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Emu E6400 “Classic”

Upgraded in the early 2000s – I think with more preset/sequencer RAM, newer firmware (EOS 4.6.2), an effects card, and additional RAM?

Hard Drive

Internal bus is SCSI, 50-pin 0.1” dual-row header. The hard drive was a 3.5” Quantum Fireball TM (“2110S”?). I’m pretty sure I installed this drive aftermarket – but my memory of 1997 is very hazy. The drive failed at some point. It will spin up and attempt to seek, and then gives up. When plugged in a few years earlier, it made a gnarly sound (possibly during seek?). Now it makes normal sounds, but never gets to the point where it seeks normally to retrieve data, but instead spins back down. There’s a group of people with a portable positive-pressure “clean room” (glove box) that does data recovery at the local BSides PDX conference. Perhaps I’ll bring this to them at a conference some time and see if we can’t get the drive to spin up and operate for a time.

I did install a SCSI2SD 5.1, emulating (heh) a 2GB Emu-format hard disk, and two CD-ROM devices backed by two .ISOs I ripped from sound CDs. It worked well, except one time where there was a bus error. This may have been before I figured out my SD segmeting was incorrect. It hasn’t recurred since.

Floppy Drive

The floppy drive was a Sony MPF960-L (I think – TOOD: double-check). The interface uses slightly different signalling than IBM PC drives. I hear it’s more akin to Amiga pinout. In any case, I wasn’t able to use the drive with my FluxEngine because of this.

I did use another 3.5” floppy drive and FluxEngine to “rip” a bunch of Emu and Sweetwater sound floppies (HD IBM PC format), and some old Ensoniq EPS floppies (double-density, 10 sectors per cylinder!). Then I replaced the E6400 floppy drive with a GoTek floppy emulator running FlashFloppy. I used the same jumper settings as recommended for Ensoniq EPS (disk change, drive select, motor behavior?), and it worked like a charm. Reading Ensoniq disks in EOS 4.6.2 is painfully slow, however.

Power Supply

Fan

Original is Sunon KDE1204PKS3. Specifications:

  • 40 mm x 40 mm x 20 mm “4020”
  • Sleeve bearing system
  • 12 VDC, 0.05 A, 0.6 W
  • 4500 RPM, 5.2 CFM, 0.08 Inch-H2O
  • 22.8 dBA
  • 28 grams

Available equivalents:

  • CUI CFM-4020V-145-123-20 (Digi-Key CFM-4020V-145-123-20-ND $5.02) - includes tachometer, not needed
  • CUI CFM-4020V-145-123 (Digi-Key 102-5593-ND $4.62) - holes may be a little larger – 4.3 mm dia vs. 3.4 mm for original.
  • Sunon MF40201V3-1000U-G99 (Digi-Key 259-1846-ND $7.98) - includes tachometer, not needed
  • Sunon 4129/HA40201V4-1000U-A99 (Digi-Key 259-2024-ND $9.13)
  • Sunon KD1204PKS3 (Jameco 2289287, $6.95)

Ordering CUI CFM-4020V-145-123 (Digi-Key 102-5593-ND, because it meets all the specs and also runs 10dB quieter and uses 3/4 the power. Win-win!