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Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-08 by yusteromerooscar@...

Hello, I am newbie with the Emu-emax and I would like to upgrade my sampler...


My question is: How to upgrade from HxC floppy emulator? Currently I have SD reader model.


Please could you please help me? and (one question more) Do you think is a recommendable this upgrade?


Thank you.

Re: [emax] Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-08 by Ted Summers

I can’t speak to the HxC part, but there is no reason to NOT do the SE update.
It’s free, and only flips a couple bits in a parameter EEPROM allowing you to use SE functions and boot SE capable OS.


-T

On Dec 8, 2015, at 3:00 AM, yusteromerooscar@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:


Hello, I am newbie with the Emu-emax and I would like to upgrade my sampler...



My question is: How to upgrade from HxC floppy emulator?  Currently I have SD reader model.



Please could you please help me? and (one question more) Do you think is a recommendable this upgrade?



Thank you.






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-09 by yusteromerooscar@...

Thank you for your response, but I am trying to finish the process but it is not working..

Currently I am doing the next steps:

1º I have downloaded EmaxSEUpgrade.img
2º With the HxC software emulator convert to hfe extension.
3º I introduce the sd card to the floppy emulator reader and turn off the Emax, but when I turn on again the sampler, I see "read error"

What am I doing wrong?


Thank you

RE: [emax] Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-09 by Shawn Ward


if you do these steps it will work

first format your SD disc as fat32

copy these boot files to the SD


when you convert your samples make sure they are .EM1 format

before you convert them to HFE place the emaxos.emx file (OS 3.2) in the same folder as the samples

you can download the emaxos.emx file in the files section here


note: OS 3.2 will load and work on all emax versions


good luck




To: emax@yahoogroups.com
From: emax@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2015 09:46:13 -0800
Subject: [emax] Re8; Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

Thank you for your response, but I am trying to finish the process but it is not working..

Currently I am doing the next steps:

1º I have downloaded EmaxSEUpgrade.img
2º With the HxC software emulator convert to hfe extension.
3º I introduce the sd card to the floppy emulator reader and turn off the Emax, but when I turn on again the sampler, I see "read error"

What am I doing wrong?


Thank you

RE: [emax] Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-09 by Shawn Ward


so you have had your samples loading fine?

why would you want to change the OS?


To: emax@yahoogroups.com
From: emax@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2015 10:27:;00 -0800
Subject: RE: [emax] Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

Normally I have a sd card with my samples and it is working perfectly, but i don´t know what is the reason when I copy .emax screen tell me "read error! " .... :-( any clue?

Re: [emax] Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-09 by Ted Summers

Yes, SE adds Synthesis Enhancement.
Also- You can’t change the OS that is on this disk to some other (like 3.2)…. this is a SPECIAL DISK.
You could pull the OS off, and the bank and make an image, and it likely would still not act like this disk does.

When someone sends me a board for SCSI and SE update, I hook a regular floppy up to the unit just for this purpose, update SE, then do the SCSI modifications.
Then I test with flash media drive once SCSI is updated.


Please note that the SE update disk is different from other disks.
It is a “ONE USE” disk with special authorization written to a specific sector of the disk,

This sector may not be normally accessible to read / write commands as it is a copy protection measure.

I’ve never put or converted this image to any other media than floppy.
When using utilities, they are doing a sector by sector RAW write of this floppy image.
I don’t know whether the HxC software writes it’s images in this way.

A normal disk has:
OS, and then likely a bank

This disk has OS, a bank, and special code.

I doubt that the HxC vendor ever tested with this image as, depending on the bits it reads from EEPROM the programming on this disk does 2 different actions:
1) If SE bit not found, it goes into an EEPROM parameter update routine. (assuming the disk hasn’t been used and the authorization bit still exists)
2) If SE found, it APPEARS to boot normally, but it boots the SE OS.

To do testing for this image, the vendor would have needed an actual Emax that is not SE updated.

My recommendation would be to create a floppy disk for just this one time, update the Emax, then hook back the HxC.

