3 Apr
2011
3 Apr
'11
10:38 a.m.
On Sun, 3 Apr 2011, Mr Ian Primus wrote:
Another important question - do you have the
keyboards? Are they
working? The Lisa uses the capacitive foam disc keyboards, and most of
them are now non-working due to the foam rotting. I've been able to fix
this sort of keyboard by making a sandwich of the plastic/foam/mylar
materials, and using a little punch (a machinist friend made it for me)
to punch out replacement discs. It's very tedious.
I saw some information on the web about that, but it's hard to believe any
of the branded items (e.g. punches) will still be available from the
sources cited. Should be an interesting battle! I'm actually surprised
that no enterprising individual has offered sets of foom pads as a
product.
I cleaned things up enough to get the self-test and startup to run. The
DB-9F mouse connector is effectively destroyed from the battery
electrolyte. If I wiggle the connector the mouse is operational, though.
A good sign. Not looking forward to pulling the old DB9 right-angle
connector from the motherboard... This one is too far gone for cleaning
and will definitely need to be replaced.
At the end of the internal self-test (everything passes!) it complains
that the keyboard is not plugged in. I get this result with both
keyboards. Is that the symptom of dead foam disks? Somehow I thought it
would still know a keyboard was out there, so perhaps this is something
else altogether. There was so much corrosion on the edge connector at the
rear of the CRT cage that it could simply be bad contacts at that point.
Will have to start checking continuity.
A minor point would be the mice. The Lisa uses the
same mouse
(electrically) that the Macintosh 128/512/Plus used - and this was what
shipped with the Lisa 2/10. But the Lisa 2/5 (with the battery pack and
the external ProFile port) shipped with a different looking mouse, with
a thin button and sharper corners. The difference is purely cosmetic,
but some collectors are picky. :D
I'm almost positive these are the original mice.
The one ProFile drive that comes ready tries VERY hard to boot, but
eventually fails with an error 10707. This is after a considerable amount
of access, so something is almost alive there!
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