A3000 Softkick

[560SL]

Hi folks!
I just dug out my dear old A3000D out of the cupboard today. I haven't used it for years, and I was pretty sure the battery had leaked it beyond any rescue. But to my big surprise it booted instantly when I turned the power on. It seems to be nothing wrong with the hardware.

The system disk is however long gone, and with it the kickstart file. I remember having kickstart 3.1 on disk to boot the system. All I get now is a "kickstart menu" right after powering up.

Anyone knows where to get the kickstart file? Can I "dump" 3.1 from my A4000T for use in the A3000? Any legal issues with this?

[kd7ota]

Im not sure what or if there is any legal issues, but you do own the original 3.1 roms in your Amiga 4000, so im not sure what the differences would be. I just know the A4000 version wouldnt be compatible of that of the Amiga 3000.  Maybe you can get a 3.1 kickstart from somewhere?

**If im wrong, please just ignore this post.

[graffias79]

Unfortunately it isn't that easy.  The Amiga 3000 needs something in addition to the superkickstart image.  It also needs something called the "bonus code" which contains drivers for A3000 specific hardware (Western Digital SCSI controller being the main one I believe)  The bonus code makes the file size of the kickstart something other than 524288 bytes, but I cannot remember what the size is.

[Darrin]

My A3000 came with kickstart 3.0 on a floppy which was then installed on the hard drive.  When I decided to upgrade to OS3.5 I purchased the Kickstart 3.1 ROMs from Power Computing, removed the softkick ROMS, inserted the 3.1's and never looked back.  You call always use a "degrader" program if you want to revert to an older kickstart for compatability reasons with a certain game.

They're still available for 26 Pounds at www.powerc.com.  Just click on the Amiga tab and search for "kickstart".

[560SL]

Thanks for the advice!

There are two ROM's marked 390629-02 ROM0V5 / 390630-02 ROM1V5 in U180/U181, I guess the 3.1 ROM's goes in here, right? There are also two empty slots marked U182/U183 with labels ROM0/ROM1, any ideas what these are for?

Would there be any issues with the A3640 in A3000, or does it plug right in?

[Darrin]

I can't get to my A3000 until later this month as I'm on business so I can't tell you what those sockets are off the top of my head.  If you haven't worked it out in a couple of weeks then I'll let you know.  I have a Buddha IDE controller I need to install in my A3000 when I get home so I'll locate the ROM sockets for you.  Power do include a set of instructions on how to fit them and which way around they go... if you order them then make sure you do exactly what is on the paperwork :-)

[Framiga]

http://vgr.com/tbocl/KICKSTART.html

http://www.l8r.net/technical/t-achips.shtml

Kickstart V2.0  (??.??) 390629-02 A3000 (32 Bit Low Word)  ROM0V5
 
Kickstart V2.0  (??.??) 390630-02 A3000 (32 Bit High Word) ROM1V5

[mjg59]

If you let me know what version of Kickstart you had on the machine in the first place, I can probably provide you with a Superkickstart image. You'll need another Amiga to write the floppy.