4 Feb
2011
4 Feb
'11
5:36 p.m.
More progress,
I was kindly donated a IWM chip for the Lisa 2/10 by the original seller of
these Lisas I have. He extacted it from a Mac 128 board he had lying
around.
I'm happy to report the machine now boots up. I'm not sure how much further
I'm going to be able to take it though. The widget AND the floppy drive both
have issues. I feel I might be able to fix the floppy. The widget seems a
pretty complicated piece of machinery, info is sparse and I think might be
beyond my limited skills.
Here is a description of the problem with the widget. The certainly spins
and I can hear a definte clack when the break comes off. I can hear drive
seeking noises and the light flashes. I then get an "Error 82". From what
I can read this is a fairly generic error which just means the internal
drive is not working properly. I've tried to install the Lisa Office Suite
and Macworks XL 3.0 from floppy. In the former case I'm told there is no
suitable hard disk to install on, and the latter throws up an error 96.
I've reseated all socketed chips to no avail. It could be a case of just
requiring a low-level format, but I can't find anything on the web that
suggests anyone actually knows how to do this.
The 400k floppy drive has a weird problem. The stepper moves a little on a
disk access call but the motor to rotate the disk doesn't go? The disk
ejects ok. Things have been cleaned and lubed and I am using DD disks this
time. I suspect it might be a sensor problem because once I was examining
the drive when the machine was accessing it and tilted the embedded disk up
slightly at the front. Suddenly it whirred into life and loaded the disk and
the next disk I put in. Then it stopped working again after that. It could
be a sensor maybe? Interestingly my other (spare) 400k shows exactly the
same problem? However, the drive from my recently fixed Lisa 2 is fine and
it was that drive I used to attempt to re-install software on the widget.
I'm going to persist with trying to fix the floppy drives. Given that at
least one of the drives did work for a short amount of time is hopeful. If
nothing comes to light on the widget, I'll either just abandon trying to fix
it and be happy with just a working Lisa 2, and/or perhaps simply look at
getting one of these:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Profile-Widget-Emulator-Board-Apple-Lisa-Apple-III-/140…
.It's quite expensive though and I do like to have things original.
I'll have to mull on it.
Terry
----- Original Message -----
From: "Terry Stewart" <terry at webweavers.co.nz>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2011 9:10 PM
Subject: Apple Lisa 2/10 - Progress
Ok, for those that have been following this project of
mine there has been
progress.
I had a friend visit today who owns a Lisa 2/10. He bought some of his
Lisa ICs with him for swap-out diagnostic purposes.
The cause of the Lisa 2/10 failing its diagnostic test was indeed one of
the two ICs under suspicion on the I/O board . It was the IWM Apple
344-0041 (Integrated WOZ machine controller). The other suspect., the
ROM, appears OK (even though it seems a highly unusual version..I should
learn to use my new (unused) ROM burner and take a copy of the ROM for
posterity).
However, the widget drive itself throws up an error. First things first
though. I'll source a replacement IWM chip first, then worry about the
widget drive. It might just need some exercise.
My friend also had an IDEFile ProFile drive emulator which we hooked up to
my working Lisa 2. Whoo hoo, it was great to see the Lisa Office Suite
boot into action. It looked very cool and in 1983 it would have looked
even cooler!
Tez