Question: I've got a bunch of EPS floppy disks, and I want to get the Instruments and files off of them so I can convert them to WAVE files or for something else.
Answer: Sure, but currently it's a little convuluted.
Please note that this article applies only to PC, not Mac. Mac's cannot under usual circumstances read Ensoniq floppies. If they were formatted a "COMPUTER", then a program called EPSm can read them, but the program is not available anymore, and also is OS9 only.
GET FILES OFF FLOPPY
You can use a variety of commercial programs for this; Ensoniq
MIDI-Disk Tools or Disk Tools, Giebler's EDM, or other. There is a free DOS program called EPSDisk too. However, these only work with any Windows 95, 98, or Millenium. They do not work with Windows NT, 2000, or XP. For a workaround , see below.
First, download the Translator Free software from www.chickensys.com/translatorfree. This includes the EPSDisk software, plus Translator Free which we'll use in Step 2.
If you are using Win95/98 or WinME, you can use EPSDisk in "DOS" or in a shell. Follow the instructions in epsdisk.txt file and make .efe or .efa files from the floppy in question. You can do this with Instruments, Sequences, etc.
If you are using Windows XP, 2000, or NT, you need to access EPSDisk a little differently. Go to the Knowledge Base article on the Rubber Chicken web site to get a Win98 bootdisk that runs EPSDisk. Download the boot disk, use it (read the readme file), to get those .efe or .efa files onto your hard drive.
Once you have the .efe or .efa files on your hard drive, you can convert them to .wav files or other formats using Ensoniq MIDI-Disk Tools, Ensoniq Disk Tools, or Translator.