Emax

Wow, I do not mean to pollute everyone's mailbox but before i even read and study the whole thing later, thanks a lot for so many details!

--- In emax@yahoogroups.com, "alphabyte" <alphabyte@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Jeremie,
> 
> First off, congratulations on your Emax purchase. I am quite certain once you get past these early growing pains you will be pleased.
> 
> The external DB25 connection is typical of Emax Plus units both factory made and upgraded. I can not make a direct correlation between what you are seeing internally vs what I have access to.
> 
> I have two Emax rack units. I have upgraded one to SCSI very recently. The internal 50-pin SCSI header on my board is CN2. The smaller CN1 header is the floppy drive connection.
> 
> I should clarify that my boards are pre SCSI. Significant modification was required to add SCSI to these units. Your machine may have a later board revision with different labeling and component locations. That being said, the floppy drive header should be near the edge of the board closest to the drive itself. It does sound like there are some strange things going on with the Zip drive, but, it works so you have that in your favor at the moment.
> 
> As for a standard, external SCSI Zip drive working with the DB25 connection, yes, this should work. The previous owner may not have been able to locate one. I use one from time to time with my Emax II keyboards. There is really no reason to have a janky drive hanging off the side of you Emax via a ribbon cable.
> 
> Based on your description, it would seem your board revision has two SCSI headers, a 25-pin to connect the external DB25 input and the standard 50-pin header for an internal drive. There should also be a standard hard drive power harness handing about inside as well.
> 
> As for the booting procedure, that all sounds rather normal with the exception of not recognizing the floppy drive. The "Diagnostics" period during bootup seems to be normal for SCSI/Plus units. I am basing this purely on my experience after upgrading my own machine.
> 
> It appears this period recognizes the presence of SCSI and allow time for the drives to spin up while the Emax determines what drives are present and where it should boot from. An internal or boot HD (Zip in your case) has to be set to SCSI ID 0.
> 
> The Emax can address a total of 36 danks. Bank 00 should be the floppy drive. When you click the "Load All" button, it should bring up the Bank selection screen. Choosing bank 00 should load the bank on the floppy disk you have inserted.
> 
> It sounds as though most everything is likely working as it should with the exception of the... creative... connection of the external Zip drive. I would suggest locating the SCSI documentation for the Emax if you do not already have it. This will help in understanding how the drives can be connected and properly navigating the OS along with moving from drive to drive.
> 
> The unit should boot from the floppy without the zip drive connected. Once the "Loading Software" screen appears, the Emax should have figured out that no hard drive is present and it should attempt to load from floppy.
> 
> Sometimes, my floppies don't seat properly in the drive. This mostly occurs with cheap disks that have flimsy plastic casing. When you insert the floppy, you should the the disk positively engage with the drive and drop slightly below the insertion slot. I usually resolve this issue by reinserting the disk a couple of times, with slight additional force. Don't be too rough. The drives are old and can be a bit on the sticky side with years of dust and neglect.
> 
> It would be helpful to know what OS version you are running off of the Zip drive, the floppies as well once you are able to get the unit to boot from the a floppy.
> 
> Keep us up to date and we can try to help as best we can.
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Trevor
>