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Running A Web Server On An Apple Lisa 2
pinqkandi writes: "Saw this come along the MacHTTP discussion list; some one got an Apple Lisa 2 running a web server. Quite an impressive feat. Be quick to check it out - they expect to shut it down about 8am CST on 1/2/02."
Ah, poor Lisa 2... She couldn't stand the hits.
"Yeah, well, Dracula called and he's coming over tonight for you and I said okay."
No comments yet, and the server is already down.
/. some poor fool's web server?
How many more times do we have to
No comment at this time
Not if we can't shut it down first!
Too late. I thought this would be pretty interesting, too.
see Subject :)
I expect it to shut down--...
/. effect...
Oh wait, nevermind.
Damned
-Kef
does that mean that there is some chance of getting my atari 1400ST running apache?
Carpe meam simiam!
Many of us will see this as hard work and ingenuity on the part of the people who hacked together this webserver. How many here will try to twist this into some kind of example of why "Apple's great because even their 17 year old hardware can be used a webserver" ?
I remember a few years back the guys ar l0pht had a mac plus (the lisa's younger brother) running as a web server. And some sick people actually made an Apple ][ into a web server.
Netcraft says it's running Solaris...
Most older IP stacks for Apples have a low amount of available sockets, such as 16 or 32. Once those are all being used, the machine can no longer accept connections.. Thus this link suffered instant slashdot. Good job!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That was the sound of a lisa 2 exploding.
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
This has got to be one of the best slashdot linkages in recent memory. How do you expect anyone to see this reeking Lisa 2 thing if people with pretty major servers go under when slashdot links to them?
"Hey guys, check this out, some guy has managed to wire up an ethernet cable to his parrot's brain, they say if they get over 200 hits/hour his legs will explode. Anyway, here's the link."
NICE.
We could use budding technology like that at not@homeinternet service.
This is the original message as posted to the MacHTTP discussion list for those interested in the Lisa's details:
Hello All,
Due to the many requests, I just put on-line my Apple Lisa2 web
server.
Since I am not finished with my site content I am only going leave her
up till about 8:00am on 1/2/2002 US Central Time. Check it out at:
http://www.lisa2.com
Let me know what you think. As far as I know, She is the only Apple
Lisa2
based web server in the world, and she may be one of the oldest PC's
on the net!
My current config is:
Apple Lisa2
Lisa Screen Mod.
800K disk Mod.
1 Meg slot RAM
MacWorks+II Ver 2.5.5
XLerator 18 with 8 meg Fast RAM
Sun SCSI with QuickBoot ROM
500 Meg SCSI Drive with Apple ROM
Mac System 7.01?
MacTCP 2.06
MacHTTP 2.2.2
TCP/IP via MacIP to my RevB iMac running IPnetrouter.
iMac Modem @ 50K to net.
Thanks,
R
Shut up and eat your vegetables!!!
I've seen a server or two running on Mac Pluses (8MHz 68000 vs. the Lisa/Lisa2/MacXL's 5MHz 68000), some Classics (8MHz 68000), LCs (16MHz 68020) and SE/30s (16MHz 68030), but never a Lisa.
:)
Good show to whoever got it set up. Too bad it could never hope to handle a slashdotting...
Believe it or not, Mac Pluses and other 68k Macs (running either MacHTTP or some form of 68k BSD) seem to make pretty good servers for sites with fairly low traffic (Not to mention cheap!). Of course, you'll never see Slashdot running on a Quadra.
SIGFEH
Putting up a link to a lisa2 webserver on slasdot is like tickeling the old lady's feet who is holding up your car with her bare hands while you change your oil... Nice going... it's crashed.. I bet you're very proud:)
"as plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee" - Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz. (One man's humorous is another mans flamebait)
Nothing in my experience comes close to the iPic. I suppose if they started weaving webservers into currency, that would be even more impressive (and quite a bit scarier). Still, the matchhead-sized server is quite cool.
