E-mu Emulator Sampler User Forum for the EIII EII EI and EIII XP

hello all,

i recently got an e3xp rack, it was sold with a "disc load problem" well when i got it and all the lights were on and the display was all filled in lines... i opened her up. on the front right all the way in the front, i believe the memory chips are all missing and there are several sockets with missing chips. what im hoping is to know what chips should actually be there and if the memory used is the same chips from the emax II since they are the same time frame and perhaps swap-able. 
thanks and if anyone can assist that'd be fantastic. id love to get this old girl runnin..

shawn rudiman
synthdrome@gmail.com

The service manual for the EIIIx shows that the machine uses ZIP RAM.  IF you tell me the numbers of the sockets with missing chips I will tell you what (if any) chip is supposed to be in that location.

synthtec,

the slots that are "empty" have 2 designations.. one on one side of the chip seat, one on the other. they are as follows: u1-16, c9-12, u 17-32, c18-26, u33-46, c27-35, u49- 64.  all of these seats are empty. seems like this is where memory would be seated?  large tracks of seat usually represent mem locations.  if the memory has been poached, i assume this would affect all fucntions, since the os. would have no where to reside?  also is therea boot eprom that may be affected as well. since something " i assume" should come up on the screen, when its powered on..?  this is the first eIII ive owned, but have all the other emu samplers. so im guessing on its hierarchy.. any help is greatly appreciated. thanks!

shawn rudiman

The "U" designations are for chips, the "C" designations are for the decoupling capacitors for each if the chips. The "U" positions would be for the 1 Meg DRAM memory chips, I would guess that they would probably be 424400 ZIP RAM chips for sample storage.

ahh, gotcha.  figured id give all the info i could. are there multiple kinds of zip ram or is "zip ram" zip ram..?  ive found a pc recycler-store place that has zip ram.  its not labeld as to the code.. heres exactly how its listed  "ZIP RAM  256k by 4  vram "  would this be a long shot be compatible with the EIII?  thanks for your help! MUCHO!

shawn rudiman

Possibly compatible, but I don't know. Sounds like the right size. The chips are SIP's as in single inline packages, 1 row of pins, not two rows like regular IC's.

cool, i may take a chance on a couple of them... say 1 or 2 megs worth, just to see if they will work. its one more step closer to making her work.

thanks again for the help!

shawn rudiman

also u 65 is missing. big chip seat behing memory area.

There is no U65 in the service manual parts list, it is skipped, so I would guess that there is not meant to be a chip there.

cool, thanks.

ive done some initial searching for the zip ram (20pin ) according to seat count. and have found that the lilttle guys are hard as hell to find..  gggrrrr.  does the eIII have a bootstrap eprom of sorts that has its start up of sorts on or does it wait completely for the floppy or hd?  im assuming it shares mem between os and samples?  not familiar with its heirarchy.  any info would be great!  thanks for the help allready!

shawn rudiman

actaully i have a line on another eIIIxp from a friend.  so i guess ill be either scraping thisn one for parts and keeping some or if anyone needs parts please drop a line.
thanks for all the help!

shawn rudiman
synthdrome@gmail.com

Do you have a digital copy of the EiiiX service manual?   The community would benefit greatly from access to this document!!   If you have a hard copy that you would consider loaning, I can scan the document and return to you, to allow me to make a PDF version to share.