Vintage Synth Repair

Hi,

 

I have seen this on some old computers where there is a disk loaded or
unloaded signal that can be sent back from the drive, some systems ignored
it but others needed to get the disk unload signal in order to handle the
disk change correctly, on some of the drives it was a jumperable option,
unfortunately I can't remember the exact details as it was a long time ago,
but I am sure if you look for settings on the drive related to this it will
make sense.

 

Many thanks

 

John Rose

 

(www.astrodevelopments.com)

 

From: vintagesynthrepair@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:vintagesynthrepair@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Mikael
Sent: 28 April 2013 18:59
To: vintagesynthrepair@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [vintagesynthrepair] Ensoniq EPS-16+ Disk Drive Replacement

 

  

Hi everybody! :)
I recently bought an Ensoniq EPS-16+, seems good otherwise but the disk
drive is bad, it manages to read a few disks only. The original drive in my
EPS is a Panasonic JU-257A303P. 

I thought I would try to modify a PC disk drive for it, I almost got it to
work. I have successfully modded JU-257A606P disk drives for Amiga, it's
quite easy and that model is very easy to find for a couple of euros, I had
one of those lying around so I used that. That model has solderable jumpers.
I set the jumpers as the original drive: D0 instead of D1, MS instead of M0,
RY instead of DC (ready signal on pin 34). I then soldered a wire from the
DC signal (disk change) to pin 2.

This is how far it gets now; when I insert the disk with the operating
system, it loads fine but then when I change to a sound disk and try to load
sounds, I can see what files are on the disk but I keep getting a message
that the drive is not ready and that disk has been changed so I can't load
sounds. 

I'm SO close to getting this to work, would anybobody have any hints, maybe
some of you have tried this before for this particular synth or for another.

Thank you for any help/hints in advance!