A beowulf-cluster of Lisa's running machttp in a massive geriatric webfarm. Kind of a silicon heaven.
Actually, try something with about the same power as a TI86. This was slashdotted about a year ago.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
I'd like to congratulate the readers of slashdot for a new slashdot record of 2.8 seconds for shutdown. It'll probably be broken when I finish my webserver on a NES.
I won't be truly impressed until I see an a site being served with a turing machine, run manually by a guy drawing dots on a paper looking at a T1 line terminating in a green LED.
The only danger of this is that is may be the first recorded death due to slashdotting.
Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
Granted, I've not toyed with it under Linux, but it works just peachy in Windows.
You heartless bastards. Couldn't you have given it 'till 7:55 AM?
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Hey there's TCP/IP for the TI-89! The TI-89's got a 68k chip and 188K of RAM! I'd love to set a server up on mine ;D
;D
Of course you need a computer running serial-to-network pass-through to connect it to the net... But that's a minor detail.
If you read the comments the guy made, he just put it up temporarily because some people asked him too, but there isn't any content, so he's taking it down at 8am, presumably to add content and fiddle with it some more. So for those of you complaining because it was slashdotted, it will be back, but I doubt he'll let /. find out so quickly if he can help it.
What?
There are too many lazy bastards on Slashdot.
Look at the 50 some odd redundant comments about the Slashdot effect on the poor Lisa box. I know it's hard people, but Edit/Find "slashdotted" would have prevented all the worthless posts.
I assumed he'd somehow managet to squeeze apache down to run under the Lisa Unix (which was swap based and limited to actual memory on hand for mac app size [kinda like a 7.1 mac :-] ...)
Poor little Lisa. She was just serving up pages to a few hundred or so of the Mac faithful when the Penguin known as Slashdot set it's lustful eyes upon it. Now, it's bandwidth stuffed to overflowing, the Lisa sits in a corner, weeping openly.
Slashdot: When bashing Apple and beatifying Linux is a way of life!
-------------------------------------------------
This aside, it might not be impossible to get a stock Lisa 2 (or even a Lisa 1!) on the net. Microsoft (if you can believe it) had a version of Xenix for both Lisa models. One could potentially program some "http server" that operates over one of the serial lines or perhaps do something more baroque than that (e.g. implement serial line PPP+web server in user mode).
If someone can find me a copy of Xenix on 5.25" Twiggy media and a spare ProFile external HD (5 megabytes!), I'll put my Lisa 1 on the net. Yes, I own one.
I used to have a webpage about the Lisa. The server that held it (a 386) suffered an untimely demise after another administrator ran rm -rf /. Fortunately, you can still view the old content online with the help of the Internet Archive. Go here and here to see some of the old content.
The Apple Lisa Web Page will return someday, I promise...
--Tom
MAN SHOOTS ROVER!
Besides, the Apple Lisa has more than enough RAM for such a task (512kB), there's room for both a real tcp/ip stack and a real webserver without having to wrestle for space. And I am sure it has a serial-port you can run PPP over (which is a really simple protocol, if you choose to implement only what you need).
And, as someone already has mentioned earlier in this thread, the Lisa mentioned is so upgraded that it is no longer really a Lisa. Which makes it even less impressive.
... there was some other purpose to the post.
Honestly. They put up a link to a Lisa 2 Web server and expect that it will stay running? The only redeeming conversation that's going to come out of this whole post is going to be the jokes made of it... (I personally like the Parrot-Brain one...)
Karma: Non-Heinous
I bet the feds shut it down.
"WHAT? A little girl named Lisa, only 17 years old, and she's on the Internet? We've got to stop this, fast!!!"
We didn't take it down, THEY took it down.
I used to sell Lisas back when they were new. A fair percentage of them went to government research offices. Some of them were wiped of LisaOS and they put SCO Xenix on them, and went straight onto the net. I also used to sell the old original Apple Portable (you know, the huge one with the lead-acid batteries) with AIX and they went on the net too.
