Is it a Lisa or Mac XL?!

From: Christopher Smith <csmith_at_amdocs.com>
Date: Wed Nov 28 10:15:58 2001

> -----Original Message-----
> From: MTPro_at_aol.com [mailto:MTPro_at_aol.com]

> question has not been adulterated with a ROM upgrade or
> screen modification,
> etc., it can run the Lisa OS - any Lisa 2 or Mac XL. All Mac
> XLs are Lisa 2s,

Well, the screen-mod isn't necessarily a show-stopper. Lisa OS really
doesn't care, from my limited experience with just the kind of Mac XL you
speak of at the end of this post. You can pull the glue off of a couple of
pots in the monitor (clearly labeled at that, IIRC), and adjust the aspect
ratio of the screen back to normal Lisa style.

> Macintosh XL: The Macintosh XL is exactly the same as a Lisa
> 2/10. Only the
> sticker on the box, the operating system, and the instruction
> manuals are
> different. Instead of Lisa OS, the bundled OS is Macintosh
> System software
> and MacWorks XL, a Lisa program which allows 64K Macintosh
> ROM emulation. If
> you have MacWorks XL instead of Lisa OS disks, a 10MB
> internal hard drive, no
> Lisa Lite card, and a 1.8-A power supply, yours is probably a
> MacintoshXL.

It should be noted here that the Macintosh system software is arguably not
the operating system in this case. (MacWorks is... If I understand correctly
it's slightly more of an emulation than simply providing the toolbox ROM.)

> them in December 1989 for $1095 had started life as a Lisa 2/5. Sun
> Remarketing had installed the screen modification kit (giving
> it square
> pixels like a Mac instead of it's native rectangular ones),

Again, I think "installed the screen modification kit" might be giving them
too much credit, since it seemed with mine that they only did some pot
tweaking. :)

> Mac Plus 128k
> ROMs to support the installed 800k drive and a Sun
> Remarketing installed

Now this is interesting. As I mentioned in a previous post, they had
something in mind called an "XLerator," which seemed to be a daughterboard
kind of setup that took the place of the entire 68k cpu, and replaced it
with a conglomeration of Mac junk. :) (No offense to Mac people, but I
wanted a Lisa, and this prevented Lisa OS from booting ;)

I may at some point try to get that CPU board working (by which I mean,
actually booting Lisa OS) again.

Regards,

Chris


Christopher Smith, Perl Developer
Amdocs - Champaign, IL

/usr/bin/perl -e '
print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n");
'
 
Received on Wed Nov 28 2001 - 10:15:58 GMT