Q: Amiga 3000 Kickstart

[save2600]

Hello all!

 Just landed my very first Amiga 3000 and am just now starting to poke around a bit. It came with an OS'less 52mb Quantum HD, but I just happened to have an exact replacement from an A2000 pull that has OS2 on it as well as a bevy of cool programs and utilities. After terminating the HD with the resistor packs (had to yank 'em from the old drive), the system booted up rather quickly and I was able to mess around a bit. First off, holy smokes this system seems 'fast' to me! HD operations and such. This 25mhz 030 built in is no slouch, but I guess the SCSI bus is exceptionally fast on the A3000 too, which is contributing to the overall speedy feel of the machine.

Okay, my question is this: there are 2.04 ROMS on the ROM Tower in it now. If I remove those, will the machine ask for a Kickstart Disk just as the A1000 does? I read something about a Kickstart 1.4... does that need to be installed in order for me to boot a different Kickstart from the HD?

I never had OS 2.x, so even its early Startup menu is foreign to me. Neat little system, although I'm sure I'll be wanting to upgrade her to 3.1. Using Sysinfo and looking at the mobo though, I was able to conclude that she's got 2mb of Chip Ram, 8mb of Fast zips and the 030/882 at 25mhz.

[tone007]

Hello all!

 Just landed my very first Amiga 3000 and am just now starting to poke around a bit. It came with an OS'less 52mb Quantum HD, but I just happened to have an exact replacement from an A2000 pull that has OS2 on it as well as a bevy of cool programs and utilities. After terminating the HD with the resistor packs (had to yank 'em from the old drive), the system booted up rather quickly and I was able to mess around a bit. First off, holy smokes this system seems 'fast' to me! HD operations and such. This 25mhz 030 built in is no slouch, but I guess the SCSI bus is exceptionally fast on the A3000 too, which is contributing to the overall speedy feel of the machine.

Okay, my question is this: there are 2.04 ROMS on the ROM Tower in it now. If I remove those, will the machine ask for a Kickstart Disk just as the A1000 does? I read something about a Kickstart 1.4... does that need to be installed in order for me to boot a different Kickstart from the HD?

I never had OS 2.x, so even its early Startup menu is foreign to me. Neat little system, although I'm sure I'll be wanting to upgrade her to 3.1. Using Sysinfo and looking at the mobo though, I was able to conclude that she's got 2mb of Chip Ram, 8mb of Fast zips and the 030/882 at 25mhz.

It won't ask for a kickstart disk with no ROMs, you'll get nothing.  Kickstart 1.4 (a different set of ROMS) is for softbooting A3000 specific "superkickstarts," and is only compatible with '030 processors.  If you plan on going to an 040 or 060, you'll want real 3.1 ROMs.

[save2600]

Thanks Tone - that's what I'm quickly gathering here. That ROM Tower... is that necessary for A2000 ROM compatibility? I see a jumper setting for that. Can I not just yank the 2 ROMS off this tower and insert them directly into the mobo? I guess I don't see what the purpose of this tower is. Looks like it should be a Kickstart switcher... lol

[tone007]

If you have the second set of sockets installed (closer to the front of the board, I believe,) I think you can safely just put the ROMs in there, not in the sockets where the tower is though.  Some mixup on early revision boards are the reason for the tower.  As for A2000 ROM compatibilty, I've never gotten that to work, though A2000 ROMs may be missing the scsi.device needed for the A3000's SCSI anyway.

[save2600]

Gotcha - thanks! It does have all 4 sockets installed. It's a revision 7.3 mobo btw. Guess I'll just be leaving the tower in place for now since it *does* work. Hate to accidentally muck this thing up. lol

[AmigaHeretic]

If you have the second set of sockets installed (closer to the front of the board, I believe,) I think you can safely just put the ROMs in there, not in the sockets where the tower is though.  Some mixup on early revision boards are the reason for the tower.  As for A2000 ROM compatibilty, I've never gotten that to work, though A2000 ROMs may be missing the scsi.device needed for the A3000's SCSI anyway.

I don't think the A2000 roms really work on the A3000.  You could try, but for sure the SCSI support isn't there and then I think maybe it won't support the floppy controller, but I haven't tried and why would they add the jumper if it didn't work at all?  So maybe...