So this bozo is going about it entirely the wrong way. It's not like its the first time anyone used a Lisa on the net. It's just that there was no HTTP back when the Lisa was new. Most people used UUCP and FTP.
Slashdotting in itself is funny, but slashdotting a lisa 2? three users at a time could probably "slashdot" a lisa 2.... I'd be surprised if the traffic didn't set the thing ablaze!
No, YOU are rewriting history, buying into BillG's revision of the GUI, to make it look like Apple was no innovator.
Apple was working on the GUI long before they ever saw Xerox PARC's demo, and before PARC even started their initial GUI work. This was all documented on slashdot ages ago, when Apple released some early GUI interface docs to Stanford. Go hunt it up.
And to put to rest that OTHER stupid rumor, Apple did not copy Xerox's GUI. Xerox licensed certain aspects of their GUI to Apple. Apple needed only a couple of pieces to finish the job, and Xerox made good royalties from Apple, more than they ever made from their own products. Apple did not copy Xerox, the Apple GUI was substantially superior to Xerox's. Xerox and had almost nothing in common with LisaOS or anything else.
In return for the slashdotting, now I want to see the /. site deployed on an Apple Lisa 2.
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
The Lisa, unlike Macs until the 68030 machines, had an MMU, and hence could support a protected-mode operating system, which it did. So running a server on an original Lisa with the original software wouldn't be unreasonable. (You'd have to implement a TCP stack, probably in Lisa Pascal, but so be it.)
Unfortunately, Motorola was years late with MMU support for the 680x0 line, and Apple had to homebrew their own MMU. This didn't work very well due to limitations of the M68000 (fixed in the M68010, years too late), and added considerably to the parts count and cost. It also required that all Lisa programs be compiled without using register incrementation on instructions that accessed memory, because the 68000 couldn't back those out on a page fault.
Motorola was so close. If only they hadn't been late with the 68K support chips, we might have avoided the whole x86 era.
Look here to see what I mean.
Has anyone ever done any web server for the Apple ][? (Back when Apple made good computers! Remember when Steve Jobs said "Apple ][ forever" in 1989?)
Look up the history of the Alto, Smalltalk, and Dynabook. It's all on the web and goes back to the 1960's and 1970's. No, Apple didn't just visit Xerox and duplicate the project, but they built on years of published research, much of it by people at Xerox, SRI, and other places. And the fact remains that Xerox shipped an business-oriented personal computer running a GUI before Apple.
It looks to me like this box is not, in fact, a Lisa. We're killing some poor box at Netsol for no reason at all! :o}
%nslookup
Default Server: uinus.pair.com
Address: 209.68.2.73
> www.lisa2.com
Server: uinus.pair.com
Address: 209.68.2.73
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: www.lisa2.com
Address: 216.168.224.70
> 216.168.224.70
Server: uinus.pair.com
Address: 209.68.2.73
Name: wf.networksolutions.com
Address: 216.168.224.70
>
You can spell, but apparently not think very clearly. What do you think is more "personal" about a dedicated, overpriced single-user machine from Apple compared to a dedicated, overpriced single-user machine from Xerox, Sun, or Apollo? It can't be the applications, because all of those machines were used for business and desktop publishing applications.
A few years ago, I intercepted a computer the size of a large deep-freeze, with a built-in keyboard and monitor, and the hard drive had platters slightly larger than a record. I was told it cost the business well over $10k when new. Unfortunately, I had no place to keep it, and it disappeared. Does anyone have information on a computer like this?
Apple did an admirable job popularizing some of these ideas and bringing to market a successful product, although in the process, they cut many corners. But Apple neither developed the groundbreaking ideas nor were they even first to market.
It's been done before
Apparently, this isn't news at all.
...but does a red LED count?
