Amiga 3000 or Amiga 4000

[melott]

As I said before, I run a WarpEngine, CV64, and MultiFace
serial cards in my A3000D. I haven't done the Int2 hack or
upgraded any chips (all standard origonal chips).
I bought this A3k new in 1990 or 91 ( can't remember for
sure) and I haven't had ANY problems.
Oh ... I did upgrade to 3.1 roms.
All those chip upgrads and hacks mentioned in the other
posts don't seem to be necessary in my A3k :-D.
Also .. with WHDLoad and a RTG GFX card (if I understand
correctly) the AGA chip set means nothing.
 

[krize]

For me its not even a choice, all the way A4000..

AGA for (new) demos is a must (IMO) !!

But if you dont watch many demos, a A3000 would be fine..

[Crumb]

Not all A4000 are 3.1 either.

But you have 3.0, a revision far more useful than the crappy 2.0 that came with the A3000.

No reasone to upgrade those. Havent had a single problem with my stock ones.

You are lucky... check the hundreds of problems others have in google for example.

And if you try to use an A3640 you'll end up with headaches. High speed Zorro3 cards like the CV64 will make your A3000 hang if you don't use the latest chips or use a mixture of old ones and newer ones.

True, but most these days come with some zips on-board, plus when you get an accell, the mobo ram is a waste. (Btw, I've heard that A4k simm slots are quite fragile).

I've owned 3 A4000 and none of them had problems with the simm sockets. Other friend's A4000 doesn't have a single broken connector.

You can use a stock A4000 with an A3640 and 16MB without problems. Can you do the same with an unmodified A3000? I gues you'll have to upgrade the rom at least to be able to do something useful. And then you'll need an accelerator due to the small quantity of slow ram. And If you want to use a cheap A3640 your A3000 will start to hang because you don't have latest chips.

Again, not all (or none? AFAIK) A4k's come with buster 11 on board, plus some of them have buster 9 soldered!!! (all A3k's have socketed chips). And you only need a buster 11 for DMA boards.

According to Dave Haynie's Definitive Buster document ZorroII DMA cards can have problems on A3000 without buster 11 but not on A4000 with buster9 or 11.

Havent tried a lot of devices, but it did work with everyhting I've thrown into her.

Check this if you think that there are no issues There are lots of pages commenting the A3000 scsi problems. You can read there that many accelerators have problems using the scsi interface if you don't make the INT2 modification.

[Amigaz]

Crumb wrote:

Not all A4000 are 3.1 either.

But you have 3.0, a revision far more useful than the crappy 2.0 that came with the A3000.

No reasone to upgrade those. Havent had a single problem with my stock ones.

You are lucky... check the hundreds of problems others have in google for example.

And if you try to use an A3640 you'll end up with headaches. High speed Zorro3 cards like the CV64 will make your A3000 hang if you don't use the latest chips or use a mixture of old ones and newer ones.

True, but most these days come with some zips on-board, plus when you get an accell, the mobo ram is a waste. (Btw, I've heard that A4k simm slots are quite fragile).

I've owned 3 A4000 and none of them had problems with the simm sockets. Other friend's A4000 doesn't have a single broken connector.

You can use a stock A4000 with an A3640 and 16MB without problems. Can you do the same with an unmodified A3000? I gues you'll have to upgrade the rom at least to be able to do something useful. And then you'll need an accelerator due to the small quantity of slow ram. And If you want to use a cheap A3640 your A3000 will start to hang because you don't have latest chips.

Again, not all (or none? AFAIK) A4k's come with buster 11 on board, plus some of them have buster 9 soldered!!! (all A3k's have socketed chips). And you only need a buster 11 for DMA boards.

According to Dave Haynie's Definitive Buster document ZorroII DMA cards can have problems on A3000 without buster 11 but not on A4000 with buster9 or 11.

Havent tried a lot of devices, but it did work with everyhting I've thrown into her.

Check this if you think that there are no issues There are lots of pages commenting the A3000 scsi problems. You can read there that many accelerators have problems using the scsi interface if you don't make the INT2 modification.

Ehmm...my A3000 with CV64 never had any hang-ups...I'm using the original stock chips except the WD SCSI chip which is rev.8.

[billt]

>I have never had any issue with turbo cards in my A3000,
never!


Hmmm, I had to hack my A3000 motherboard to take my CPU accelerator. It just worked in my A4000T... :p

As for must-have AGA software, the Toaster 4000 is a bit more advanced than the original Toaster card and uses AGA. Software for that is a good example of what to use AGA for. Beyond that, it's really mostly games support or web browsing in more than 16 colors of ECS. Though anyone doing web browsing on Amiga today most likely has a graphics card that can do more and faster than AGA. Most of the later games could do graphics acrds as well.

If you don't care about any games that are AGA-only and can't work on gfx cards, and you don't care about Video Toaster 4000, then go for whichever offers you the cheaper combination of computer and graphics card.

[melott]

@Crumb
-------------
You are lucky... check the hundreds of problems others have in google for example.

