Thread

Developing for Lisa

68kMLA Software 14 posts Nov 27, 2007 to Nov 29, 2007

#1 Tue, 27 Nov 2007 - 13:43 68kMLA

How would one go about developing for the Lisa 2?

#2 Tue, 27 Nov 2007 - 14:44 68kMLA

That's a good question!

I have absolutely no idea, but i suppose you would have to use 68000 assembler or pascal, which is what the developers originally used.

#3 Tue, 27 Nov 2007 - 21:22 68kMLA

If you're talking native Lisa (i.e. not running MacWorks) then you need the Lisa Workshop. It includes Assembly and Pascal, plus there's also a Basic and a Cobol I believe. It's easy to find a copy online and it runs in the emulators. David Craig has some simple documents showing how to use it, plus there is other documentation floating about as well. Google will find it for you.

Ken

#4 Tue, 27 Nov 2007 - 21:53 68kMLA

Has anyone actually written any programs? I mean I've NEVER seen a Lisa running stuff other than the Office system and OS

#5 Wed, 28 Nov 2007 - 01:29 68kMLA

If you have a Lisa, download the software and install - then you will see one. If you don't, download an emulator first.

I don't really understand the point of your post.

#6 Wed, 28 Nov 2007 - 02:19 68kMLA

my point is i dont know that anyoen actually wrote sftware for teh Lisa other than apple

#7 Wed, 28 Nov 2007 - 02:28 68kMLA

Ah - there was very little third party software for the Lisa. You can easily write programs with the workshop, and no doubt many people did, but Office System is pretty much all there is for end-user type apps.

Contrast this to the Mac where Apple aggressively encouraged third party development.

Ken

#8 Wed, 28 Nov 2007 - 02:40 68kMLA

Coudl anyone write a simple Hello World app for the Lisa 2? I dont own one, but I would just like to see it run something other than the office system as I never have

#9 Wed, 28 Nov 2007 - 04:39 68kMLA

I can understand wanting to write a program on an obsolete machine just to say you did it, but there probably aren't a lot of Lisas left out there and of those most of them probably don't get much actual runtime anymore. Is it worth it to write a new program from scratch for a Lisa?? At least with an Apple II you know there is still a community large enough to appreciate your efforts. Lisa owners who actually use their machines rather than keep them for preservation or profit must be down to just a handful or so by now.

#10 Wed, 28 Nov 2007 - 10:51 68kMLA

weren't less than 10,000 lisas produced?

if that's the case there's surely not that many around.

Having said that, people an still appreciate your effort with emulators though.

#11 Wed, 28 Nov 2007 - 13:48 68kMLA

I simply mean in an emulator. I mean its really just a proof-of-concept

#12 Thu, 29 Nov 2007 - 18:58 68kMLA

I've got scans of the Lisa development docs somewhere. I do need help in converting them over into proper PDF's. If someone can help me with those, I'd be glad to put'em online.

;D

#13 Thu, 29 Nov 2007 - 19:27 68kMLA

I've got scans of the Lisa development docs somewhere. I do need help in converting them over into proper PDF's. If someone can help me with those, I'd be glad to put'em online. ;D

What format are they currently in?

#14 Thu, 29 Nov 2007 - 20:32 68kMLA

They're in some weird ass Visioneer format. .MAX, but I can export'em to PNG, TIFF, Multipage TIFF, GIF, or JPG. Ideally, I'd like'em to be turned into a PDF that's got OCR'ed text. I think there's some mixed format that displays the images, but lets you search on the OCR'ed text and copy as ASCII.