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Telnetting to the site with a GET request fed back this:
HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2002 06:41:09 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.3 (Unix)
Location: http://207.87.8.117
So it certainly seems to be running an Apache server. So how do you get a lisa to run Apache?
If I'm not mistaken, the LC line is the government/public school version of the Quadra line. Same hardware, different stickers...
Help us build a better map!
Does anybody else remember when you spent lots of money for more ROM? :)
ALA Mac and Commodore and Atari...
LR
... She's dead, Jim.
If you need to interpret my post, then you don't get it.
but it just took ages every time there was a hit having to PRESS PLAY ON TAPE
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
I'd have to support the original poster -- the Lisa was the first GUI-based personal computer that I recall. Sure, there was one obscure workstation line (from Xerox) that was GUI based, and some personal computers that could display graphics (e.g. Apple ][, IBM PC). But the Lisa was the first personal computer built with a purely graphical interface.
t ory.html for a basic rundown of who invented what in GUI's -- pretty much Xerox, SRI and Apple. It's not a complete list, but it's a good simple reference. Or you can read http://www.archaic-apples.com/files/lisa/lisa-retr o.html for a more detailed writeup of the Lisa's history.
And the line about Lisa being a "blatant clone of Xerox" is pretty much wrong. Certainly Xerox (and SRI, for that matter) did a lot of groundbreaking GUI work that inspired Apple, but (1) Xerox was an investor in Apple at the time, and (2) Apple is responsible for many of the basic innovations that people expect in GUI's (e.g. the menu bar, the desktop/Finder, dragging window and icons with the mouse, document-centric user view). Read http://www-ee.stanford.edu/~siegman/interface_his
I will agree, though, that Apple blew the pricing for the Lisa. If they'd launched with the pricing they ended up at when it was too late ($3000 + $1000/application) instead of an all-in package ($10,000 for the machine and all 7 applications) it would have been quite competitive with PC's of the day, while $10K was simply too much all at once.
It's a shame -- the Lisa was a wonderful machine for its day, and even now is more advanced in a few ways than current mainstream machines. For example, when you shut a Lisa down it automatically saved state in all applications, and restored state when it started up, so your documents that you were working on would all reopen to the same place, etc. Also, the Lisa filesystem had a level of indirection between displayed names and files, so you could give any name to any file, or even have multiple files with the same name in the same directory (i.e. just like paper documents).
One Apple Lisa, garage sale....$45
Earthlink dial-up access, one month....$14.99
One 2400-baud modem, used....$15
The pure sadistic delight of slashdotting an 18-year-old computer....priceless
Check out the discussion boards. The thing is running on a 56k modem! Gowd damn that's a /. ! :-)
If you think this is cool, you might want to check out this. It is a Commodore 64 that is running as a web server, and has been up 24/7 since november 2001. It is connected to the Internet via a 38400 bps SLIP link so it is quite slow.
For those of you who doesn't remember the Commodore 64, it was a very popular home computer in the 80's and early 90's. It has 64k RAM and an 8-bit 1 MHz 6502 CPU.
The C64 web server is running the small uIP TCP/IP stack that is less than 4k large and uses only a few hundred bytes of dynamic RAM. Since it is written in C, it has been ported to numerous other systems such as the 8-bit Ataris and a number of embedded processors such as the Hitachi H8S.
"Hey you guys! We FINALY got our Lisa server up an running..."
(and this is where it all goes wrong)
"...lets tell SHLASHDOT!"
CPU speed: 5 Mhz
FPU: None
motherboard RAM: 512 k
maximum RAM: 2MB (via 3rd party upgrade)
...and i got a webserver running on my Ericsson T19LX cell phone (custom made for AT&T) and connected thru a DSL line - i aint giving the link here - no way.
You were close, but not quite right. The readers read just fine, it's the posters that don't read.
What's your damage, Heather?
Choose not to click!
When we started the Lisa project in late 1978 our goal was to build a computer that would propel Apple in the business market of the 1980's.
