Probably I’m the last to find out, considering that a lot of time has passed since I checked the status of various emulators out there, but I just stumbled onto a very well made emulator for the Lisa. Development is a bit stuck at the moment, but the last version of the emulator, LisaEm 1.26 (2007.12.13) is quite stable and usable. It supports various platforms, and for Mac OS X (10.3.9 to 10.5.x) there’s a handy dmg file containing the documentation, the source code, and the pre-packaged application, so that it’s ready to run. Unlike other emulators, a ROM image is not required to start using the virtual Lisa, but of course you’ll need the Lisa Office System Software, otherwise everything will be pretty much unusable.

The emulator reads Disk Copy 4.2 image files, and you can find both system and application disks at The Mothership. Download the five .sit files containing the disk images for the 3.1 version of the Office System Software, and follow the instructions in the LisaEm documentation to install the software in the virtual machine.

What’s wonderful is the visual impact of this emulator — everything is faithfully emulated: the software and the hardware (even acoustically, you hear the actual sounds of a functioning Lisa). Here’s a screenshot after installing the Office System Software (click to enlarge):

LisaEm 1.26 - What appears on the screen after installing System Office 7/7

That’s right: an image of a true Lisa in front of you. If you insert a virtual floppy, you’ll see a real floppy inside the drive. If you turn the Lisa off, the power light (in the lower right corner) will turn off too. All feels very real and enjoyable.

The other afternoon, my PowerBook 100 resurrected from the dead, in a way that has even a creepy flavour, if you like. As I wrote in the 68k Macintosh Liberation Army forums:

After trying resetting the PMU countless times, disassembling the PowerBook 4 times, checking the checkable — and re-checking, I was pretty sure it was all a matter of battery. “The lead-acid battery has drained beyond repair and unless I find another one, this good old PowerBook won’t power up”, this I said to myself the other day. As a last resort (and because there’s always hope) I left the PowerBook 100 connected to the power adapter and with the battery inserted, hoping it could recharge a little.

Well, today I went out and returned home after a few hours, quite worried because there was a sudden, violent rainstorm and I was concerned for all the Macs left sleeping, the AirPort Express bases, etc. I rushed to my studio and heard a strange whirring sound… it was coming from the PowerBook internal speaker… I remembered that whirr very well… I opened the PowerBook, turned it on and bling!

Looking at my alarm clock on the nightstand, I noticed that the thunderstorm caused a temporary black-out while I was away. I don’t know but, could that power interruption / resumption have provided the “boost of life” to the PowerBook? In any case, it’s alive, and I’m amazed.

Since its internal hard drive had failed a few months ago, I’ve been trying to find another one. Not exactly easy, since this model of PowerBook needs a 2.5” SCSI hard drive with a smaller footprint than other ones. The one that came with my PowerBook is a 40-Megabyte Conner CP2045 manufactured in 1990, and I was lucky enough to find an identical one on eBay recently. What to do with a hard-drive-less PowerBook 100? Why, you use temporary alternatives: the external floppy drive, but most of all you create a RAM disk. The PowerBook 100 has a nice feature: a ‘persistent’ RAM disk. It means that when you turn the PowerBook off, you don’t lose the contents of the RAM disk (provided, of course, the 3 button lithium backup batteries on the back aren’t drained). So I devoted 3 of the 6 MB of RAM to a RAM disk and installed a minimal version of System 6.0.8 (the System Folder is only 750 KB — almost unbelievable), but I was missing the Italian keyboard layout: in the Keyboard control panel the only option was US.

I had downloaded some keyboard layouts from the Web time ago, but simply copying the Italian layout and pasting it inside the System Folder didn’t accomplish anything. A bit of research, and I found the right tip in the 68000 Mac FAQ:

Q: How to add keyboard layouts?
A: Info-mac has some localized keyboard layouts. With System 6, open the System file and the KCHR resource within it with ResEdit. Open the keyboard layout you want to add and the KCHR resource within it as another window. Copy and paste the KCHR layout to the System file’s KCHR resource list and save changes. Select the layout from the Keyboard Control Panel. With System 7 and up you can just drag ‘n drop the layout on top of the System Folder.