And if you try to use an A3640 you'll end up with headaches. High speed Zorro3 cards like the CV64 will make your A3000 hang if you don't use the latest chips or use a mixture of old ones and newer ones.
-----------------

Sorry but this just isn't true......
I used a 3640 card in my A3k with the CV64 card for over a
year before I got the WarpEngine.
All origonal chips, using both the Commodore SCSI and the
WarpDrive SCSI at the same time, NO CONFLICTS.
It works great.
What you are saying may or may not be true depending on
the MOBO revision, but certinly not true for ALL A3000's.

[Argus]

I have to agree with Acill and others that the A3000 is a better all around machine, especially when kitted out with a graphics card like a Spectrum.  Now, put a PicassoIV with it's built-in flicker fixer in an A4000 and you start to even the score.  All in all, the A3000 get the nod for built-in dma scsi controller since the A4000 uses a crappy cpu-hog pio-0 ide controller.  AGA is nice for a few games and necessary for the VT4000 but other than that, a graphics card is much better.  Replace the Buster with a Rev.11 and no problem using ZIII cards.  I've found no need to upgrade the original Ramsey4/Dmac2 combo.  The INT_2 hack is not a big deal either, just solder a small wire to connect a couple pins if you plan on using a dma scsi controller on an accelerator card.  I use a CyberstormPPC200 in a Rev11Buster A3000 with the ultra-3 and native scsi controllers and have no problems.  Graphics are supplied by the CybervisionPPC card.

[Darrin]

Crumb wrote:
I doubt you can watch AGA demos with a 120Hz refresh with that Voodoo3-Zorro. And you can't have a TV Card, Sound card etc... I think I'll keep my Picasso4 and my Prometheus ;-)

Ah, but I have my trusty A1200T for that ;-)

I want one of these cards because they're cheap and I'd like a workbench that doesn't look like it's still stuck in the '80s.  :-)

[Darrin]

Framiga wrote:
@ Darrin

thanks for the info :-)

I'm just curious, to see how they will manage the thing.

From a economical/practical point of view, the card should be a sort of Zorrro>PromLOGIC (1 slot or even no slot-i.e soldered as the XSurf solution)> PCI GFX card thing. . . right?

Seen that AHT has aquired the rights for Matay technology, it should be a great project, don't you?

Have you a rough idea, of which PCI GFX card they will use?

AmiVD
149.00EUR

WOW even the price seems right :-)

It looks like a fantastic project and, at the price advertised, it is something we all could have done with years ago.

As for the specs of the card, I'm afraid that I know no more than you do.  You could always try emailing the company as they replied to me in a couple of hours.  If you do and you find out anything else then please let me know :-)

Now I just need a good 10/100 ethernet card for my A3000.  I've got Zorro slots or the A1200 clock port to attach it to... any recommendations?

[samanosuke]

I'd go with an A3K as I'm after one myself because I'm sick of using my A4K. The SIMM sockets are useless, so much so that I had to buy an accelerator just to add fast RAM. Even the Chip RAM socket is dodgy and I had to wedge some paper between the SIMM and my Picasso IV in order to stop my system from hanging. Not an ideal solution! As I have a graphics card and don't have a Toaster 4000 I never use AGA and to be quite honest would rather not have it as the ability to play old games such as Jimmy White's Snooker appeals to me more. Like others have mentioned before the on board IDE is like treacle so I'm much rather a nippy SCSI interface instead. I don't know as I've never owned an A3K whether or not it's plain sailing but I do know that my A4K can be a right pain in the arse sometimes.

[K7HTH]

Great debate! Now can anyone direct me to where I can obtain 3.1 ROMS for my A3000???  :-?

[MrZammler]

KD7HTH wrote:
Great debate! Now can anyone direct me to where I can obtain 3.1 ROMS for my A3000???  :-?

Got my set from vesalia. (www.vesalia.de).

[Acill]

Crumb wrote:
It depends on what you want to do and also on how upgraded the A3000 is. I owned one but I end up giving back the computer in less than a week because it sucked. You have to waste a lot of money to avoid problems:
-you have to buy the rom3.1
-you have to upgrade Ramsey and DMAC
-You can't put simms on the motherboard unless you use a hack
-You must upgrade to buster11 to get full zorro3 speed
-The scsi interface is slow and doesn't recognize all devices
-the case is small and won't allow you to use all accelerators (for example CSMK1) and if you can fit some accelerators you won't be able to completely populate them with ram.
-You can't put a CDRW inside the case because it doesn't have a 5 1/4 bay
-You have to make the INT2 modification to use Accelerators with proper scsi
-You have a low density disk drive
-You can't use cheap IDE drives

All crap! The scsi interface isnt that bad for what the Amiga can use. All accelerators that are worth a damn work just fine! The MK 1 was a POS monster, plenty of external drive cases are out, a pain I agree but they work well, INT2 mod takes 5 mins and I never bothered for years and used a CSPPC in mine with all RAM on it, 128MB worth, A4000 came with a 880kb drive as well, A300 and A4000 BOTH had the HD drive as an option, the RAMSEY and DMAC are fine, I NEVER botherd to change mine and NEVER had an issue at all. I know most poeple didnt have any. For the hell of it I put in the last Ramsey with my old DMAC to see what it would do. It works fine and they dont have to be upgraded in a pair like they say. Joel that was at Software Hut can also tell you this, the buster 11 needs to be done on MANY A4000 and MANY have it soldered to the board!!!!!  I used IDE in mine with a Budha controller. In the A4000 you need a SCSI card so its just the reverse problem isnt it? SIMMS? Who cares if you plan to use an accelerator? I took all my ZIPS out and had 128MB on my CSPPC. Its faster ram anyway.

