emusonacid! legacy

well i accidentally over wrote my flash rom with all my orbit/phatt samples on it. like 16 megs from the orbit/phatt chip set that emu put out for their samplers. is there anyone out there that has this chip and can make me a copy of the flash rom ? i really loved a lot of the sounds in it.

Have you had any luck with restoring the ROM?
I seem to have done the same thing. To my Orbit/Phatt Not quite sure though, i wouldn't have thought it possible to actually overwrite a ROM unless it was FLASH, in which case the chip would be identical physically to the user definable Sound Flash, right? So i was surprised to find that it seems i had erased what i thought was a permanently written chip. When i got under the hood sure enough the SIMM in ROM 0 slot says its a 32 MB Sound Flash (stamped on the board), the IC's are Intel manufactured flash ram and theres a sticker with the cryptic text inscribed:
WO# P3443
AP642-01
PACTRON
(and someones' tagged it with their intials)

OK so after i apparently erased the chip it is no longer recognized in the disk browser, it is mentioned in the listing on boot as "Sound Flash installed" though. When i've tried to Author it i get an error "ROM must be in slot 0!" (which it is).
I tried the Flashprep disk (not really sure if this is the appropriate application for that or not)
I'm running EOS 4.7 with no major problems.

currently on ebay there's a guy selling what seems to be a 32 MB Flash ROM; http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... eName=WDVW

But it appears that here too there's confusion about the inner identity of the chip. Check out the question posted to the seller:

" Q: hi is this the 32 mb chip the only way to actually tell is to put it in an ultra sampler, e-mu uses the same 32mb stamp for both the 16 and the 32 the...more answered on: Feb-14-05 "
" A: I would have to find out about that - May be you are right? - It does not make any sense for them to do that though :( So much confusion I will Post it...more"

Also the seller has fortuitously posted an excellent picture of the identification info on the sticker:
WO#P59103
AP642-01
PACTRON
(notice the tag)

(only difference 'tween this and the one in my machine is the first line WO#, anyone know the meaning of these codes?)

So there it is! Anyone having any insight on this SIMM identity crisis
please post any relevant information you might have.

...........Oh.............
silly me.
I just realized my mistake. The card was turned off in the "disable Rom setting!" D'oh. Anyway. It still leaves the question unanswered, is this card in this machine a permanent ROM, with the Orbit/Phatt soundset. Or is it a Flash, which can be rewritten? Or is it that there is no difference? My present suspicion is that it is the latter. Anyone know about this stuff. Also, does anyone have experience with the Flash Prep software? I am unsure about the exact application of the program, it doesn't seem to be documented well.

that's all very odd..... are the emu roms really the same as the flash ram then? I will check tonight.....
I have authored flash rams from banks made in an e6400 ultra with eos4.7.

despite my earlier frustrations with this, I persisted.... it turned out there was a hardware fault on an otherwise perfect e5000 ultra I bought specifically for this task. during the investigations, emu support sent me some sticks- supposedly flash ram- with proteus presets on them. they worked in all my proteus boxes & in the sampler just as if they were roms, but I couldn't write on them.

I guess one way to find out would be to see if the proteus (i.e. not the emu sampler but the rompler/synth) can do the same things to a "rom" as it can to a "flash ram".... if it's in the right slot, you can rename it, copy it &c.

I suspect not. but I'll give it a go anyway.
I thought the WO# number was the rom identity (world, composer & so on) but I might be mistaken..... I have several of the composer rom, & have noticed that the one that came in my pk6 is different from the ones in my p2k's.... it's not even called the same, but it has the same noises on it. confusing, especially if you're given to moving them around y'r boxes like I am....javascript:emoticon(':???:')
Confused

duncan.

It seems from a couple of different angles that this is indeed the case (at least in some cases); that the flash ram and preset roms are implemented on the same hardware.
Another recent post alludes to this:
viewtopic.php?t=1037

when i got my 6400 ultra it came with the orbit/phatt set installed. It also had the documentation, which vaguely mentions the possiblility of overwriting the presets with your own sounds. The big manual seems to indicate this as well, although again, it's rather oblique on the topic. I'm running 4.7, I can confirm that i have successfuly erased my orbit/phatt rom. And that i have partially successfully installed my own soundsets on the thing. The memory appears to be 16 MB on this stick (based on what i seem to be able to fit on it, rather than the 32MB that's printed on the stick). And if i can recall correctly i had no luck using the normal authoring routine but found that simply saving to the "flash" icon in the save dialogue serverd the purpose fine. (Anyone else know about this distinction?). My suspicion on this is that if your "ROM" appears as a "FLASH" object in the drives menu then it can be overwritten and filled your very own sounds. The chips one the one i've got are Intel, and a quick search through google shows that they are indeed rewritable flash memory chips. I believe that E-mu had subcontracted the handling of these modules out (to Pactron perhaps) and it would seem nonsensical for them to utilize the very expensive FLASH RAM (at least by 1998 standards) when a fixed ROM chip of some kind would get the job done just as well. Perhaps as the the prices of Flash declined in recent years the such that the figures just made more sense for them to simply use one kind of stick for all the different memories.

