Emulator Emu I 6008 1982 Blue

Emulator I, Model 6008, sn 487, 1982

Eprom: 820816.

The Emulator I is the 1st version in Emulator Systems Emu sampling synthesizer line. It has a 4 Octave Keyboard, and uses a 5.25 inch Floppy drive to load the Emulator Library into RAM.  Five Hundred units were manufactured in 1981~82.  

This synth is in excellent cosmetic condition, with very little wear to the case, the keys or any of the controls.   It comes complete with the original manual, a volume pedal, 2 foot switches, a JLCooper Midi I/O adaptor, and a library of about 90 disks, 80 of which are original Emu program disks.

It came in to the shop with a defective power transformer and a partially blown bridge rectifier.  The repairs were made and the unit was working, but the Floppy drive worked erratically, often failing to load disks. The FDD became more erratic over time, finally failing to spin up at all.

In order to rule out any power issues all of the power supply rails and regulators were tested both with and without a load, with all of the rails remaining well within spec in both cases.   The power supply caps were lifted, evaluated with a digital LCR and reinstalled. All of the test points on the CPU, Main and Lower output PCBs have been monitored as well, and are in spec. Voltages to the FDD were monitored as well and were unchanged.  

What we’ve found is that the FDD will attempt to load a program only with the Lower output board disconnected. Without the Lower output board the FDD does spin up and behaves as though it is misaligned, with the stepper motor resetting the head to starting point every 2 seconds. According to the manual, this is an indication that the drive is in fact misaligned, or that the track 00 detect switch is defective (it was checked and is working).   With the Lower output board reconnected the drive is inactive.

All of the ribbon cables have been pulled, checked for damage and reseated. The CPU, Main and Lower output pcbs were removed and carefully inspected for any defects (broken traces, cold joints, shorts, etc.) with none found. The harnesses and molex connectors were tested separately for any defects, bad grounds, etc.

According to the manual, the LED displays indicate the following:

• The CPU is functioning normally. (All LEDs on initially)
• The FDD is out of alignment.  (Save, Get Lower, Sample, OL LEDs off = Wrong track error)
• Interrupt and Memory systems are working. (FDD stepping motor sequences) 

So it appears that there are 2 different issues with this Emulator, the first is with the Lower Output pcb logic. The second, is that the FDD needs to be realigned or replaced.

The unit is being sold As Is, for local pickup only. Interested parties are invited to email or call for more information regarding the repairs and test results.