And it worked very well. It was so good to do some little ResEdit-ing again! I miss something like ResEdit in Mac OS X.

By the way, the Info-Mac mirror cited in the 68000 Mac FAQ is still working and ftp.funet.fi is a real repository of delightful things, not only for Macs. Keyboard layouts can be found there, too.

On a final note, it’s worth mentioning that the notorious key combination for taking screenshots, Command-Shift-3, was already implemented under System 6. There was no ‘camera click’ sound, and the image files generated were in PICT format.

At least the most frequent.

Taken from Personal Computer World, May 1996 issue. Written by Chris Cain.

One of the most annoying things about the MacOS is its lack of proper error messages. How many times has your Mac crashed with “an error of type X”, without telling you exactly what “X” means? To help you out of some of these situations here’s a list of the most common error numbers and their official meanings, as listed by Apple in its Technical Info Library. If you have access to the World Wide Web you can get a more complete list from Apple’s web site (www.apple.com). There are some errors that even the Apple technical documents don’t explain, specifically Type 11. If I find out what these mean I’ll let you know.

• ID 01 = Bus Error
  A type 01 error usually occurs when the computer tries to access memory that doesn’t exist: you can get this error on almost any Macintosh. In my experience, assigning extra RAM to an application, using its Get Info dialogue, can help prevent it.
• ID 02 = Address Error
  The Motorola 68000 microprocessor can access memory in increments of one byte (8 bits), or one word (16 bits), or one long word (32 bits). This microprocessor can access a byte of information at either an odd or an even memory address. But it mustaccess one word or one long word at an evenmemory address. So, when the microprocessor attempts to read or write a word (or long word) at an oddaddress, you see this error. Since that’s a 50/50 proposition when running random code, this one shows up quite often.
• ID 03 = Illegal Instruction
  The computer has a specific vocabulary of machine language instructions it can understand. If it tries to execute an instruction that isn’t in its vocabulary, you see this error code. It’s less likely than error 02 but is nevertheless common.
• ID 04 = Zero Divide Error
  This error results if the microprocessor divides two numbers, and the divisor is zero. Sometimes a programmer puts these in as debugging aids and forgets to take them out.

Spotlight is undoubtedly a powerful search technology, but I don’t know how much faster it is compared to the erstwhile Find command. In my home network I have temporarily added my old PowerBook 5300 with Mac OS 8.1, and since I needed to transfer some files from the PowerBook G4 Titanium, I mounted the entire volume on the 5300’s desktop, connecting the two Macs via Ethernet (not directly, but through a switch). I was looking for a file on the TiBook volume, but instead of searching it on the TiBook with Spotlight, I wanted to try one little thing: searching it via the Find command on the PowerBook 5300. The TiBook volume is 40 GB, and of course the Find command in Mac OS 8.1 doesn’t know about indexing — it’s search-as-you-go, so to speak. Well, search took 5 seconds. I say I’m quite impressed.

Let’s start with a photo:

Macintosh 128K rear label

Just to understand where I come from. Well, this wasn’t exactly the first Mac I used — those were a SE (with two floppy drives, no hard drive) and a Plus. This Original Macintosh 128K was given to me as a gift, but “as is”, that is, it’s not functioning. All the parts inside are OK, save for the Power/Sweep Board (part 661-76214, see picture below), which needs to be desoldered from the CRT monitor, and replaced with a working one. The person who donated this Mac to me has generously given me a new one. Too bad I haven’t got a soldering iron. At the moment this Mac is lying disassembled in ‘the Vault’. The case is in incredible shape, and I also managed to acquire a mouse (the keyboard was included in the gift, although it’s the Macintosh Plus keyboard with a numeric keypad — but I’m not picky!).

Macintosh 128K-512K exploded view

This blog, whose tagline is “The Platinum Days”, wants to be a personal space where I occasionally post my ramblings about the pre-Mac OS X era. The vintage angle here doesn’t want to be just a corner for nostalgia or a collectors’ club where one talks about “the good old times”. Rather, the focus is utility, and what vintage Macs can still do today. Like vintage cars, they can still hit the road, sometimes with unsurpassed elegance.