after the discontinuation of the Emulator II in 1987, and was manufactured until 1991. A rack-mountable version was introduced in 1988. It featured 4 or 8 megabytes of memory, depending on the model, and it could store samples in 16-bit, 44 kHz stereo, which at the time, was equivalent to the most advanced, professional equipment available. The sound quality was also improved greatly over its predecessors, the Emulator I and II, with quieter outputs and more reliable filter chips. However, the Emulator III was considerably less popular than its predecessors, largely due to its price at a time when manufacturers such as Akai, Ensoniq and Casio offered samplers at less than $2,000, the Emulator III's use of high-quality components drove the price up to $12,695 for the 4 MB model, and $15,195 for the 8 MB model. E-mu had previously been able to sell its Emulators at around the $10,000 range because the only alternatives were the $30,000–200,000 Fairlight CMI, and the $75,000–500,000 NED Synclavier system. However, times had changed, the technology had become more and more accessible and E-mu was not able to keep up. Although the Emulator III may not have been a success with working musicians, it did find a place on the records and in the studios of many prominent artists, including Tony Banks of Genesis, Lynda Thomas, 808 state (on their 1991 album Ex:el) (live performance) and Depeche Mode, who used it on their successful 1990 album, Violator. Emulator IV and EOS The Emulator IV (EIV) series of samplers was introduced in 1994. The new operating system used in the EIV was known as the Emulator Operating System or EOS, which was updated regularly by e-mu. Early EIV models with only 1MB of CPU Flash can be updated to 3.00b, while later models with 2MB or more can be updated to EOS 4.62 (non-Ultra) or EOS 4.7 (Ultra). There have been rumors that EOS 4.8 was in development and included support for USB transfers. The Emulator IV was the first to be released, a rack sampler that came with 128 voices and memory expansion up to a then-massive 128MB. Options included a multi-effects processor, additional output sockets and 32 MIDI channels. The e64 was launched soon after the Emulator IV, and in order to meet a lower price point it was limited to only 64 voices and a maximum 64MB of memory. It was soon