarketing's name for a Lisa/Mac XL + MacWorks Plus; it's not entirely clear if they limited the name to a particular hardware configuration.)

The really salient question is whether this unit has had the video board modification that converts the Lisa's 720x364 screen resolution to a square-pixel'ed 608x431. This makes it a better Macintosh but prevents it from running the original Lisa OS anymore. The "V/U" checkmark on the box looks suspicious to me.

 

[uniserver]

well from my understanding, this was suppose to be a LISA II

When he bought it, It was working.

Brought it home, Fired it up, i do not know for how long but smoke came out, he said that what looked like a coil in the PSU

was burnt, and the PSU fuse blew, Replaced the fuse and it blew again.

but what i didn't get outta him is, What did he see when it was booted up, LISA OS or Macintosh OS.

Apparently the guy wanted 3500.00 so there was some negotiation that took place, Took it home for $1700, When he sent me pictures , the ones you see here, I said Um, that says sun re-marketing on it, and i started to worry slightly.

The issue is i know almost nothing about lisa, but i do know that a 1mb LISA, ( macintosh professional )

was only 595.00 new. ( made to work like a Macintosh Plus )

I know there was some information that was tossed about in this other thread concerning lisa and Sun Remarketing,

and Lisa might be the first " hackintosh "

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=21075

 

[uniserver]

last picture i have

 

[haplain]

So he spent $1700 on a broken Lisa not even knowing what model it is? Wow. I've seen people selling broken Lisas for $500 and I thought that was bad.

Regardless, when is the last time you saw a Lisa, any configuration, with a box? I haven't in a LONG time.

 

[UNA_Lion]

Couldn't see paying that much for even one of those in good shape.

If I had one though, I'd fleece others for as much as I could get. }

 

[Gorgonops]

If your buddy would take pictures of the Apple-applied ID stickers it would be more helpful than anything else in determining what it was when it left Apple's factory, but chances are *really good* it came through Sun Remarketing. And if that's the box it came in it points toward the floppy and hard drive both being Sun upgrades rather than original parts. As noted, a "Lisa II" can be either a Lisa 2/5, which is essentially an upgraded Twiggy-Lisa, or a 2/10. The presence of an internal hard drive points towards it being a 2/10, but Sun's third-party hard drive upgrades could be installed in a 2/5 if you swapped the power supply so it's not definitive evidence of it being the newer hardware rev.

Given the completely INSANE prices old Apple hardware is going for these days I'm in no position to say if $1700 was really getting "ripped off" or not, but... wow. Guess your buddy must have really wanted it but I hope it wasn't for short-term "investment" purposes. The "provenance" of this example just doesn't look to be that good.

 

[uniserver]

Ok so, it was running was LISA OS before the PSU went out. Not Macintosh OS.

So would it be safe to say that…

LISA Values are: ??

LISA I - $20K to 25K ??

LISA II - $5k to 10K ??

LISA XL - ??

i seriously doubt he bought is as an investment machine, but at the same time its nice to have an idea that something you have could be worth multiple

thousands of dollars

If there are any more pictures i'll post em.

He did mention this:

everything on the board is marked Apple 1983. There are some XL chips on there

 

[Gorgonops]

So would it be safe to say that…

LISA Values are: ??

LISA I - $20K to 25K ??

The most recent listing for a Lisa I on eBay failed to sell, auction started at $16,000.

LISA II - $5k to 10K ??

Good luck. A 2/5 in working condition with 2 Profile drives and the original box went for $2,300 in March.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-Vintage-Mint-Condition-Apple-Lisa-2-Computer-2-5mb-ProFile-HDs-WORKS-in-BOX-/261177055874

A slightly gimpy (keyboard acting up) 2/10 went for $1,075:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Working-Vintage-Apple-Lisa-Computer-/200907631370

LISA XL - ??

$885?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Rare-Apple-Lisa-Macintosh-XL-Computer-Powers-On-/160973122199

its nice to have an idea that something you have could be worth multiple thousands of dollars

Yeah, it's a nice idea. Probably not true in this case, however.

 

[uniserver]

OOOooo, that XL for $885.00, would be a little salt on the wound.