Regards,
Ted Summers
Co-Moderator / FAQ Owner





On Dec 9, 2015, at 9:46 AM, yusteromerooscar@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Thank you for your response, but I am trying to finish the process but it is not working..


Currently I am doing the next steps:

1º I have downloaded EmaxSEUpgrade.img
2º With the HxC software emulator convert to hfe extension.
3º I introduce the sd card to the floppy emulator reader and turn off the Emax, but when I turn on again the sampler, I see "read error"

What am I doing wrong?


Thank you





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Re: [emax] Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-09 by esynthesist@...

I agree with Ted that for this kind of operation it's recommended to use a floppy drive instead of the HxC.
I didn't use the HxC for this purpose neither.

But I think the HxC should be capable of hosting this kind of special disk images as well - the HxC is agnostic to the content of the disk image, it "only" emulates the physical characteristics of the Emax floppy disk. The special disks for upgrading the Emax have the same physical layout as normal sound bank floppy disks, so it *should* be possible to use the HxC...
... but you said you tried this already and it didn't work ?
How did you make the .HFE with the HxC software ?

As far as I understand the correct procedure would be:
1. Press the "Load Raw Image" button
2. Select "Emax 3.5 DD Floppy disk" in the "Predefined Disk Layout" drop down list
3. Still in the "Raw file format configuration" window, press the "Load RAW file" button and select the EmaxSEUpgrad.img file (the one from the files section with the 800kb size)
4. In the main window, press the "Export" button
5. Save the file as a .HFE file
Is this the way you did it ?

If it doesn't work, the only (and recommended) possibility will be to replace the floppy drive temporarily by a floppy drive, as Ted suggests. But then you'll need to write the image to a real floppy disk on a PC first (using an internal floppy drive and OmniFlop) - I admit this is a procedure which is not that obvious because most people don't have this kind of PC anymore...
Good luck !

Re: [emax] Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-11 by carlthepianist@...

the se update will only work once then revert to a empty bank after. basically it formats itself after, so either a your update image is faulty or b) you have done something incorrect when convewrting the image to the format your using.

Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-11 by yusteromerooscar@...

I don´t understand completely your explanation sorry...

It is strange, because load the bank like a synth, but without the process indicated "reboot software" in the emu..

I am following steps indicated by @esynthesist

Even I have formatted sd card and I have tried to boot with only the upgrade.. but it was not working..

:_(

Re: [emax] Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-11 by Ted Summers

IF you load an SE OS- does it say wrong software / fail to boot?
Your Emax may already be SE, in which case, an SE OS would already boot and your activity is not needed.


-T



On Dec 11, 2015, at 9:49 AM, yusteromerooscar@yahoo.com [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

I don´t understand completely your explanation sorry...


It is strange, because load the bank like a synth, but without the process indicated "reboot software" in the emu..

I am following steps indicated by @esynthesist 

Even I have formatted sd card and I have tried to boot with only the upgrade.. but it was not working..  

:_(
 





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-11 by yusteromerooscar@...

No, load the upgrade like a sound bank instead of like a "software or firmware"..

My Emu emax has 1.1 version (I think, now I haven´t in front of me the sampler) and when I go to the master > special > version

Re: [emax] Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-12 by Ted Summers

I think you may not understand fully. 

I have written some of this on the FAQ, but perhaps I can clarify it further.

ANY Emax can boot with 3.2 OS (assuming you have current EPROM- but I’ve never heard of anyone not having this capability since I joined this group in 2003).

Only Emax with SCSI can boot OS HD 1.0 or  OS HD 1.1

Only Emax with SE update already completed can boot OS SE 1.1

An Emax with SCSI AND SE can boot ALL of the above, and also OS SE HD 1.1 and OS PLUS 1.0

So- you say you think the Emax has 1.1 version.
But which OS are you booting from now? (check it in the menu)

Emax may already have SE update completed.
The only way to know it is to try and boot with an SE-capable OS version.
If you are only booting with 3.2, you will never know whether you have SE or not…

If you don’t have SCSI, then try and create HxC image and boot with SE 1.1

If you do have SCSI, then create PLUS 1.0 OS HxC image.

