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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."
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.
does that mean that there is some chance of getting my atari 1400ST running apache?
Carpe meam simiam!
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!
That was the sound of a lisa 2 exploding.
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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.
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)
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.
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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?"
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.