Construction
The keyboard is of thick plastic construction of a dark gray color with 61 weighted keys. There are assignable pitch, modulation wheels, and two patch select buttons. The interior of the unit is accessed by removing four hex screws under the front of the keyboard and swinging open the rear-hinged control panel.
The whole unit was configurable through a custom operating system (latest version was 2.49 for the EPS and 1.30 for the EPS 16plus). After the system boots from the floppy drive, it flashes a "Tuning Keyboard - Hands Off" message while it calibrates its polyphonic after-touch keyboard. The 16plus was capable of storing the OS in the optional FlashBank, which removed the need for a bootdisk.
An optional Output Expander module allowed you to access eight discrete mono outputs on the machine, allowing you to separately mix levels and effects for each loaded sample.
The key limitations of the EPS were its proprietary disk format, and later a lack of support from Creative Technology, the current owner of Ensoniq. A 19" rack-mount version of both machines were also available in limited numbers.
This model was superseded by the Ensoniq EPS-16+, released in 1991. The EPS-16+ was very similar to the EPS. Its main addition was integrated DSP effects and stereo audio routing. Due to the upgrade to 16-bit audio, the Output Expander on the 16plus was different, instead providing three pairs of stereo outputs, two from before the new effects chip.
Read more about this topic: Ensoniq EPS
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