If it fails (meaning you DON”T have SE), then you will get “Incorrect Software version” or some similar error when you try and boot.

-T




On Dec 11, 2015, at 12:46 PM, yusteromerooscar@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

No, load the upgrade like a sound bank instead of  like a "software or firmware".. 


My Emu emax has 1.1 version (I think, now I haven´t  in front of me the sampler) and  when I go to the master > special > version 





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Re: [emax] Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-12 by Ted Summers

Also- in regards to your other question:
>Recently I have bought a Emu emax with HXC floppy emulator, Could you have both floppys in the same sampler?

Emax does not support multiple floppy drives, so no, you can’t have both.
I will add this to the FAQ.

-T


On Dec 11, 2015, at 12:46 PM, yusteromerooscar@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

No, load the upgrade like a sound bank instead of  like a "software or firmware".. 


My Emu emax has 1.1 version (I think, now I haven´t  in front of me the sampler) and  when I go to the master > special > version 





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-12 by yusteromerooscar@...

But directly I am not having this message in the display and the SE-OS upgrade downloaded from this website is loaded like a sound-bank instead of a software update.. do you know what I mean?


Re: [emax] Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-12 by Ted Summers

You have taken the BANK from the SE update image and placed it onto a 3.2 OS, which would mean you still wouldn’t access the SE features.

You have to make an HxC image with SE 1.1 OS and see if it boots to know if you need to run the upgrade.

If it boots- the Emax is already SE.
If it errors / says wrong software- Emax needs SE update.


-T



On Dec 12, 2015, at 11:11 AM, yusteromerooscar@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

But directly I am not having this message in the display and the SE-OS upgrade downloaded from this website is loaded like a sound-bank instead of a software update.. do you know what I mean?








[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Re: [emax] Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-12 by Robert Van Kuran

My Emax has an HxC SD and a slim floppy with a switch. I also added an HD and external SCSI DB-25 port. With the SE update it is now running Emax Plus OS 1.1

Got it as a plain base model Emax and added all the upgrades. Great unit now, use it more than my EII at the moment when just one board but both are especially great together;)

-RVK
Show quoted textHide quoted text
> On Dec 12, 2015, at 11:11 AM, yusteromerooscar@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
> 
> But directly I am not having this message in the display and the SE-OS upgrade downloaded from this website is loaded like a sound-bank instead of a software update.. do you know what I mean?
> 
> 
> 
>

Re: [emax] Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-12 by Ted Summers

Oscar-

I think you are still doing it wrong.
Simply put- SE 1.1 doesn’t say 3.2 when you go in the menu and check the version.
If it still says 3.2- you haven’t changed the OS at all.

You have to take an SE 1.1 and extract the OS, then put that OS in the HxC image to replace the 3.2 OS which you have been using.

I dont’ have an Hxc, but I know that much…

-T





On Dec 12, 2015, at 11:53 AM, yusteromerooscar@yahoo.com [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

I have added SE1.1 instead of emaxos.emx and the SO is 3.2  (    )





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Re: [emax] Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-12 by Ted Summers

Please note that once BOOTED, the OS is expected to stay the same.
So if you boot with 3.2 on Hxc, then it will stay 3.2 until you turn Emax off, even if you switch to another virtual floppy and “load bank” or whatever.

You need to take an SE OS and start with only that on the Hxc USB / flash drive - no 3.2 on it at all.
I think maybe this is where your confusion is coming from?

-T


 
On Dec 12, 2015, at 11:53 AM, yusteromerooscar@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

I have added SE1.1 instead of emaxos.emx and the SO is 3.2  (    )





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Re: [emax] Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-12 by Ted Summers

That sounds correct.

So, when you boot from this SD card- you should then see in the menu SE 1.1.

Is that what you see?

If so- it is correct, and no need to do update.

If not- and you still see 3.2, then you have OS listed as 1.1 in your files that is not 1.1
If you see something other than 3.2, please provide what it says exactly.

Those are 2 very specific different OS versions.

-T


On Dec 12, 2015, at 12:23 PM, yusteromerooscar@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Let´s start again.. 