Well Personally, I think it would be mighty nifty to own a Macintosh XL,

(even though it runs @ only 5mhz)

Might even be useful if i were to do more repairs on lisa stuff…

I will just not swing that kind money for one.

As someone said in the other thread regarding his TAM, And if you don't want to throw down the $$ for one, then it's not for you.

Well I guess the LISA is not for me either

 

[Macdrone]

Its ok I am with you there, kids in the house stuff to fix an due its still hard to justify for fun. I can drool all day over them tho lol. :approve:

 

[CelGen]

Okay,so...

-2/10 chassis and 1.8A PSU

-Sun ROMS which enable 800K floppy drives

-Profile to MFM bridge board (looks like it's configured for a 20mb drive)

-Most likely was configured for MacWorks Plus as LOS never supported 800k drives, meaning the pixel fix might of been added.

Your friend probably had the old paper primary filters blow so replacing those with modern polyester caps should fix that problem. While you did one hell of a gamble paying THAT much for it you do have two rare options installed which should at least justify say $500 of the cost.

If you're really lucky you might find SCSI or sound boards in the expansion cage because that would of brought the Lisa up to a 3/4 speed Macintosh Plus.

 

[Gorgonops]

OOOooo, that XL for $885.00, would be a little salt on the wound.

Sadly there was another sale for only around $500. The description was minimal and the pictures only showed it booted as far as the self-test screen so I went with the higher one.

As someone said in the other thread regarding his TAM, And if you don't want to throw down the $$ for one, then it's not for you.Well I guess the LISA is not for me either

I suppose I get why someone would want a Lisa but with a nice setup going for about what I paid for my truck (which says more about my truck than it does the value of Lisas) it ain't happening. At least my ratty old truck can justify its existence to the Mrs. by being capable of hauling home the occasional load of compost from the garden center.

(Contrarywise, I don't get the TAM at all other than as an interesting monument to the unique flavor of insanity that Apple was infected with in the 1990's. It's tacky, overdone, and not particularly well engineered, barely one step over just taking a Power Mac 6500 and gluing Swarovski crystals all over it. But that's just my opinion.)

While you did one hell of a gamble paying THAT much for it you do have two rare options installed which should at least justify say $500 of the cost.

So, since you're obviously into the Lisa scene, do options/upgrades like that really *add* value? I ask because... for instance, up to a few years ago "your average" Mac collector would probably be stoked to find a Macintosh 128k that had been completely tricked out with memory upgrades, accelerator boards, SCSI cards, etc, but now it seems like the "collector" is more interested in finding and displaying unmolested examples, to the point that people are reversing 512k upgrades. (Which of course *sharply* curtails the actual functionality of the unit.)

I guess what I'm getting at is... does your "average" Lisa owner actually *want* to have "the most powerful Lisa on the block" and use it as an odd-shaped old Macintosh (since many of the "best" upgrades appear to be incompatible with the Lisa OS), or is the drive now to be able to put the thing on a pedestal and boot the Lisa Office System occasionally to show off the wonders of 1983 computing? It would seem that exotic third-party options would detract from the latter.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I bought a Lisa II front bezel, I'm satisfied. Besides, now I won't ever be tempted to hack a real Lisa. They're awfully big and clumsy for a paperweight. )

 

[haplain]

Please let me know what I have

 

[haplain]

More

 

[CelGen]

So, since you're obviously into the Lisa scene, do options/upgrades like that really *add* value?

The cool thing about the Lisa is that you can run LOS on them in a stock configuration (what 95% of the lisas still are) and there are essentially no upgrades that can improve on it because besides from Lisa 7/7 there's no other software for the thing that would demand more in resources. Even maxing the ram makes little sense unless you plan on using the Lisa as an office daily driver which I'm sure every company would hate.

If you are running MacWorks exclusively the various upgrades are now the equivalent of owning a mac 512k and upgrading from there. Extra ram is a bonus. Larger hard drive is a bonus. SCSI allows external peripherals (or even direct booting from), 800K upgrade allows you to use newer floppy-based software. The sound card brings back the standard Macintosh audio functions which the Lisa cannot provide.