5 hours ago
- Apple Lisa was the precursor to the Macintosh, but was expensive and a commercial failure, with few surviving units.
- A new FPGA-based replica by [AlexElectronics] supports both original Lisa peripherals (keyboard, mouse) and modern interfaces (USB, HDMI, SD card).
- The project includes a 40-pin DIP UART chip due to lack of a pre-built UART for the FPGA, and will be open-sourced on GitHub.
- Comments note that the Lisa's serial number DRM protected software, but the FPGA can be programmed to bypass it, preserving old I/O like CRT monitors.
- The Lisa was essential for early Mac development as it ran the Mac SDK, and later could run Mac software via MacWorks; the Macintosh XL was a modified Lisa 2.
- Copy protection often harms legitimate users, and the Lisa's DRM is seen as a minor issue since the machine was a commercial flop.