1º I have formatted my SD card to FAT 32 and the sd card is empty..  

2º Inside of this card I have introduced only SE upgrade and EMAX 1.1  (is this correct?)







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-13 by yusteromerooscar@...

So... don´t you need to follow SE Upgrade pdf? I remember in this pdf you see in the emax display the device is being upgraded.. and my idea was Emu would be upgraded and the new features will be extended to all banks but i think it is not correct this idea..

So.. following your steps when I boot the Emu with the 1.1 in the menu I see 1.1 and this is correct, but when I load other bank and I try to access digital features of the SE upgrade, in the display I see "different software rev" How to solve this? If I am seeing "Emax SE 1.1 " my emax is upgraded at least??

Thank you!

Re: [emax] Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-13 by Ted Summers

>> If I am seeing "Emax SE 1.1 " my emax is upgraded at least??
Yes, then that would confirm the Emax is SE.

>> I see "different software rev" How to solve this?
The SE features are part of the OS.
But any bank on a disk (or HxC image) without the SE OS on that disk won't work for SE functions.
If you are trying to use SE feature with 3.2 OS it won't work.
So- if you have created all the HxC images with 3.2 OS, they would have to be rebuilt or updated with SE1.1 OS.
This is why you see "different software rev".... the bank (virtual disk) you have loaded has a different OS than the one you booted from....this is not allowed.

To explain further- Emax doesn't have available memory to load in all OS possible operations.
Therefore, for each activity (Digital process, analog process, etc) it loads in from the OS on the disk the function for that moment which is needed.
But when you switch from one disk (or HxC location) to another with DIFFERENT OS, it sees mismatch of OS and you get the error.

This was always a major thing- to reload the OS onto all the floppies with the new OS version, which is time consuming.
Here- SCSI beats HxC easily. On SCSI media there is only 1 OS which works for all 35 banks. You only put the OS on 1 time for each hard disk...


Hopefully, I have clearly explained above so you may understand why you have been having the issue.

-T

Show quoted textHide quoted text
On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 2:23 AM, yusteromerooscar@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

So... don´t you need to follow SE Upgrade pdf? I remember in this pdf you see in the emax display the device is being upgraded.. and my idea was Emu would be upgraded and the new features will be extended to all banks but i think it is not correct this idea..


So.. following your steps when I boot the Emu with the 1.1 in the menu I see 1.1 and this is correct, but when I load other bank and I try to access digital features of the SE upgrade, in the display I see "different software rev" How to solve this? If I am seeing "Emax SE 1.1 " my emax is upgraded at least??

Thank you!


Re: [emax] Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-13 by yusteromerooscar@...

Ok, for me was very confuse because I expected a message updating firmware of the emu emax, in the PDf is a different process..you know...


Than, next steps is rebuild each bank, do you have experience with this?

Thank you very much for your help.

Re: [emax] Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-13 by Ted Summers

No I don’t have a process for updating banks  with HxC because I don’t have HxC.
I have (and sell / install) the SCSI chip upgrade for Emax.

But I have a pretty good understanding of how Emax (at least the electronics of it) work.

You never saw “Updating” like in the PDF because once the Emax has been made SE (probably many years ago), you would never see this message again (unless you removed the parameter EEPROM, so it no longer had the bit set).
The special disk checks for SE bit in Parameter EEPROM, and if it’s there (meaning the update was already done previously), the disk just boots like any normal disk…

-T



On Dec 13, 2015, at 5:13 AM, yusteromerooscar@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Ok, for me was very confuse because I expected a message updating firmware of the emu emax, in the PDf is a different process..you know...



Than, next steps is rebuild each bank, do you have experience with this?

Thank you very much for your help.





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Re: [emax] Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-13 by yusteromerooscar@...

ok, thank you very much..


Than.. three (more) questions:

1º How to "upgrade" my sound banks?

2º Why se-upgrade is loaded like a sound-bank with (of course) with sounds? for example, Sine pattern, Square pattern an so on...

