3000 vs 4000?

[magnetic]

save2600

Service tech? Lol every amiga user is this by now... I an assure you the A3k is the WORST Amiga to Repair/Fix due to case design and small space. PERIOD there is no argument there you can mount. As far as socketed vs SMD i do agree, but to be honest no a4k i 've ever had had an smd component failure (except CIA from user error)

so A3k vs a4k isnt even a challenge. THE ONLY thing good is the VGA ff output (but guess what VERY prone to failure)

I've probably built/upgraded/ fixed more A3000s than you have ever even seen in person!

[save2600]

@magnetic:

All I'm saying is that I bet there are or will be more A3000's in use years from now than A4000's. And I bet you're right about the number of A3000 machines you've serviced/upgraded than I, but I am no stranger to board repair - 25 years in electronics repair that is. I know a better, more serviceable design when I see it and the A4000 is not a "better" design by any stretch. Short term maybe. And only 20 years ago. But crap components and shit materials are used throughout. Legacy A4000 and AGA in general will nigh be a shit stain in computing terms, let alone PC history. My impressions are all I'm projecting here  

...and this talk about "cramped" case design, I agree with C=John. Hardly. A3000 has plenty of space for reasonable upgradability. Screw 040 cards w/ their large power consumption and fan reliance... who's gonna bother with that shit? If they're so inclined, I bet they know how or would be willing to cut themselves through some sheet metal for better airflow. lmao   3.3v 060 cards, no problem. No cut, no fuss, no muss!   :lol:

[commodorejohn]

Oh, the A3000 is hardly all that cramped - you should look in some of the godawful late-'90s micro-towers I've had to repair! The 3k is palatial compared to that, and while it's annoying that the drive support is on top of everything, it's really not that much trouble to remove.

Screw 040 cards w/ their large power consumption  and fan reliance... who's gonna bother with that shit?

Oh, I dunno - if you get the right card it's no big deal. Mine has a GVP  040 card, and it doesn't even scrape the underside of the drive  carriage, or run all that hot.

[commodorejohn]

Screw 040 cards w/ their large power consumption and fan reliance... who's gonna bother with that shit?

Oh, I dunno - if you get the right card it's no big deal. Mine has a GVP 040 card, and it doesn't even scrape the underside of the drive carriage, or run all that hot.

[paul1981]

The A1200/A600/A4000/CD32 are all piles of rubbish from a service techs pov. They're all as disposable as the company that designed them. How convenient and non-forward looking they were.  [/QUOTE]

:flame: save2600

Only joking LOL:roflmao:

In all honesty though I've never had any of my amiga's fail, and I ran a 1200 for about 10 years about 6 hours per day and it was abused as well with internal 3.5" hard drive with ram and standard PSU.

Oh hang on, yes I have had an amiga fail...my A600 had the keyboard go down...the connector at the end (is it carbon or something?)...it went soggy and disintegrated.  I did a fix by cutting a 1/16 or a little less off the end and plugging it back in again and it worked....until I had to take the keyboard off again a few weeks later.  I suppose some of them just wear out with age, whilst others seem not to.  So had to buy a membrane from Ebay.  Other than that...no problem.
Oh, the keys that went down on my A600 were all the top row (Escape, F1 to F10 and Help).  The others were fine.

[magnetic]

2600

Oh, and I forgot the best part if you want to turn the A3k into a power box, you have to Remove the motheroboard and run the INT2 HACK. Thats fun.. not.  Also, good luck finding an accel that fits in the a3k .

[save2600]

Hahahahahah! Good one Paul1981, I know I opened myself up to lots of flaming, but there are plenty of "service techs" that can repair old Legacy Amiga's. Who repairs the newer stuff? Pretty much just one guy and he's in France. Experiences seem to vary with him too.

@Magnetic - no need to run an accelerator on my A3000. 25mhz 030 with the MMU_tools is as fast as I need this machine to be. Faster than my iMac G5 in some respects  

Guys and gals, at the end of the day- you gotta know... I love all things legacy Amiga, but I do believe C= skimped and cheapened out big time toward the end. It's only natural that they did. I'm not only talking feature wise (debatable obviously) but quality wise as well. Whatever. If your mileage varies, great! Keep on enjoying your machines.  

[Crumb]

Seems the forum ate my post

Anyways, in 2 months or so, we're looking at moving to  anew apartment, which opens up the potential for a big box amiga, since I'll have the space and a dedicated computer room.

So the question is.. 3000 or 4000? (2000 is out, due to 16 bit zorro)


As far as I know:
4000 gets AGA, and comes with an 040 already (generally)

3000 gets a scan doubler included already.