If you actually look at the references I gave you, you'll see that the WIMP interface goes back to the late 1960s and early 1970s. Apple made some engineering enhancements, but they didn't invent the GUI.
i'm doing kinda the same thing...on 8 year newer equipment...circa 1992....has 10 megs of ram (upgraded from 4), sys 7.6.1 (upgraded from 6.5 or so), and a 1.2 gig scsi hd (upgraded from 40 MB)....i got it off ebay with the OS and ram upgrades already in there, plus it came with a rj-45 connection type eithernet card (10 base t)...i've seen as high as 700bps burst, and constants at about 450bps (streaming an mp3). i took out the fan, so it runs silently, puts out only 10 btu's more than the new powerbooks when they sleep (175 btus/hr), and it's rock steady (for my purposes)...1 month up and counting...even has aim, but i don't leave it on due to possible stability issues. makes an excellent http/telnet/ftp server, all with free software (mac has released up to os 8 i think for free on their site).
the server address is http://12.237.66.223/ by the way.
moox. for a new generation.
You are getting lost in technical details. The point of the Xerox work was to create a machine with an easy-to-use, intuitive WIMP interface for business and publishing applications. That's what Xerox delivered, and that's what Apple delivered as well.
I'd have to support the original poster -- the Lisa was the first GUI-based personal computer that I recall. Sure, there was one obscure workstation line (from Xerox) that was GUI based,
Why is one company's obscure product (Apple Lisa) any better than another company's obscure product (Xerox workstations) if they both were intended to serve the same purpose?
Apple is a company that does good engineering, good design, and good marketing. Apple created the first commercially successful personal computer with a GUI (the Macintosh). Why isn't all of that enough? Why this obsessive need to create a mythology around that company?
Why do people post links to these ancient web servers? Does anyone think that a 5Mhz box with 512K-2M of ram is going to stand up to a slashdotting? Since we all know what's going to happen couldn't this be considered an intentional DOS?
According to Apple,
they were incorp. in 1977.
While I have a Xerox PARC document that states:
"We have been teaching Smalltalk to children since the Spring of 1974" (Smalltalk in the Classroom by Adele Goldberg)
And on another document (Methods for Teaching Smalltalk, Goldberg & Kay, 1977), there is a picture of what looks like a MacPaint program -- written by a student between the ages of 9 and 15 (granted the program is an extension of code written by adults) up to 3 years before 1977! Note that Mac was originally released (with MacPaint) in 1984!
So you can say that Apple learned a thing or two from junior highschool students (with guidance from Xerox PARC staff) years before Lisa or Mac was available.
Danny Kumamoto
any mirrors? :P
Smeghead every day of the week.
A serious reply to your jest: yes (sort of)
You can always run minix on your ST, for one.. and for another you can run Linux/68000 (or more properly said... you can TRY to run it :-)
I've always had an interest in reviving my ST as a terminal, to control an mpg123 playlist running on the Linux box. I like the "instant on" and "no noise" thing about the ST, but I'm too lazy to configure everything ;-)
A beowulf-cluster of Lisa's running machttp in a massive geriatric webfarm. Kind of a silicon heaven.
Well just find the place where they buried all the remaining Lisa's in the 80's[1] and your up and running
[1] Apple Legend
http://www.humanclock.com/webserver.php
It's a webserver on a Tandy 100 Portable computer
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
A lisa 2,and you've sicced Slashdot on it?
You cruel, cruel person...
Check out EveryMac for a list of macs models by processor.
One of my college roommates (this was about 16 years ago) managed to set up a Hewlett Packard HP-41CV calcuator as a terminal to a PDP 11/70. It was amazing how much effort he put into creating a 3 baud LCD terminal.
This was right before he fried the box by connecting it to a home-built 5 VDC power supply that had a 30 VAC hum.
gm
Ad luna, Alicia! Ad luna!