Yes, you can softboot 3.1, (and run 3.9) but it will only work with an 030.  So if you upgrade to an 040 or 060 later, you will need to buy real 3.1 roms then.  

If you are softkicking though, the disk (HD or Floppy) needs to be named  wb_2.x in hard drive toolbox and the drive set to FFS with out DC or international checked. Your KickStart image should be in DEVS: .  The drive needs to be named wb2.x  even if softkicking 3.1, that's just what the softboot roms look for when starting the system and trying to find your KickStart image files on the harddrive

I don't know how to tell if you have the "V.36 boot roms" (aka Kickstart 1.4 roms) though that let you softboot.  My A3000 came with 3.1 roms in it.

[tone007]

The screen will flash "softkicking KS 2.0.." or something like that before rebooting into the softkicked system, also, I think holding down both mouse buttons with 1.4 ROMs will present you with a boot menu (KS1.3 floppy/hd, KS2.0 floppy/hd.)  You can also click out of the boot menu and see some hidden stuff.

[rkauer]

Last information: A3000 have a pair of ROM chips. The ROM of the A2000 is just one chip. They are incompatible.

 Adding mess to the confusion, the ROM tower 3.1 ROM is specific for this model. A3000 without the tower will use a different set of ROM chips.

[AmigaHeretic]

Last information: A3000 have a pair of ROM chips. The ROM of the A2000 is just one chip. They are incompatible.

 Adding mess to the confusion, the ROM tower 3.1 ROM is specific for this model. A3000 without the tower will use a different set of ROM chips.

But I thought (some?) A3000s have a jumper on them to select A2000/A3000 rom?  Was that just one of those things that doesn't do anything.  Kinda like the 8meg ChipRam jumper on the A4000?

[Matt_H]

But I thought (some?) A3000s have a jumper on them to select A2000/A3000 rom?  Was that just one of those things that doesn't do anything.  Kinda like the 8meg ChipRam jumper on the A4000?

I think so, yeah. My guess is it wasn't worth the money to rework/redesign the PCB when the feature was dropped.

[save2600]

Okay, so the other A3000 showed up today. Turns out it is a 16mhz system, but had a SuperBuster 11 in its socket! Needless to say, I switched that puppy out but quick with the version 7 that was in the 25mhz board. lol  

The 16mhz board also did NOT have a ROM Tower and only had the bottom two Kickstart sockets. I tried installing those sans the ROM Tower in the other board (bottom two sockets) and the system would not boot up (don't worry, I didn't fry the chips, they still work). I did NOT try them in the ROM Tower however. Should I choose to use Kickstart 1.4, do they need to be placed in the upper two (there's 4 total) Kickstart slots or do they need to be placed in the Tower as well? This is all pretty confusing: Rom Tower, no Rom Tower. 4 chip sockets - 2 chip sockets. lol  

Being a huge fan of the A1000, I found/find the Kickstart option intriguing on bootup. Looks like you can select to load it from the HD OR floppy! Pretty damn versatile. The Kickstart early menu screen though talked about Kickstart 2.x and 1.3. If I put an A3000 3.1 Kickstart on DH0 and follow the instructions about relabeling the drive, etc. Would 3.1 then work?!  

Guess there's no real reason to ever boot into 1.3 other than to say WOW, that's "neat"... lol

[save2600]

If you are softkicking though, the disk (HD or Floppy) needs to be named  wb_2.x in hard drive toolbox and the drive set to FFS with out DC or international checked. Your KickStart image should be in DEVS: .  

Do you guys know what the KickROM needs to be called specifically for 2.x or 3.x?

[tone007]

devs:kickstart

This thread might help. http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=15859

..and it has to be a superkickstart file with the "bonus" code, a regular ROM image won't work.

[Zac67]

AFAIK the 3000 can use A500/2000 ROMs. You'd need two identical ones and set the jumper appropriately. (The jumper configures a kind of interleaved mode and you'll need 32 bit access.)

Only drawback is the lack of "A3000 magic", i.e. 32 bit fast RAM and SCSI won't work.

[ChaosLord]

My A3000 has no kickstart ROM chips.  The kickstarts are located in DEVS: and get automagically loaded to fastram at boot.  Mine came from Commodore with a 2.x kickstart file and a 3.0 kickstart file.  So it is dead easy to downgrade to 2.x.  Also the OS routines run a lot faster from 32-bit burst-mode fastram.