A3000, what do I need to know?

[x56h34]

I may be getting an A3000D unit w/ 3.1 roms soon and I was wondering what upgrades would I require? IIUC, it would be nice to have a setup with Buster 11, Ramsey 7, DMAC 4, and WD SCSI rev 8.

I would like to use the on-board SCSI-2 controller for the hard drive, until I get a better accelerator for it, and for SCSI-2 devices even after I get an accelerator which may or may not have a better SCSI controller on it, however is the WD SCSI rev 8, or possibly more updates (Buster 11, Ramsey 7, DMAC 4) absolutely necessary to eliminate the known SCSI and other issues with A3000? INT2 mod would be required for accelerators with SCSI on them, right? I would definitely want Buster 11 so I could use a nice Zorro III GFX card. Anything else? :-)

[redrumloa]

I would definitely want Buster 11 so I could use a nice Zorro III GFX card. Anything else?

Do your homework before replacing the Buster for a Buster -11. Certain ZIII cards don't need it, some do, and some won't work even with it.

Spectrum - doesn't need Buster 11
A4091 - doesnt work in A3000 even with Buster 11

[x56h34]

@redrumloa:

Good call. I'll look into it.

How about the ZIP memory? I see that SoftHut has it in their online catalog. How many of those do I need? 1X4 Page Mode Zip RAM...does that mean 4 chips forming 1MB?

[Methuselas]

@ x56h34

I don't know if they're still around or not, but try using one of those SIMM adapters. I was given one that was a prototype, designed by an engineer at NASA and other than being a bit cramped for space, it ROCKED.

That way, you can use simms, instead of the ZIPs. You're still limited to the 16mb of ram, though, so use 4MB simms. LOL I have TONS of 72 pin 4MB Simms. I have a bunch of 32MB ones if anyone needs some.

[redrumloa]

How about the ZIP memory?

If you are planning on adding an (modernish) accelerator, don't bother with ZIP memory. If you are going to keep it relatively stock then you have to add 8 chips at a time for 4Meg increments.

[x56h34]

I would like to be able to use the 16MB on-board memory for a while, as I will keep it around stock specs until I get it accelerated. Where to get those ZIP chips cheap? :-)

[Amiga4k]

Redrumola,
The last 3 paragraphs are for you.  You  probably know more than I have forgotten,  this is an issue that needs correction. Luckily, I downloaded almost 90% of National Amiga's Tech info. So,  although they do not exist. I give them credit for the file content. (PS: this is 2 files, condensed).

The A4091 is a full-length Zorro-III DMA Fast SCSI-2 hard drive controller designed for the A4000. It is based on the NCR 53C710 chip. (Editor's note: this is the same Fast SCSI controller chip used in the Warp Engine.)

Unlike some similar products, it is only a Fast SCSI-2 controller; it has no sockets for additional RAM. The A4091 package includes an active terminator and a custom ribbon cable, which is nicely folded to accommodate up to five internal drives, one on-board and a pair in each of the front and rear bays.

The A4091 requires a revision 11 Buster, which Commodore supplied loose with the card. It works with A3640 3.1 and 3.2 revisions, but not 3.0. [Editor's note: ROM revisions for the on-board ROM include 40.9 and 40.13.]

The board is theoretically capable of 10 megabytes per second transfer rates.

  SCSI Address of Card

            0     1     2     3     4     5     6     7

    SW1    ON    OFF   ON    OFF   ON    OFF   ON    OFF
    SW2    ON    ON    OFF   OFF   ON    ON    OFF   OFF
    SW3    ON    ON    ON    ON    OFF   OFF   OFF   OFF
 

  SCSI Fast Bus

    SW4    OFF indicates that the SCSI Fast Bus feature is enabled.
           Set this switch to ON if none of your SCSI devices
           support SCSI Fast Bus.

  Short/Long Spinup

    SW5    OFF indicates that your system uses the standard spinup
           (booting) time. Set this switch to ON to request a longer
           booting period. If one of your SCSI devices has a long
           power-on cycle, the Amiga may not recognise it during the
           standard booting period.

  Synchronous Mode

    SW6    OFF indicates that the synchronous mode feature is enabled.
           Set this switch to ON to disable synchronous mode. Synchronous
           mode does not require acknowledgement for every byte transmitted,
           which can mean improved response time with most SCSI devices.

  External SCSI Termination

    SW7    OFF indicates that you do not have any external devices.
           This activates the terminator on the board since this is
           one end of the SCSI bus. Set this switch to ON when you
           install an external device. This disables the termination
           on the board since it is now in the middle of the SCSI bus
           (not at the end).