I know the 3000 is SCSI and the 4000 is IDE. What I don't know if what practical difference that makes. I dont think I've ever used a machine with SCSI anything. Anyone care to enlighten me here?

Other things to consider?


Stuff that will go into the machine is: 040 or 060 card, scan doubler, RTG, RAM expansion (like zorRAM or something else), USB and some sort of networking solution (whether through USB or otherwise)


THat also brings me to... what are the best networking solutions for these machines?

I own both. The A3000 is nice (just like all amigas...) but rarely used (despiting the fact that I invested a fortune upgrading it).

Get an A4000. It will cause you less problems. A3000 case is beautiful but is very uncomfortable, it requires updating almost everything and ends up being much more expensive. A3000 scsi is problematic depending on accelerator/chip combo (and it´s slow compared to any decent scsi from Cyberstorm, warpengine. The onboard 030 is a joke if you are used to 040/060 speeds like me. ZIPs suck because they are both expensive and if you have bad contacts you will get crazy trying to find which ZIP is causing the problems. Buster is outdated and you need to update it. Scandoubler is old if you plan to use TFT you really need an Indivision (unless you can live with ntsc screenmodes, I can´t since most stuff I run is designed for pal). A4000 causes far less problems IMHO.

About SMD silly comments: SMD in fact causes that failure rate is much lower because you can rule out easily bad contacts, chips coming loose, cracked sockets, users inserting chips in the opposite way... it saves power and allows designing smaller boards. Even the A3000 uses SMD for its 030.

[matt3k]

Hey Runequestor,

This is truly a matter of taste, with some emotion, and followed by what use you want of it.

First I have had both 3000 (Desktop&Tower) and 4000 (Desktop&Custom Tower).  Now I only have 4 Amiga 3000D's all networked together with various levels of expansion.  I personally think the 3000 desktop was the best piece of hardware commodore ever made, period.  The design suits my tastes and needs.

That's it for the emotion and taste.

The positives of the 3000D:
1.  Perfect sized chassis (subjective to needs).
2.  A fully expanded 3000 will be the same performance as a expanded 4000.
3.  Less prone to failure (my experience) then the 4000.  The only issue is the battery.  I have refurbed 3k's with extensive battery damage, and the denise socket may be a casualty.  

The only negatives I would say a 3000D has is:
1. No AGA.
2. A limited number of ideal accelerators.  The Cyberstorm MK3 and Warp Engine 3040 are about the best fit for a 040 or 060 with SCSI and Memory.    With other solutions you won't have SCSI or memory, or may have to hack the chassis to fit it in.


As I said, it is mostly a matter of taste, I found the 4k's to be annoying with IDE and caps.  I never wanted to play AGA games.    
Perhaps whatever you get a great deal on might help you decide...  Have fun and good luck!

Matt

[save2600]

About SMD silly comments: SMD in fact causes that failure rate is much lower because you can rule out easily bad contacts, chips coming loose, cracked sockets, users inserting chips in the opposite way... it saves power and allows designing smaller boards. Even the A3000 uses SMD for its 030.

Yes, as I stated - the 030/882/881 is smd. That was stupid, but it was done for cost reasons. Surface mounted components and my observation of them are not silly. I am a tech in an industry going 25+ years servicing motherboards. In theory, what you stated is true: smd's equal less maintenance. That was all and good within their (the company's legal liability) useable lifespan, which is 7 years. In reality, smd components still suffer the same fate as socketable components: only that they are that much more of a bitch to deal with and diagnose than previous designs. I deal with several computers and circuit boards daily. Replacing a socket (rarely necessary) and more likely, cleaning the legs of a chip are much more desirable than dealing with the uncertainty of guessing (or using precision instruments) which one of those tiny bastards are to blame in dealing with smd components.

@magnetic - I do recognize soldering a NiCad battery to the mobo, where it was so close to vital componenets was retarded. For sure. Horrible, horrible design. But again - 7 year legal liability lifespan. Can't tell you how many other consumer electronic companies did similar things.  

Ask an "engineer" why they do the things they do to placate the FCC or other legal "entities". There's politics behind consumer electronics and who always gets to sniff the glove? why you and I of course.

[magnetic]

At matt3k

First why the hell do you have so many amigas? i dont get it...

Anyway I forgot about the A3k battery. Oh man when that thing leaks, there are components all around it the WORST of all the amigas!

Also AGA isnt just for games. If you do serious graphics or toaster AGA is invaluable.

[Duce]

I had an A3000, and a couple of A4000's as well.  A3000 was the best amiga I ever owned, by far.  I love the things.

[pwermonger]

In a nutshell....

