The Apple Lisa Inside an FPGA!

[AlexTheCat123]

Some bad news.

JLC finished manufacturing the v3 boards on the 18th as expected, but it's been several days and they still haven't shipped. Normally they ship the day after manufacturing is done, but not this time, presumably because of the large size of the order. It's so late at this point that there's no way they'll be here in time for VCF. So if you were coming in the hopes of getting your hands on a board, then I'm sorry! They'll still be for sale online afterwards though.

Regardless, I'll absolutely have the two v2 boards set up at VCF for anyone to play with, so at least there's that, plus my presentation on the entire project.

 

[Javier983]

I am absolutely interested in one if the price remains up to $150. I will not be at VCF SW. Thanks for this amazing project!

 

[superjer2000]

I am absolutely interested in one if the price remains up to $150. I will not be at VCF SW. Thanks for this amazing project!

Ditto!

 

[kaleokeanu]

Excited to see this, and ready waiting with cash upon availability!

 

[AlexTheCat123]

The presentation I gave on this project at VCF is on YouTube now if anyone is interested in watching it!

 

[PharmerPhil]

I'm definitely down for this project. Great job!

 

[bmwcyclist]

I would also gladly do $150

 

[AlexTheCat123]

If you want to be notified the moment that the LisaFPGA boards go on sale, fill out this form! Keep in mind that it'll probably still be a few weeks from now though.

LisaFPGA Mailing List Sign-Up

If you want to be notified when the LisaFPGA boards go on sale, fill out this form!

forms.gle

 

[alectrona6400]

i saw a few of these boards while i was at VCF SW and i gotta say i am very impressed with your work. hopefully in the future we can have something like an FPGA SE/30 especially considering a lot of the original hardware is dying on those. (ask me how i know)

 

[Forrest]

I watched your video from VCFSW - excellent work on the project.

Hopefully this project helps you when you graduate and look for a job.

 

[mst3k]

I see these have popped up over at JCM for $300?
Shown as 'out of stock'.
Just curious if that is the AlexTheCat price or the Joe's Computer Museum price?
I have to say that I'm still in either way, but I'm wondering if the 68KMLA imaginary pricing at $150 is closer to the pin than the reality pricing of $300 at JCM?

LisaFPGA – Joe's Computer Museum

jcm-1.com

 

[zigzagjoe]

See below for prior discussion of updated pricing. FWIW, $300 does not at all surprise me, between tariffs (yep they're still a problem), component shortages, and an expensive 6 layer board. Been there, done that

OP updated the thread over on lisalist2 yesterday - he's hoping to have 50 boards at VCF Southwest for ~$300/each

JLC just finished manufacturing the boards, so they should be shipped out pretty soon. Hopefully they'll be here by VCF; it's going to be really close!

I just added a neat feature that very few people will probably ever have a use for, but it comes in handy for me sometimes with LOS experimentation, as well as with Xenix's hard drive size limits. If you connect one of the pins on the GPIO header to 3.3V, then the FPGA will intercept any reads to address FCC030 and always return 88 instead of A8, making software think that it's running on a 2/10 instead of a 2/5. Pretty neat, right?

Quote from: bmwcyclist on May 12, 2026, 12:55:58 PMDid I miss where the price was posted?

Sorry, I completely forgot to respond to you! It's looking like about $300. I really wanted it to be cheaper, but the prices of chips have gone up quite significantly since my last order. Take the FPGA for instance. When I placed my first order back in November, it was $20 apiece, but now it's like $50. And many of the other chips have increased by similar proportions too. It sucks!

 

[AlexTheCat123]

Yeah, I promise it's not me trying to be greedy or anything! I genuinely could've achieved something around that $150 price a few months ago, but with increasing chip prices, it's just not possible anymore. I didn't realize how much things had gone up at the time when I made that $150 projection, but that's unfortunately just the way it is now.

 

[mst3k]

Yeah, I promise it's not me trying to be greedy or anything! I genuinely could've achieved something around that $150 price a few months ago, but with increasing chip prices, it's just not possible anymore. I didn't realize how much things had gone up at the time when I made that $150 projection, but that's unfortunately just the way it is now.

$300 does not at all surprise me

All good and understood. As stated, I'm just excited to see this happening. However, I was a bit confused by the much repeated $150 price tag here and the contrary references to $300 that ZZJ cited. Honestly, still seems like a bargain to me.
Thanks for clarifying and most happy to purchase from JCM if that is the preferred route.