3º What features are added to my banks with this update? I don´t understand, maybe correctly, new features includes in this upgrade in comparison with a Emu emax with the 3.2 version (with this version were create my banks)

Regards

Re: [emax] Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-13 by Ted Summers

With regards to 1- I can’t answer- I don’t have HxC as I have mentioned many times now.

With regards to 2 and 3- Please read the SE update PDF. It mentions the added features. Page 29 discusses some experiments that can be done with SE.
I would assume the factory put the banks on the disk as a starting point / example bank for these experiments.

-T

On Dec 13, 2015, at 1:57 PM, yusteromerooscar@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

ok, thank you very much.. 



Than.. three (more) questions:

1º How to "upgrade" my sound banks?

2º Why se-upgrade is loaded like a sound-bank with (of course) with sounds? for example, Sine pattern, Square pattern an so on...

3º What features are added to my banks with this update?  I don´t understand, maybe correctly, new features includes in this upgrade in comparison with a Emu emax with the 3.2 version (with this version were create my banks)

Regards





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Re: [emax] Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-13 by Ted Summers

No- I posted a link a few days ago to the upload of the HD Factory bank collection on zippyshare.
The five factory images in EMXP compatible format are zipped up and uploaded here:

http://www41.zippyshare.com/v/yoe2t6HC/file.html <http://www41.zippyshare.com/v/yoe2t6HC/file.html>

If you download that, load the HD images into EMXP, you can get every available factory bank extracted separately from that.

-T


On Dec 13, 2015, at 2:13 PM, yusteromerooscar@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Do we have those factory banks in the "files" area?


Thank you!!





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Re: [emax] Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator

2015-12-14 by michael@inoutflux.dk <michael@...>

The OS is read from the disk each time.

There is a 'copy os' or software disk funtion menu on the emax. Copy the is to each disk or bank or what it is called on BcC.


So a disk with the OS has


Read this former message from Ted again....





------ Original message------

From: Ted Summers djtbs1@gmail.com [emax]

Date: Sun, 13 Dec 2015 12:33

To: emax@yahoogroups.com [emax];

Subject:Re: [emax] Re: Emu emax SE upgrade from sd card in Floppy emulator


>> If I am seeing "Emax SE 1.1 " my emax is upgraded at least??
Yes, then that would confirm the Emax is SE.

>> I see "different software rev" How to solve this?
The SE features are part of the OS.
But any bank on a disk (or HxC image) without the SE OS on that disk won't work for SE functions.
If you are trying to use SE feature with 3.2 OS it won't work.
So- if you have created all the HxC images with 3.2 OS, they would have to be rebuilt or updated with SE1.1 OS.
This is why you see "different software rev".... the bank (virtual disk) you have loaded has a different OS than the one you booted from....this is not allowed.

To explain further- Emax doesn't have available memory to load in all OS possible operations.
Therefore, for each activity (Digital process, analog process, etc) it loads in from the OS on the disk the function for that moment which is needed.
But when you switch from one disk (or HxC location) to another with DIFFERENT OS, it sees mismatch of OS and you get the error.

This was always a major thing- to reload the OS onto all the floppies with the new OS version, which is time consuming.
Here- SCSI beats HxC easily. On SCSI media there is only 1 OS which works for all 35 banks. You only put the OS on 1 time for each hard disk...


Hopefully, I have clearly explained above so you may understand why you have been having the issue.

-T


On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 2:23 AM, yusteromerooscar@yahoo.com [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

So... don´t you need to follow SE Upgrade pdf? I remember in this pdf you see in the emax display the device is being upgraded.. and my idea was Emu would be upgraded and the new features will be extended to all banks but i think it is not correct this idea..


So.. following your steps when I boot the Emu with the 1.1 in the menu I see 1.1 and this is correct, but when I load other bank and I try to access digital features of the SE upgrade, in the display I see "different software rev" How to solve this? If I am seeing "Emax SE 1.1 " my emax is upgraded at least??

Thank you!


Move to quarantaine

This moves the raw source file on disk only. The archive index is not changed automatically, so you still need to run a manual refresh afterward.