  Logical Unit (LUN) Enable

    SW8    OFF indicates that unit 0 is the only unit recognized. Set
           this switch to on to enable the system to recognize 1-6 as
           LUNs.
 
The RAMSEY and DMAC chips are important A3000 custom chips that, among other  things, implement part of the A3000's onboard DMA SCSI host adapter.  Nearly all A3000 were delivered with the revision combination of DMAC-02 and  RAMSEY-04.
The problem is in the DMAC, not in the RAMSEY and a RAMSEY-07 together with a DMAC-02 does not work at all. You need  either both chips in the old revisions, or both in the new revisions.

The BUSTER chip (or more exactly Super-Buster),  is important for the Zorro-III slots in  your A3000. The revision
11 BUSTER implements Zorro-III DMA, so you can use the Fastlane Z3 or A4091 boards, which is not possible with older BUSTERs. The rev. 11 BUSTER is also faster than previous versions and more compatible with different plug in cards.
There is a BUSTER rev. 09 available, too. Do not buy this one, it also tries to implement Zorro-III DMA but has a bug in this. The rev. 11 part also is the only one, which has an extra hack to fix a bug in a different A3000 chip.
NVRAM
The A3000 has a small amount of nonvolatile RAM, that is used to store the settings for the onboard SCSI host adapter. Christian Just  (just@zfn.uni-bremen.de) reported, that he heard of several cases where the  contents of this RAM were lost when an A3640 was installed. This resulted in  SCSI problems, that vanished when the settings were restored with the SetBatt
utility. It is available as util/wb/SetBatt-1.2.lha on Aminet.  As I can not confirm this and have no exact knowledge what is happening here, I  would appreciate any further information about this battmem problem.
      NATIONAL AMIGA TECHNICAL INFO

[Herewegoagain]

I don't know if they're still around or not, but try using one of those SIMM adapters. I was given one that was a prototype, designed by an engineer at NASA and other than being a bit cramped for space, it ROCKED.

I bought one of those when they were sold through Amazing Computing Amiga Magazine.  Paid about $50 for it.  A good investment at the time.  It was designed on the Amiga 3000, by an Amiga user, for the Amiga 3000.  

They were never really mass produced and the guy I bought it from sold the design rights to it, IIRC.  Not only will it take 4 4MB 72 pin SIMMS, but it will also use 2 8MB 72 pin SIMMS (that's how I have mine configured).  But with the 8MB SIMMS, you can only use 2 of the 4 slots (makes sense).

BIG WORD OF CAUTION:  If your A3000 uses a ROM Tower, you may wind up having to make a custom cable like I did just to move it out of the SIMM adapters way.  Otherwise the two will not fit.  If you don't have the ROM Tower, then it's no problem.  The best bet is to pick up some Zips until you decide if you want to add an accellerator or not.

[Acill]

Well let me tell you this: I still use the old SCSI chip with no problem and my boot drive is an old 500MB SCSI drive. I did put in a Rev 11 buster, but I never needed to do it. I just got the chip fry out of a dead A4000 board. The Ramsey and DMAC are also older and unless you use a board that just wont work witht he older stuff again there is no need to swith them out.

My A3000 is mediator equiped and CSPPC equiped with no problems. I use it for just about everything you can think of. I have a video card, CD burner, sound card, the works. Get the A3000, its the best Amiga ever made without question in my opinion and I am sure several others.

[TjLaZer]

I have a stock 3000 030/25 that I upgraded to a 68060 @ 60MHz via a CSMKII and CV64 card.  It runs nice!  I did not bother upgrading any chips except for the 3.1 ROM.  I use the on-board SCSI and it seems to run just fine.

[Castellen]

Just about to fit a Cyberstorm MK2 to my A3000D.
Received the 060 board from Ireland today, so providing it works, I should have a speedy A3000.

I read a post on A.org a week or two ago where someone said you absolutely must fit latest revisions of Buster, DMAC, etc.
After investigating, I found no reason why you'd need to use latest revisions.

Buster rev 11 is required for the few expansions which use direct memory access.  I'm using a Picasso IV GFX card which does not use DMA, so in theory should work fine.

One point to note is some 3rd party CPU boards and most SCSI controllers on CPU boards will need a minor motherboard modification to work due to a missing signal on the A3000D CPU slot.
Also known as the INT_2 modification, detailed instructions are in the Aminet recent uploads list, or from the misc downloads section of my website:

http://amiga.serveftp.net

Anthony.

[Castellen]

Just for the record, I fitted the Cyberstorm mkII+128Mb to the A3000D and it works perfectly.
The motherboard has all the (old) standard devices fitted, other than the OS 3.1 ROMs.

The SCSI hard drive was slow and crappy, but with PFS3 now on it, the whole thing really flies!  :-)