E-mu Emulator II + HD questions

[lunatic]

lunatic_77's Avatar
 
Joined: Mar 2009
Location: Germany
Posts: 48

Thread Starter
   
E-mu Emulator II + HD questions
I'm about to buy a EII + HD. The only problem is: the hard disk is about to die. So my question is: are those regular SCSI disks? Up to which size will the E II accept hard disks?

AND: Will Sound Designer for Mac (old one) work with this model?

Thanks a lot!

[rtech]

hey is the the same lunatic from the sp1200 forum? (SP12 ROM)

To check if your EII+HD works with the SDII check the serial number based on this quote from the emulatorarchive.com.


"
Important!! Emulator II's with Rev 0 Logic Boards (serial numbers below approximately 990 (dual drive) and 460 (single drive) require an upgrade that converts the serial interface to RS422 to work with Sound Designer. This is a simple replacement of the old RS232 driver chips with new RS422 chips. E-mu Systems produced this on a small daughterboard which is no longer available. You may be able to get a service centre to do this upgrade for you as the changes are small - see the RS422 schematic manual.

Both Emulator II EPROM's must be at Version 2.1 or higher, the OS diskettes must be at OS Version 2.2 or higher. OS 2.3 is HIGHLY recommended.

Some Rev 1 Logic Boards may also need correcting (probably serial numbers from approximately 950 to 1100 ), but with a different modification. "

http://www.emulatorarchive.com/Archives/Samplers/E2Overview/E2SD/e2sd.html


As far as the hard drive, I think there is only a few hard drives that work with the EII. From what I can tell from mine is that the HD control board is separate from the drive. I am not sure if you can install a newer drive from lets say an old Macintosh. You can try it but i think its not necessary as you can buy a FD emulator that uses SD cards for storage.

rtech

[lunatic]

Hey rtech, yes same dude here! thanks a bunch, will ask for the serial number.

[rtech]

Hey as for the Hard Drive those things are freaking noisy as hell. When the HD dies convert it to a regular EII+ and use a HxC floppy emulator as your second drive.

rtech

[Elmbeatz]

The EII+HDs are the latest EIIs by nature, so they all should have RS422 built in anyway, shouldn't they?

[seamonkey]

Elm I believe you are correct. I have the Emulator II+HD and it has the RS422 connector in the rear. I've just recently hooked up a Mac Powerbook165c and SD. My cd rom player is enroute as we speak.

[lunatic]

The serial number is 2306. So I expect it to work. Thanks for the help!

[Elmbeatz]

Elm I believe you are correct. I have the Emulator II+HD and it has the RS422 connector in the rear. I've just recently hooked up a Mac Powerbook165c and SD. My cd rom player is enroute as we speak.

All EIIs have that connector. That RS422 / 232 difference is an internal thing, which is not 'obvious' at first sight. But I think that yours is 422 anyway.

[seamonkey]

Yep!

[lunatic]

Thanks again for the replies everybody. I picked up my EII on friday and besides some dust, it looks as mint as it can be. The seller even had the original receipt from 1987 when he bought it for 16.500 DM. The HD is a little flaky but works at the moment. The transport (8 hours) did not seem to have had any impact on it.

At the moment i am planning to remove the HD and fit an Hxc emulator instead of it. As well I am going to replace the display for a VFD one, which I did with my SP-12's as well. Any tips on that? I haven't opened the EII and I am i bit worried about it. What to keep in mind when doing it?

Thanks for your help in advance. By the way, once i have the Hxc installed, i have about 200 custom banks from the previous owner to share.

[Elmbeatz]

...
Thanks for your help in advance. By the way, once i have the Hxc installed, i have about 200 custom banks from the previous owner to share.

200 CUSTOM ones??

wow!!
Sharing would really be great !!!
Good luck with the mods you're planning to do, keep us posted!
Btw.: where in Germany are you located?

[68000]

I have new 20 MB Conner drives. These drives are much less noisy than the original Miniscribe in the EII. The conners work perfectly in the Emax 1 HD, but I have not tried them out in an EII+HD though. See my post under 'for sale'.

[lunatic]

have seen your post and would love to have one. but i think they don't work in the EII. i hope that anyone can confirm if they work or not...

[Chevytraveller]

I'm pretty sure that the EII HD protocol isn't standard SCSI.. I think the development just missed the standardisation of the SCSI protocol (which happened in 1986) and so they went with a bit of a fudge using part SCSI and part ST-506 protocols (which is a derivative of the floppy controller)

As far as I know, the only drives known to work under this are the LaPine 10MB and Miniscribe 20MB drives.


What we need is a SCSI controller card upgrade for the EII 

[lunatic]

Btw.: where in Germany are you located?

I forgot, I'm in Hannover...