[sdiy] Ensoniq ASR-X weirdness

[Travis Thatcher]

Thanks Brian,

Yeah its been quite some time since I had my MPC SCSI setup...like 16
years? The ASR-X does have internal termination and the zip drives
I've tested also have a switch on the back for termination on that end
as well. I'm just going with the sampler and drive so no intermediate
devices. My guess is that the ASR isn't actually terminating properly
- it is a software setting that seems to be set correctly.
Unfortunately the ASR doesn't have a second scsi port so I can just
stick on a terminator. I might try to open it up and test if the
actual termination is happening on the Ensoniq end. I'm also going to
try to stick a terminated scsi cd rom at the end of the chain tonight
to see if that helps.


On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 1:11 AM,  <rsdio at audiobanshee.com> wrote:
> I forgot to mention that Ensoniq did not strictly use DOS formatting, at least not for the EPS. You can sometimes read an ENSONIQ floppy from DOS, but there is one extra sector per track, so the disk holds more data. Also, the format is entirely unlike DOS, so you need a special program to read the data.
>
> I wrote such a program for my NeXT Computer back in the days when my EPS saw daily use. That allowed any SCSI device (hard drive, floppy, Zip, etc) to be read in the Ensoniq format, and allowed transferring files between Ensoniq and other devices. But you can't read an EPS disk with standard formatting.
>
> I suspect that you have SCSI termination issues. Once you solve those, you should be able to format a disk so that the ASR-X can read it. If you get the Chicken Head software that others have mentioned, this should allow you to read Ensoniq disks from your PC.
>
> Brian
>
>
> On Dec 1, 2015, at 5:58 PM, Travis Thatcher <recompas at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I've got a terminator and a scsi cd drive I can try on the end of the
>> chain tomorrow. I think it is weird that even if I insert a brand new
>> pc formatted zip disk the status still says 'Unreadable'. I thought
>> the ASR-X used DOS formatting... I may just give up in the end and get
>> an sd floppy emulator. I don't plan on putting huge samples on this
>> thing but it'd be nice to have the larger storage option.
>>



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