Why couldn't the owner of this thing put Linux m68k on it and run some high-performance web server...no wait, Linux requires 2MB of RAM minimum...
C'mon, a Lisa had the same hardware that people were running Unix variants (Xenix, SCO) on, I don't see that making it a web server in any big deal (except that the hardware is still running).
Now this software, which lets you serve pages on a Newton handheld, pushes the envelope a bit.
I'd like to see someone manage to even get an Apple ][ (the very first) up as a server. A little more RAM, a keyboard update (lowercase add-on), a ROM card, and boom! Not that you'd want to tell many people about it of course...
The coolest voice ever.
documented on slashdot
I rest my case.
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
You do the math.
Hi there,
Heres www.Apple-History.com's info on the Lisa 2.
The Lisa/Lisa 2/Mac XL
Codename: Lisa
CPU: MC68000
CPU speed: 5 Mhz
FPU: None
motherboard RAM: 512 k
maximum RAM: 2MB (via 3rd party upgrade)
number of sockets: 2 -- lisa cards
minimum speed: n/a
ROM: 16k of diagnostic and bootstrap code present
L1 cache: n/a
L2 cache: n/a
data path: 16 bit
bus speed: 5 Mhz
slots: 3 Proprietary
SCSI: none
Serial Ports: 2 RS-232
Parallel Ports: 1 (dropped in Lisa 2/MacXL)
Floppy: 2 internal 871k 5.25" (400k Sony 3.5" in Lisa2/MacXL)
HD: 5 MB external (10MB in some configurations of Lisa 2/MacXL)
CD-ROM: none
Monitor: 12" 720 x 360 built-in (B/W)
Sound Input/Output: Continuously Variable Slope Demodulator (CVSD)
Ethernet: none
Gestalt ID: 2
power: 150 Watts
Weight: 48 lbs. Dimensions: 15.2" H x 18.7" W x 13.8" D
Min System Software: LisaOS
Max System Software: LisaOS/MacWorks
introduced: January 1983
terminated: August 1986
Thanks, David Craig
Named for one of its designer's daughters, the Lisa (pictured below left) was supposed to be the Next Big Thing. It was the first personal computer to use a Graphical User Interface. Aimed mainly at large businesses, Apple said the Lisa would increase productivity by making computers easier to work with. The Lisa had a Motorola 68000 Processor running at 5 Mhz, 1 MB of RAM two 5.25" 871k floppy drives, an external 5 MB hard drive, and a built in 12" 720 x 360 monochrome monitor. At $9,995 it was a plunge few businesses were willing to take. When the Macintosh came out in 1984 for significantly less money, it eroded the Lisa's credibility further. Realizing this, Apple released the Lisa 2 (pictured above right) at the same time as the Mac. The Lisa 2 cost half as much as the original, replaced the two 5.25" drives with a single 400k 3.5" drive, and offered configurations with up to 2 MB of RAM, and a 10 MB hard drive. In January 1985, the Lisa 2/10 was renamed the Macintosh XL, and outfitted with MacWorks, an emulator that allowed the Lisa to run the Mac OS. The XL was discontinued later that year.
Cheers,
I used to think that people were asking too much of VA software to cache article links; so much work, so much to ask of
/.-ing really only occurs in the first 24 hours. Why couldn't a properly designed dynamic webpage set the link to a
I remember Taco(?) mentioning that it would be unfair to the server's advertisers, but I don't think its implausible to have someone contact the feature's producer and ask them permission to cache the story. Sure they lose the 1st day hits, but they were going to be
The level of caching service required is limited.
So expenses are limited to time for personnel to contact server owners (not much for a "journalistic" enterprise), some hardware, and some bandwidth (already procured). The biggest expense would be to modify slashcode to support it and tools for caching. The economic benefit (more like cost offset) to VA would be the added hits that would be otherwise (not) going to the story's server. It also adds value to
Is this really unfeasible?
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
old ladys.. damn..
cpeterso