The point is the A3000 is just as upgradable as the A4000 is and only lacks AGA. Most want an RTG card anyway. Put in a Mediator and a tower like I did and your have one kick ass system for no more then what an A4000 would be, and a lot of the times less. You can get an A3000 on ebay US for WAY less then a A4000.

[Acill]

KD7HTH wrote:
Great debate! Now can anyone direct me to where I can obtain 3.1 ROMS for my A3000???  :-?

If your in the US then go to www.softhut.com and give them a call. Dont order online. They have them all the time and at a fair price. I got mine from them years ago and just picked up another set for my spare A3000 I decided to take back out of storage.

[darkcoder]

CSPPC in mine with all RAM on it, 128MB worth, A4000 came with a 880kb drive as well, A300 and A4000 BOTH had the HD drive as an option, the RAMSEY and DMAC are fine, I NEVER botherd to change mine and NEVER had an issue at all. I know most poeple didnt have any. For the hell of it I put in the last Ramsey with my old DMAC to see what it would do. It works fine and they dont have to be upgraded in a pair like

this is not exact. Almost every A4000, if not all, were shipped with Hi density floppy drive (1760 Kb) and a IDE HD (min. 120M).
You have to change RAMSEY and DMAC either if you want to use the Page-detect mode with static column RAM, which may give you faster access or if you want to use certain cards designed for A4000, for example the crappy C= 3640.
Dave Haynie said many times that Ramsey and DMAC should be changed in pairs ( either you have Ramsey 04 and DMAC 02 or Ramsey 07 and DMAC 04). Maybe a mixed pair can work in some circumstances, but do you trust it works for everyone?

[Crumb]

All crap!

I had to upgrade my A3000. I know people with an A3000 who have problems, I have read reports of many people with problems. You may not have found problems, but the A4000 is less problematic and requires less modifications in order to have a proper machine.

A4000 came with a 880kb drive as well, A300 and A4000 BOTH had the HD drive as an option, the RAMSEY and DMAC are fine,

Firstly you say that A4000 floppy disk drive was a 880KB and later you say that it was a 1.76MB one. Sorry, but I don't understand you. All the A4000 that I have touched had High Density Floppy drives (but that doesn't mean that there weren't a few with low density units)

I NEVER botherd to change mine and NEVER had an issue at all.

You probably didn't use many Zorro cards then.

I know most poeple didnt have any.

Yeah, that clearly explains why there are so many texts in internet describing the problems of A3000 with old revision chips.

It works fine and they dont have to be upgraded in a pair like they say.

Well, you have to put rom3.1, a graphic card, ram and an accelerator if you want to do anything with it. And you'll never be able to watch AGA demos for example, so I can't see the point in buying an A3000 unless it's already upgraded with latest chips, roms, accelerator and graphic card... it's a waste of money.

" I used IDE in mine with a Budha controller. In the A4000 you need a SCSI card so its just the reverse problem isnt it? SIMMS? Who cares if you plan to use an accelerator? I took all my ZIPS out and had 128MB on my CSPPC. Its faster ram anyway."

So the A3000 is only really useful if you invest a lot of money on it.

With a simple A4000 you can do much more things, and with an expanded one you can watch AGA demos.

If you don't use AGA a Pegasos is a better investment.

"Put in a Mediator and a tower like I did and your have one kick ass system for no more then what an A4000 would be, and a lot of the times less."

The funny thing is that you have to waste a lot of time buying a tower, roms, expensive hard drives, an accelerator etc... from different sources, and with a desktop A4000 you don't need a new tower, you have AGA, you have rom 3.0 so you can use most of things and you don't need to spend so much money.

You can get an A3000 on ebay US for WAY less then a A4000.

In Europe there are few A3000 and lots of A4000 so these machines cost more or less the same. The first A3000 I bought years ago was 210€. It had rom 2.0, ocs, a 030/16Mhz, 8MB of ram and was crap. I tested it for 2 days and gave it back to the original owner. A month later I bought an A4000 with 040/25, rom3.0, buster11, 16MB, HD Floppy drive, etc for only 60€ more. Guess what computer was more useful? That A3000 required expensive roms 3.1 and most of shops charged 70€ for them. And I didn't have an accelerator yet...

If you buy it already upgraded an A3000 can be a nice machine, but if it's not upgraded and you want better features you'd better get a Pegasos.