Vintage Synth Repair

Hi Groupies

I have a Pro88 here that "seems" to boot ok till you want to access ANY commands from the top panel switches.

They all act dead.

First boot up and I hear the SCSI drive make "beep...beep beep"...long pause , repeat. Then  no SCSI spin.

Booting from OS floppy:...Reads then asks for either Enter or Escape.
No switch action so, no further action can be taken.

Equinox logo appears on LCD then displays a voice patch. No sounds. No switch actions.

+ 5 and - 5 volts ok...I havent checked other yet

Any  ideas???

Thanks

--- In vintagesynthrepair@yahoogroups.com, "Scott" <painintheamp@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Groupies
> 
> I have a Pro88 here that "seems" to boot ok till you want to access ANY commands from the top panel switches.
> 
> They all act dead.
> 
> First boot up and I hear the SCSI drive make "beep...beep beep"...long pause , repeat. Then  no SCSI spin.
> 
> Booting from OS floppy:...Reads then asks for either Enter or Escape.
> No switch action so, no further action can be taken.
> 
> Equinox logo appears on LCD then displays a voice patch. No sounds. No switch actions.
> 
> + 5 and - 5 volts ok...I havent checked other yet
> 
> Any  ideas???
> 
> Thanks
>
Amendment:

SCSI beeps 1...2...3 beeps then pause...then repeat.

Also recognizes the 2 meg memory plug-in not-being-installed if I unplug it

Thanks twice

Hi Scott,

I repaired an Equinox-76 about 6 months ago. The Ni-Cad battery on the midi switcher board corroded and ate several power traces on the board. It was quite incommunicado until I jumpered the traces. GEM was very nice and sent the schematics and the file for the latest OS update. I recently installed a SCSI interface option and have been reading all kinds of Akai and Kurz sample CD's. I installed a 2gb 2.5" IDE laptop drive in it to save the samples. Also there are now 4 AAA NiMh rechargeables in a battery holder mounted well away from any boards should they leak.

If you're talking about the internal drive it is IDE and will spin up on boot so the Equinox can check it. Then it is issued a sleep command and stops. If you have an external SCSI drive connected same thing. It sounds like you are booting ok but then the dead buttons won't let you go any further. Mine comes up with "Dreams" for a performance after the Equinox screen. When mine arrived the keyboard connector was unplugged from the motherboard for some reason. Thus no sounds. 

Booting from the OS disk will ask if you want to install the OS or not so that is correct also. The 2mb DRAM module is needed to access the internal hard drive so when it is missing the alarm will come up.

You can contact me directly and I'll share all the info I have or we can discuss it here. Also I'm only going to be around for a few days before I go hide in the Adirondacks for a bit but then I'll be back.

Good luck, Fran 

--- In vintagesynthrepair@yahoogroups.com, "Scott" <painintheamp@...> wrote:

>
> 
> 
> --- In vintagesynthrepair@yahoogroups.com, "Scott" <painintheamp@> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Groupies
> > 
> > I have a Pro88 here that "seems" to boot ok till you want to access ANY commands from the top panel switches.
> > 
> > They all act dead.
> > 
> > First boot up and I hear the SCSI drive make "beep...beep beep"...long pause , repeat. Then  no SCSI spin.
> > 
> > Booting from OS floppy:...Reads then asks for either Enter or Escape.
> > No switch action so, no further action can be taken.
> > 
> > Equinox logo appears on LCD then displays a voice patch. No sounds. No switch actions.
> > 
> > + 5 and - 5 volts ok...I havent checked other yet
> > 
> > Any  ideas???
> > 
> > Thanks
> >
> Amendment:
> 
> SCSI beeps 1...2...3 beeps then pause...then repeat.
> 
> Also recognizes the 2 meg memory plug-in not-being-installed if I unplug it
> 
> Thanks twice
>