C Development environment for Apple Lisa and an "LisaPaint" Example App

[PappaDF]

(previously posted this on 68kmla):

I wanted a way to write Lisa applications in C, so I put together a small cross-development environment based on the Retro68 compiler. If you're interested in developing Lisa applications in C, you can check it out here: https://github.com/pappadf/lisa-c

I also needed a demo application to test the C environment, and I've always felt that a "LisaPaint" was missing, so I created a simple first version.

You can find the code here: https://github.com/pappadf/lisa-paint

And you can try it out live here: https://pappadf.github.io/lisa-paint/

(My wanted end goal was really to implement some kind of AppleTalk network support, but I had to start somewhere)

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Note that AI tools were used as part of this work. I know that is a red flag for some, and I fully respect that.

 

[robin-fo]

AppleTalk network support,

That would be cool!

 

[PappaDF]

That would be cool!

Indeed - and it would solve a number of practical problems (e.g. how to easily move fils in and out of an emulated or real Lisa). From a hardware perspective, I think it should be all good, i.e. as far as I know, you could use AppleTalk under MacWorks - it's just the software side that is missing for LOS.

 

[PappaDF]

A first prototype of "LisaShare" - AppleTalk Stack and AFP Client for the Lisa Office System

Try it out here: https://pappadf.github.io/lisa-share/

...and code here: https://github.com/pappadf/lisa-share

AI tools has been used here as well, and I also had the advantage of having another AppleTalk stack to look at from the https://github.com/pappadf/granny-smith project

 

[wottle]

I’ve been looking for ways to add WiFi capabilities to the LisaFPGA I have set up in an all in one case that makes port access challenging. I was planning on slapping an ESP32 with WiFi onto its gpio pins and then having those communicate over the serial port to a custom app on the LisaFPGA side (probably written in Pascal).

Does the AppleTalk communication happen over the serial port? If so, I could have the ESP32 running an AppleTalk server that you can send files to wirelessly and it could provide a nice way to feed files to and from my Lisa.

 

[PappaDF]

I’ve been looking for ways to add WiFi capabilities to the LisaFPGA I have set up in an all in one case that makes port access challenging. I was planning on slapping an ESP32 with WiFi onto its gpio pins and then having those communicate over the serial port to a custom app on the LisaFPGA side (probably written in Pascal).

Does the AppleTalk communication happen over the serial port? If so, I could have the ESP32 running an AppleTalk server that you can send files to wirelessly and it could provide a nice way to feed files to and from my Lisa.

Hi!

First a disclaimer: this is a first prototype, only tested in emulator, so one should expect bugs.

That said, yes, communication happens over Lisa's serial port B. However, it's not a ordinary serial port (i.e. not RS-232), but the Lisa hardware will in this case rather run synchronous SDLC (230.4 kbit/s). So the ESP32 would have to talk with SDLC framing at 230.4K incl. I don't think the UART of ESP32 supports that. (If this is an FPGA implementation of the Lisa, then it will of course also require that the FPGA models the full Z8530 of the real Lisa hw, incl. SDLC).

However, there are a couple of other projects that I think will solve the hardware problem - the TashTalk project (small microcontroller) and/or "AirTalk" (https://support.airtalk.nl/) which specifically adds wifi and might even be based on ESP32.