Also, one person i spoke to told me that there is some sort of difference between the E4XT's ability to author flash memory and that of the 6400 ultra! (any insight as to what this diffference could be would be very helpful as well.) I have had two different E6400 Ultras, and each had a slighty different mainboard, revision numbers and years, perhaps somewhere on this forum we could compile the differences between boards. If the thing about the E4XT is true then that disputes the notion that the 6400 can be "upgraded to the full E4XT status" line that i've seen repeated on ebay and elsewhere time and again. (this information is anecdotal, and represented one users experience/difficulties in getting the authoring thing to work one the two machines)
All in all this whole subject matter is one of those mysteries that seems to occur when a physical capability (or portion thereof), of a device; and the officially marketed feature set are somewhat divergent. I understand why this happens with companies, especially in such complex machines as the Ultras, it just makes our jobs as users all the more fun!
I am currently looking into the correct procedure for complete restoral of the orbit/phatt rom.

so... some more stuff to try. I didn't get around to it last night; had to work late moving my damn desk again...
here's what I know, & what I need to check.

the problems I was having last year were all related to creating flash ram for use in a proteus module. thus, though I had no prblems using the ram in my samplers (any of the bigger ones), I could not persuade either the e4x or the e5k ultra to write anything meaningful into the so-called "baby flash" which is where the proteus-specific data lives. in any case, & as you mention, there is a lot of disinformation regarding upgrade paths for the earlier big samplers, & on the strength of this I bought the e4x. it can write to the flash just fine, but not the baby flash. the e5k, despite being an ultra, bombed out during the authoring op & then wouldn't reboot with the flash installed (this whole sorry tale is in more detail elsewhere).
anyway- long story short- during the course of these investigations, emu sent me replacement "flash ram" which I had asked them to prepopulate in the manner I was attempting myself. the sticks they sent looked exactly like factory roms, but significantly THEY WOULD NOT WORK IN A PROTUES BOX.
so, I suspect that I need to do some more digging.

but in any case, & as I have said elsewhere, the "authoring" function is for creating your own "roms" for use in a proteus box. merely saving sounds to flash memory for use in the samplers is not the same. the e4x can do this, but ignores the "baby flash". my e6400 ultra CAN make roms for my proteus boxes (hooray!) but only after I version-upped it from 4.10. (again, there is some misinformation here).
now I need to try the same with a factory rom, purchased recently.

watch this space!

duncan.

I suspect that somewhere at Emu there still lurks someone who knows the answer... I was not able to get too deep, but was told that they did sub flash for ROM, strange as it seems, $$$-wise. Perhaps giving flash-for-ROM was meant as a Producer's Pack benefit they neglected to mention or market. "WO" probably stands for work order...

I don't know if there's some way I could upload y'all a little jpeg of this....
I took the time this w/e to compare & contrast two different "roms" & a flash ram stick from my eos/proteus collection.

the rom from my pk6 (which is similar but not identical to the composer rom) is the simplest, hardware-wise. oddly, it will not work in my planet earth module. the e6400ultra sees it as "sound rom". bizarrely, this rom has the "CE" mark on it. does this appear on roms in the US or just europe?

the "world" rom from my planet earth (which was originally bought by a US customer) says "32MB sound flash sound rom" (sic) on it, & looks completely different to the pk6 rom. some of the recognisable hardware has moved from one side of the board to the other, & there is clearly space on the board for components that aren't fitted.
it appears to the e6400ultra as sound rom again, though, not flash-disc.
(this is during boot-up & within the disc browser both).

both of these roms can be copied to ram or hd in the sampler, allowing one to compile favourite presets into one bank, or even dismantle them sample-by-sample, & certainly it's possible to copy them onto a flash stick. however, the "presets" aren't the same thing as the proteus presets- there are less than 400 of them, for a start, & you can't search-by-category.

the real flash disc appears as such in the ultra- the icon is different, & the ultra has a good old sniff at it while it's booting. you may recall I had problems with an e5000ultra in this exact area.
when you finish making a bank (under 32Mb, & with all the source material on the hard drive, & no links....) in the ultra, this can be "authored" onto the flash stick. it says it's going to take 9 minutes to erase & a further 18 to prepare the flash, but in my experience this all happens a good bit quicker. the eos presets then appear as proteus instruments, while a default set of proteus presets sometimes appear aswell.

but the main thing is- I was not able to erase anything from either of the two roms. there may be a third type.....

duncan/r.m.i.

hmm still no luck i've been using mine to write presets. it's a ROM which is like a flash ram in that it can hold data after poweroff. the roms were very expensive at the time when emu had them out due to manufacturing cost and the fact that you got huge librarys on them.

i stll can't figure out how i erased it but if anyone has the orbit/flash and wants to post up the 16 megs i'll sort you out with an equal number of samples

I did a bit more poking.... I got suspicious because someone mentioned that emu had been using flash sticks to supply "roms" when titles were in short supply. so I looked at the xtreme stick I managed to blag from emu for my audity about 3 years ago when they'd stopped supporting the a2k.

sure enough, it's a 16Mb flash stick. different (again) from the flash stick & the two roms I already examined, but it definitely says "flash simm" on it. so I copied the noises off of it onto the HD in my e6400ultra. a bit surprised that worked, tbh.
but when I tried to author a 32Mb flash using some of the sounds (from hard-drive, this is) that had come from the xtreme "rom", the process aborted, saying that they were rom samples & thus invalid. bah. workaround time.
anyway, not wanting to risk the 16Mb xtreme stick, I carefully made a 16Mb bank of some other stuff & authored this onto one of my 32mB sticks. this did not work in the audity. shame....

if there is/was someone at emu who understood all this, it's time he "chipped" in.....

btw, the shop in germany that was listing the 16Mb sticks never wrote back to me.

duncan.

Forgot about this thread. Still never recovered my Orbit/Phatt Rom. if there is anyone out there with this please email me at insulin181@hotmail.com as i'd really like to have these sounds again.