A3000 Discussion

[danbeaver]

I acquired an A3000 a couple of weeks back and had never seen nor read much about them before although I've owned other Amigas since 1986. The motherboard seemed fine but the floppy was dead. After cutting up my hand and removing everything to get the PSU cradle out, I noticed the unfamiliar ZIP RAM.  Weird wobbly things, I then read up on the RAM situation and wondered WTF?  Overlapping ram addresses?  I then checked the battery and not only was the clock working, the battery (original) held a full charge. I replaced it anyways with a coin kit, but felt bad about it.

The DF0 drive sits almost center and DF1 goes to the right, which opposite of the normal A2000; but the FDD cable length prevents switching the two.

The onboard SCSI controller is the same as the A2091's WD33C93-04 that can't be all that great. I like the Amber chip and it functions well, but overall the case is small and cramped, hard to disassemble and assemble, the PSU cradle sits a millimeter above my A3640 card, and the daughter board has to be in place to boot. The shipped KS 2.04 prevents using Picasso96 on my EGS Spectrum 24/28 board and large HDDs. I find it odd that it was considered to be used as a UNIX workstation.

I put some odds and ends in there but could not get MUI to work nor my Subway hanging off my X-Surf. Of course MiamiDX won't work without MUI, but the ZorRam 256MB card works. Tried adding 16 MB of motherboard ZIPs but one broke off a pin during installation and had to order more.

What comments do the A3000 users out there have on this beast?

[danbeaver]

Buster revision should be upgraded to eleven.

That's all I got.

Buster 11 on order from Vesalia, as is KS 3.1 ROM's; WD chip replaced with AMD from Mech's site.   Is there a 14MHz mod for the SCSI chip?  Is it even needed?
ZorRam 256MB works. Replaced non-working floppy with a HD one I bought last year thinking it was an A4000 compatible.  Put a new Teac HD drive in with an adapter for use as a 880K drive for installs; I have a Buddha/Catweasel in working fine, but I'll later hook up the Teac to it for full HD support.  Can't fit a 68-pin HDD due to adapter blocking posterior (tight) hard drive site; so hooked it up with a MB->F-to-M SCSI cable-> 50-to-68-pin adapter->68-pin SCSI cable to HDD for now.

I am hoping 3.1 ROM allows MiamiDX, Picasso96, and Poseidon to work.:laugh1:

[danbeaver]

All agreed upon!

I put my A3640 in by turning the (low profile) heatsink 90 degrees.

The Zips (I went from 4 MB to 16MB) were a Mother F***er to install, breaking one of the tiny flimsy pins and having to order another (4).  I have a DIP installer, but a Zip installer?

The SCSI device is not perfect or wonderful; I upgraded the chip because I needed to use external CDROM, Card reader, and GOK what due to lack of internal space.  Further it is unforgiving and requires a separate Active termination to work consistently; on drive termination need only apply for part time work.  I tried adding an ACard SCSI->IDE adapter with an evening wasted.

Can't find out if a FastLane Z3 works in the A3000; some say it does, some say maybe, others say no.

Twice I've smelled a burnt something, but cannot figure what unless the power supply is dodgy .  

Did they really have to sharpen the metal edges inside the computer?  Could they just used razor wire, or land mines?  My hands look like (and feel like) H.e.l.l.:angel:

[danbeaver]

As to the KS 3.1 ROM's, had to get those from Vesalia, other wise impossible to find.

My Zips are all (except the first 4 MB) from Mech; I didn't ask and he doesn't say what type, but they seem to work.

My A3640 says 3.1 on the board, but a 3.2 is labeled across one chip; it seems to work.

Burnt smell?  My 4 GB CF card has a black hole in it and the Buddha IDE is no longer recognized, just out of the blue.

Dern'd SCSI is still giving me heck; after the "smell" above I took her apart to check the motherboard vs the schematics and found all well.  But now she crashes on accessing the external (is there any other type) CDROM.  I just click SCSI Inquiry with the CDROM connected and it is GURU city.  Termination is OK; she boots from the hard drive (one internal), but no external access! (?)

She is in the midst of a laparotomy as I type.

{mech, the IRC is discussing class warfare, not Amigas}

[danbeaver]

OK,

This is annoying.  I just changed the HDD ID to 4 and the external ID to 2, and now no GURU (had been HDD 0, and CDROM 5).  I mean WTF? Since when does the ID number order matter?:confused:

And the Seagate ST15230N does not like Reselection! What else is on my plate?

If I can get back to 2 days ago where I had my Subway hanging off my ISDN Surfer, my ZorRam 256K, and my Spectrum 24/28 working, then I'll die in my sleep a contented man.

As an aside, I can see where the -5 Volts from the current PSU supplies the 100-bit Zorro slots, but is it needed elsewhere?  If I need a PSU replacement and if I use a Micro ATX that has no -5 Volt  rail,will it be an issue (yes I saw the inversion circuit posted elsewhere)?  The ISA slots are unused, and I don't know of any cards that require it, do you folks?

[danbeaver]

02:54 am Update:  I just put back together after installing the Buster 11.  I spent the day sorting out the SCSI and found that it hangs if there is a CD in the CDROM during boot. Weird!  EGS Spectrum 24/28, ISDN Surfer with Subway, and ZorRam all working fine. Boots fine and is behaving properly.

[danbeaver]

Oops, too late!  I've been using Version 3.9 of AsimWares CDFS. But this a pre-boot (hardware) issue; at best guess it reads the CD for a bootable OS and "has a cow" when it finds something else.

By the way, those PC->Amiga Floppy adapters from Ian's web site do not cover the exposed connections underneath next to the A3000's metal plate and I fried one and half fried a second before I figured that one out!

I don't know what happened to my Buddha card and the attached CF card, but the card is dead (may it RIP) and there is a brown hole in the CF card from heat.

Oh, when Mary had a little lamb,  the doctor fainted

[danbeaver]

Mech IRC'd me through a CF card install (SFS) yesterday with checks on SCSI bus: the diode is no longer rectifying (D800?) so I have 5 V on pin 25 with power and ground without power. The CF card reader now works as a boot drive with my SCSI-3 CD-R/W drive -- both external. I bought a FastLane Z3 from FitzSteve (with 128 MB RAM) to try. He says it is kinda flaky too; but maybe two flakes can make a breakfast cereal.

I plan to replace D800 after my cuts heal, but for now I have a good workable A3000 -- and by work I don't mean a WHDLoad machine. I mean a FinalWriter, PageStream4, Internet connected, USB'd, image processing, and all-around computer (that can play WHDLoad games from the 4GB CF card I have filled with them).

[danbeaver]

Not sure why your subway does not work off the X-Surf. This is the exact setup I have in my A3000. Having USB is fun in any computer and quite novelty in the A3000. Would re-installing the Subway software help? It is also easy to plug these things in backwards and wreck things too, I almost did but caught it in time.

Mine works fine off the X-Surf although I swapped out a 50 US Salad leaf ISDN Surfer to use for its clockport; same orientation as for X-Surf -- Ribbon cable heads to the bottom of card, not off the top!