Ensoniq keyboard emulation
2012-05-25 by Christian Brunschen
I have been thinking that it would be highly useful if there were emulation available for my VFX-SD and/or my SD-1/32 . To that end, I've actually been delighted to be able to track down some documentation for the Ensoniq 5505 (OTIS) and the ;Ensoniq 5510 (ESP) as are used in the VFX-SD.
I've also been thinking that since a lot of Ensoniq hardware was used in computers and even video games, the MAME community (which already has a number of arcade games that use the 5505 emulated, and thus have a working 5505 emulation codebase) might be a good candidate to ask for help with getting something going – the VFX-SD, for instance, is essentially a 68000-based computer with a keyboard and display, and using the Ensoniq chips for audio - quite similar to a number of arcade games, really.
However, it turns out that I'm late to the game! A few days ago, code was submitted to the MESS codebase (a sister project to MAME but aimed towards things other than arcade games) that adds preliminary support for the VFX, EPS-16+ and Sq-1 architectures:
With some luck this may lead to a bit of future-proofing – if the hardware fails, there's a software alternative in the making.
This, to me, looks ... very very very interesting.
Best wishes,
// Christian Brunschen