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Edition 2026-07-11

TECHNOLOGY

LisaFPGA Recreates Apple Lisa on FPGA Board

Alex Anderson‑McLeod released LisaFPGA, an open‑source recreation of Apple’s Lisa computer that runs on an FPGA board.

By theregister · 48d ago · Source: theregister

Full article

Alex Anderson‑McLeod released LisaFPGA, an open‑source recreation of Apple’s Lisa computer that runs on an FPGA board. Hardware sales began in May and continue through two vendors, MacEffects and Joe’s Computer Museum. The project provides a bitstream that can be downloaded for users to assemble their own boards. The README states that onboard ESP32‑based floppy drive emulation does not yet work and that support for Twiggy drives via an optional breakout board is currently untested. The Lisa computer, introduced in 1983, was one of the first mass‑market systems with a graphical user interface, but only about 2,700 units were produced and most were discarded. Apple released the Lisa OS source code in 2023 under the Apple Academic License Agreement, which permits recompilation and study but forbids redistribution. Anderson‑McLeod compiled the OS after obtaining the source from the Computer History Museum and applied that knowledge to the FPGA design. The LisaFPGA board is priced at £264.89 from MacEffects and $350 from Joe’s Computer Museum. The first batch sold out, and the vendors will contact buyers when the next batch is ready. A separate Lisa GUI website recreates the machine’s user interface in a web browser. The LisaEm emulator, hosted on GitHub, is maintained by Ray Arachelian, who died in 2023, leaving the project at version 1.2.7 release candidate 4. The developer has invited community contributions to complete the floppy emulation and expand functionality.

Source transparency

Publisher
theregister
Reliability
high
Published
7/11/2026, 10:00:36 AM
Retrieved
7/11/2026, 10:00:36 AM
Relevance
80%
Confidence
85%
Read original at theregister

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