# Melco EMC 1: Many Technical questions



## SheaT (Feb 25, 2017)

Hello All! 

I would first like to start by saying "If you see any error in what I am saying please let me know, I am exactly 2 days old in the embroidery world." 

Okay time for the background, My name is Shea and I am 21 years old. I am a Electro-Mechanical Engineering Major at Penn State. I recently received a Melco EMC 1 and EP1. According to the previous owner one day both machines stopped working out of the blue after trying to reassemble them after a flood. These machines were up on a table and were unaffected but he was never able to get them to work again. I took them back to my dorm room and proceed to power both machines on and hook them up to the computer. Getting an error message about a missing "Dongle" on the computer with the machines never initializing. 

Fast forward to present day, I have now done a considerable amount of ancient manual reading and searching around on the forums to try and piece everything together. And I believe I have found the missing piece, I am missing the Parallel port security dongle that made everything work. 
*
The purpose of the rest of this post is to figure out what I have and what I need to do moving forward. Also as a guide for people with similar problems. *

Here Is an Itemized list of what I have...

*COMPAQ PRESARIO (windows 98 has EDS III, Dakota AlphaSizer, and AutoFont)
*2 Melco Network ISA boards (T4210 005091-01)
*Original Melco cabels (RJ45 phone jack looking ones)
*floppy disk (Melco Embroidery Systems EDS/EPICOR; Disk, Alphabets, EDSIII; Part #005451-01; PATCHES; SN 0932)
*Melco EMC 1 (White Head, single needle machine) (Model: 00633001; Serial: 3000134; 01/1995)
*Melco EP1 (Model: 00558101; Serial: 9310284; 12/1993)
*Miscellaneous hoops, hat holders, pre-wound thread, tools, manuals, a few design floppy discs

I would personally like to focus on the EMC 1 because the EP1 can only interface with a computer through the old methods to my knowledge. I believe I have 3 options, one, find a security dongle and use the ancient computer and software. Two, take advantage of the fact that the EMC 1 was designed to take a floppy drive and do the Floppy to USB conversion. Three, throw the whole thing in the dumpster outside my dorm and be done with it. 

So I am thinking I want to go with option 2. This is where the questions come in. Let us first describe the process as I understand it. 

*Buy the following items...*
*USB to Floppy drive emulator 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C4PTOJ...UTF8&colid=37N4JOX7GQJUJ&coliid=IDMWZYGHBIJM7 
*USB Flash Drive
* Floppy Ribbon Cable 

*I will also need...*
*The boot disk Programs 
*Software to create designs

The conversion to USB seems rather simple, you can fine the forum post at this link on how to do it. 
http://www.t-shirtforums.com/embroidery/t219663.html

My first question lies in the "boot disk", I have some files from that previous post but as one user said...

_For everybody who is still struggling how to convert Melco to USB, follow next steps:
The USB stick has to have ONLY TWO FILES!
Once you unzip the file from tommyfilyh, you're going to have 6 files
1.edsapp9d.rsa
2.edsapp9e.rsa
3.edsapp9f.rsa
4.INST ( windows file - you don't need!)
5.INSTALL( windows file - you don't need!)
6.MELCO.SYS
Melco EMC10T needs ONLY edsapp9f.rsa and MELCO.SYS
However, it depends what year is the machine made - so you're going to have to RENAME this file to edsapp99.rsa. My machine was made 1998 and I had to rename it!
The same is with the other types of Melco machines. Always only two files (you have three there, it might happen that you will need different one than I used)_

*Which boot files do I use with my EMC 1? *

My second Question is, *What 34 pin Floppy ribbon cable should I get?*

Finally what software can I use to make new designs and files for my hypothetically working machine? According to the original floppy drive manual the "drive" can support reading of _"DOS 1.44MB, DOS 720K, Melco Expanded, Tajima, Barudan FMC, Barudan FDR, and ZSK, expanded only."_ So with a little googling these file extensions would be (Melco .EXP), (Tajima .DST), (ZSK .DST), (Barudan not sure), and (DOS not sure). 

I believe these two pieces of software may be good but *I would like your opinions*, they both seem to be free and opensource and support atleast .EXP or .DST...
*Embroidermodder
News - Embroidermodder
*Thredworks
About Thredworks

Well Everyone that's it. Thank you for suffering through my wall of text. I can take any pictures you need of the machine and hopefully we can work this out and create a guide for those to come! 

To wrap it up I believe I have 3 major Questions...
**Which boot files do I use with my EMC 1?
*What 34 pin Floppy ribbon cable should I get?
*What Program should I use that is either free or very cheap?*


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## galejomesa (Dec 16, 2017)

Hola. Podrías ayudarme. Mi maquina es melco emc 10/4 y no puedo hacer que mi boot disk funcione. Por favor. Gracias


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