Emax

From my understanding, the Emax 2 LCD is backlit by 5 volts and  
doesn't use the inverter (which is ac and not 5 volts). The two pins  
on one end of the display are coming from the inverter. You could  
take a standard LCD display that is the correct size, and break the  
conection on the LCD board from the two pins, then wire +5 from the  
power supply to those points. The same would be true of the EMAX2  
display). The inverter power would destroy the emax2 backlighting. I  
dunno what other harm would be caused....

As to the SCSI- if you have scsi you should be able to add a port to  
the back. SCSI is scsi. The thing is this, there are really two ways  
of doing it.... If there is a plug on the board you can come off of  
it (I did this on mine).

I dunno how much you know about scsi- so here is how you would make  
this work, if you don't know scsi

If there is no port on the board, get a SCSI cable with an external  
end (DB25), and two 50pin connectors (like on the board and drive  
connectors) and replace the cable that is in the emax.

On the hard drive is a set of 3 resistor networks by the ribbon cable  
connection. They might be blue, yellow, red, or black, but are  
removable. They have 8 pins in a single row. These resistors  
terminate the SCSI chain. By removing them, you can add an additional  
device to the end of that chain (ie- cabling). When you remove these  
and extend the chain you MUST have a terminator on the external plug  
if nothing is hooked up to boot the machine, but if you are getting a  
ZIP drive, it will have termination in it, so as long as it was  
always hooked, you wouldn't need the plug on the external connection.

And that, as they say, is that.....

Hope it is clear as mud. And thanks for all the work you have done  
for us on the Emax programs (though I haven't used them...yet)

Regards,
Ted

On Sep 16, 2006, at 10:26 AM, esynthesist wrote:

> I need some help !
>
> I bought the Emax Plus Rack I was talking about earlier. It's a "Plus
> SE with SCSI", serial number 002 (!).
> The sampler works but it has a display problem and quite a strange
> SCSI chipset:
>
> 1. The DISPLAY Problem
> ----------------------
>
> First of all this machine has a problem with the LCD display.
> After pushing some buttons, the contrast on the second line goes to
> zero and the contrast on the first line goes to the maximum.
> There's also an annoying high frequency noise coming from the main
> board (invertor ?) and also from the display (this only when the
> problem occurs)
>
> Now I also have a spare Emax-II rack with a perfectly working
> frontpanel PCB board & display.
> I compared the two boards and they look almost the same:
> - board in Emax Plus = 'Emax Rackpanel version 2 1986' PC328 REV B
> ASSY REV A (AF133)
> - board in Emax II = 'Emax Rackpanel version 2 1986' PC328 REV D
> (no assy) (AF133)
> The two capacitors on the board however have different numbers -
> these are actually the only two components on the board which are not
> buttons, sliders, display, lights or chip :-)
>
> My question:
> Do you think it's safe to switch these boards ? Maybe it won't work,
> that's no problem, but I just want to be sure the Emax Plus won't get
> damaged by this experiment.
> Anyone who can give me some advice ???
>
> 2. The STRANGE Thing
> --------------------
>
> I also want to add an external SCSI port to the sampler. It's not
> fitted on the board, and there's no hole in the backpanel either.
> Now I checked the specs from the sampler:
> - it's a PC333 Rev B main board
> - the SCSI 5380 chip is installed on IC6
> - the IP379A HD/Plus TIM PAL chip is installed on IC49
> ...
> - but on IC13 there's a 24-pin IP349C chip instead of the IP355
> mentioned on www.emulatorarchive.com.
> However, it is installed on an 28-pin socket. There's also an IP349
> Rev 3 'piggyback' board installed at the left of the main PC333.
>
> This is a situation not described in the SCSI Upgrade instructions on
> www.emulatorarchive.com.
> According to the upgrade instructions either the 3 chips have to be
> installed or all 3 chips should already have been factory-installed.
> If they're not installed, the IC13 should have no 28 pin socket yet.
> But mine has...
> I really don't know what machine I bought, it seems like a prototype
> of the Emax Plus...
>
> Anyway: can anyone confirm that the specs are sufficient, so that I
> just have to add a DB25 SCSI port and a flat cable ?
> Or should I simply try & check ?
>
> Thanks !!
>
> ///E-Synthesist
>
>
> 



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