My first Lisa

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My first Lisa

Hey guys,

I finally decided to get the Lisa 2 I've always wanted. Made a deal for one on ebay with keyboard and mouse and Profile drive for $850 -- powering on but not booting. I think I'm more or less in line with the market there, maybe a tad high.

It's a 2 (or 2/5) with battery corrosion issue on the I/O Board and a bit on the motherboard near the RS232 port. There is a little chip on the motherboard (74SLxxx something I believe) that had one leg rusted out. Here is what I've done so far:

- Soaked components in 50/50 vinegar/distilled water solution for 12 hours, rinsed with distilled water, blew dry, let sit for 24 hours, cleaned any flaked rust with toothbrush
- Followed all traces passing through the damage zone to verify continuity, and patched any thing along any broken ones in. (there were a couple of resistors on the negative trace that leads to the negative battery terminal that I had to patch in with wire
- Checked continuity with the socketed chips to verify that each pin was making a connection to the socket, and the socket to the underlying traces. Pin 13 of the COP421 was having trouble, so I patched it by slipping in a wirewrap wire to that socket (secured in there with pin 13 against it) and then soldered the other end on the other side of the board to where the socket leg for pin 13 sticks out. Verified continuity.

When I first got the machine, plugging it in produced nothing other than the power button light and a red light somewhere in the drive cage. After doing all the work above, the screen now comes on to an Error 52 (COP421 error). Once or twice, by accident, I got it to come up to a different error where it asked to boot from a different device (but keyboard and mouse did not work). But usually it just beeps and comes up to Error 52. And there's a little H up in the upper right of the screen all by itself.

I guess my question is, given the attached photos of the damage -- would I be better to abandon this and just start hunting for a replacement I/o board (ie. do the mod that allows you to run a 2/10 board in there)? I'm wondering if others have experience repairing this sort of thing successfully. Also wondering if there's any way a novice without an oscilloscope (yet) can diagnose the COP421 chip to see if it's alive.

So I guess in short -- what would you do? Smile Advice greatly appreciated.

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Re: My first Lisa

I found one more trace to repair, and have successfully brought my Lisa back to life. It has MacWorks installed, so now I'm looking to convert it back to the Lisa OS.

Here's a video of it booting up for the first time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnM0ou1bvx0 (really noisy Profile)

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Re: My first Lisa

Congratulations, that acid damage looked bad. I'm no expert, but doesn't those cables need to be isolated? Also the Lisa sounds like it can use some oil on the moving parts, but again, I really don't know.
Cheers
Javster

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Re: My first Lisa

Looks great. Love it when these older systems are brought back into working order. Nice video. Looks like you were trying to select a menu item with the mouse at the end of the video. Did you get the mouse working?

-Gil

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Re: My first Lisa

Thanks!! I'm having to use my Plus mouse for now.. the Lisa mouse has some issues with rightward movement (all other directions are ok).

What I'm hoping to do is make some LOS disks and install the Lisa Office System on the Profile. But I've got a reluctant 400k drive that doesn't seem to want to read/init properly.

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Re: My first Lisa

Congratulations, that acid damage looked bad. I'm no expert, but doesn't those cables need to be isolated? Also the Lisa sounds like it can use some oil on the moving parts, but again, I really don't know.
Cheers
Javster

I'm not sure. Basically I just followed the schematics and made sure that the flow of power was getting wherever it needed to be. That one messy area in the center where I've got a few wires -- I call it the 'negative' trace -- there were three different items that needed to be connected to it and the trace was broken in 2 different places. I still didn't have it working until yesterday afternoon, when I pulled the battery switch up and found one more trace I hadn't nailed down. It's working like a hot damn now, so I'm not messing with it. Smile

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Re: My first Lisa

Thanks!! I'm having to use my Plus mouse for now.. the Lisa mouse has some issues with rightward movement (all other directions are ok).

What I'm hoping to do is make some LOS disks and install the Lisa Office System on the Profile. But I've got a reluctant 400k drive that doesn't seem to want to read/init properly.

Nice! Glad to see another Lisa come back from the dead. For what it's worth, 400k drives from early Macs are the same as the drive in the Lisa, so if you have one of those (and they're getting harder to find) you can sub it in.

I have not tried this with my Profiles, but I read on some board that running them upside down for a bit quiets the squealing as that lets the bearing lube run back down into the bearings. Again - this may be BS, but I should try it on one or two of mine.

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Last seen: 1 year 7 months ago
Joined: Nov 24 2013 - 13:23
Posts: 226
Re: My first Lisa

Thanks!! I'm having to use my Plus mouse for now.. the Lisa mouse has some issues with rightward movement (all other directions are ok).

What I'm hoping to do is make some LOS disks and install the Lisa Office System on the Profile. But I've got a reluctant 400k drive that doesn't seem to want to read/init properly.

Nice! Glad to see another Lisa come back from the dead. For what it's worth, 400k drives from early Macs are the same as the drive in the Lisa, so if you have one of those (and they're getting harder to find) you can sub it in.

I have not tried this with my Profiles, but I read on some board that running them upside down for a bit quiets the squealing as that lets the bearing lube run back down into the bearings. Again - this may be BS, but I should try it on one or two of mine.

I did the Profile upside down trick, and actually, things quieted down. Seemed happier being upside down. However when I flipped it back over again, the noise came back.

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Re: My first Lisa

falter,

I am by no means an expert, but when a hard drive starts sounding that noisy, its time to find a replacement.

If you turned it upside-down and the noise lessened, it is probably the drive spindle is getting ready to go.

Steven Smile

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Re: My first Lisa

The ProFile drives get noisier over time, in my experience. Normally, just letting them run for a while so that they heat up will help the grease re-distribute throughout the drive. With mine, I ran it on its side for about half an hour. Quieted down considerably.

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