A4000 gives you AGA, access to cheaper IDE drives, and room inside for two hard drives, two floppies, and a 5.25" drive (optical drive though this would remove one hard drive since IDE can only handle two drives) and for RAM uses easier to get SIMMs instead of ZIPs to expand its Motherboard to its max. 3000 only has room for two hard drives and two floppies no 5.25" internal. Oh, and that SCSI cable is honking huge!

Now, AGA isn't as big a deal if you intend to get an RTG graphics card but then nor is the scandoubler of the 3000 since your VGA monitor would be plugged into the graphics card at that point and the better, later, Zorro III RTG cards have scandoublers assuming you can get them.

SCSI in the 3000 gives you access to old Scanners, tape drives assuming you intend to use these. If not really it gives you nothing and SCSI can be added to the 4000 at the expense of a slot and the only floppy drives you can really use internal have to be designed for the 3k due to having to conform to the faceplate of the machine. 4k has an open rectangle for internal drives so your available drive pool increases to just about any Amiga drive that fits a standard drive space.

3000 is better looking and with RTG  can run almost everything the 4k can. a 3k will never run any AGA only software (stuff that bangs hardware) and never use a Video toaster 4000 the same way a 4000 can (not that you are probably considering that).

RTG with builtin scandoublers are the Picasso IV and Cybervision 64 cards (of course, since these are separatable parts to allow the card to be used in the 2k which does not have its video slot in line with Zorro, make sure if you get one that it includes the scandoubler card if broken off to install in a 2k. I have heard of people buying them assuming the scandoubler comes with it and finding out later it doesn't). Ones that done have it are Retina ZIII

3000 pros probably cheaper, better looking, scandoubler, SCSI for non hard drive applications, same zorro III for better RTG cards that 4k has, built like a tank.
3000 cons 030, harder to get ZIP ram on mobo, custom floppy drive slots, scandoubler made redundant by RTG cards that include one, built like a tank (hard to work inside)

4000 pros AGA for games that need it, 040 standard on many models, IDE for cheaper drives, more drive bays, standard Floppy bays, SIMM RAM on mobo, more open inside for access (RAM on ZORRO side instead of under drives) Zorro III, no scandoubler to be made redundant by RTG card (depending on wether what you get has built in or not).
4000 cons tend to be more expensive, watch out for the buggy 3.0 '040 card and rev 9 Buster that has issues with Zorro III cards and '040 hitting the RAM at the same time causing lockups make sure you get a 3.1 card and rev 11 Buster - 030s never have this issue nor do third party CPU cards (at least I don't think they do), RTG better than AGA as long as software supports it, less of a tank (not as well built and some parts more flimsy) no scandoubler.

Great site for 4000 info: http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/a4000hard/main.html

[blanghorst]

Man, all you guys with A3000s collecting dust should give them to me.  I love that machine and the A1000, which I hope to acquire soon as part of my collection.

[Retro_71]

I have both I prefer the A4000 why? Less headache on the A3000 my zip ram started to act up as some said pain to try and find which is the bad one I opted to use a sim to zip adapter still had to make sure everything was aligned.
It took me much longer to clean and make sure everything was working on the A3000 then A4000 (speaking from a normal person stand point which you are as well ie not an expert electronics tech) taking it apart was also a pain, but come down to what you want to use it for, quite frankly now that my A2000 has an indivision i use that more then the A3000.
The computers i use the most are in order:
A1200
A4000
A2000
A500
C64
an A3000
Unless you have a video card in your A3000 you not going to like the output (trust me).
As for caps they "may" fail but i have not had one yet not to say i will not replace them at a later date and apart from the guy in France there is an Amiga repair guy in New Zealand and Australia also i think Amigakit do repairs (not sure)

For less headache i would go the A4000 route with indivision as even with the A3000 you have to find a monitor that works (crt are ok but tft ...... )

[stefcep2]

@magneto:

All I'm saying is that I bet there are or will be more A3000's in use years from now than A4000's. And I bet you're right about the number of A3000 machines you've serviced/upgraded than I, but I am no stranger to board repair - 25 years in electronics repair that is. I know a better, more serviceable design when I see it and the A4000 is not a "better" design by any stretch. Short term maybe. And only 20 years ago. But crap components and shit materials are used throughout. Legacy A4000 and AGA in general will nigh be a shit stain in computing terms, let alone PC history. My impressions are all I'm projecting here  

...l:

Short term?!!  And ONLY 20 years?!!

I don't think a single person bought an A4000  in 1992 thinking they'd be using them in 2011.    And if it weren't for  a  battery leak and caps drying out there would be more a lot more of  'em in the wild.