 

[AlexTheCat123]

I just shipped all of the boards out to JCM and MacEffects this morning, and they should arrive to them on Monday. At that point, anyone who preordered will get their order fulfilled from MacEffects, and then purchasing will go live for everyone else. I'll also make the Github repo public at that point; I can't beforehand because the readme contains a link to the MacEffects order page that is restricted to preorders right now.

At the moment, it's looking like MacEffects is going to have 7 boards and 0 Twiggy adapters left to sell after the preorders are fulfilled, and JCM will have 20 boards and 4 Twiggy adapters left. So plenty for anyone who still wants one!

You may also notice that the price has increased to $350 (except for preorders, who will still be $300 as originally promised). I really hate to do this, and you can find a much longer-winded explanation of why I had to over on LisaList2, but the TL;DR is that I've been working on getting the boards ready to ship all day every day for nearly a month now, am likely to lose most or all of my money on 5 boards that arrived defective from JLCPCB, and I'm also feeling really burned out over the project as a whole because of how much work it has been. I hope everyone can understand!

 

[Torbar]

I just shipped all of the boards out to JCM and MacEffects this morning, and they should arrive to them on Monday. At that point, anyone who preordered will get their order fulfilled from MacEffects, and then purchasing will go live for everyone else. I'll also make the Github repo public at that point; I can't beforehand because the readme contains a link to the MacEffects order page that is restricted to preorders right now.

At the moment, it's looking like MacEffects is going to have 7 boards and 0 Twiggy adapters left to sell after the preorders are fulfilled, and JCM will have 20 boards and 4 Twiggy adapters left. So plenty for anyone who still wants one!

You may also notice that the price has increased to $350 (except for preorders, who will still be $300 as originally promised). I really hate to do this, and you can find a much longer-winded explanation of why I had to over on LisaList2, but the TL;DR is that I've been working on getting the boards ready to ship all day every day for nearly a month now, am likely to lose most or all of my money on 5 boards that arrived defective from JLCPCB, and I'm also feeling really burned out over the project as a whole because of how much work it has been. I hope everyone can understand!

reading through that thread, might be worth seeing if you can find someone stateside to do the BGA repair?
2 names that come to mind are dosdude1 - https://doslabelectronics.com/repair
or maybe rossman repair group?

No idea what the cost would be, but might end up being cheaper than shipping back and forth to JLC or selling them at a loss

 

[demik]

See below for prior discussion of updated pricing. FWIW, $300 does not at all surprise me, between tariffs (yep they're still a problem), component shortages, and an expensive 6 layer board. Been there, done that

Yeah, I promise it's not me trying to be greedy or anything! I genuinely could've achieved something around that $150 price a few months ago, but with increasing chip prices, it's just not possible anymore. I didn't realize how much things had gone up at the time when I made that $150 projection, but that's unfortunately just the way it is now.

Missed this thread here. Awesome work!

Same as other members here, given how how much work went into it and today cost of components manufacturing costs, that's about a $400 project from my estimation (you will always get dead boards etc).

So $350 is still good value. You are just learning manufacturing and distribution costs Also your time is money!

 

[wottle]

I just shipped all of the boards out to JCM and MacEffects this morning, and they should arrive to them on Monday. At that point, anyone who preordered will get their order fulfilled from MacEffects, and then purchasing will go live for everyone else. I'll also make the Github repo public at that point; I can't beforehand because the readme contains a link to the MacEffects order page that is restricted to preorders right now.

At the moment, it's looking like MacEffects is going to have 7 boards and 0 Twiggy adapters left to sell after the preorders are fulfilled, and JCM will have 20 boards and 4 Twiggy adapters left. So plenty for anyone who still wants one!

You may also notice that the price has increased to $350 (except for preorders, who will still be $300 as originally promised). I really hate to do this, and you can find a much longer-winded explanation of why I had to over on LisaList2, but the TL;DR is that I've been working on getting the boards ready to ship all day every day for nearly a month now, am likely to lose most or all of my money on 5 boards that arrived defective from JLCPCB, and I'm also feeling really burned out over the project as a whole because of how much work it has been. I hope everyone can understand!

Amazing work. I’ll be looking to grab one from JCM! Sorry to hear about the JLCPBC issues! Any chance you’d start up a way for people to give you come money for your work on this and the ESProfile? I know I’d contribute and I bet others would as well.