Beefing up A3000

[WeiXing3D]

I will be receiving an A3000 that I bought from a local acquittance (68030 030 CPU and 68882 FPU @25mhz, rev 9 motherboard, 2mb chip ram, 2mb fast ram, Kickstart 3.1 rom, Workbench 3.9 installed in HDD and additional 8 mb Static Column ram).

I want to beef it up by adding a modem (wi-fi, if at all possible) and a bigger HDD. Any recommendations? and where to find them? Thanks.

[shaf]

What Size SCSI HDD are you currently using, I might be able to find you a larger SCSI Drive, I'm sure I have a few 500MB SCSI I Drives. Larger SCSI HDDs (2GB +) are usually UW and require an adapter.

[mousehouse]

First congrats on the machine, best Amiga ever IMHO.

You can opt to use a small SATA drive in a SCSI carrier such as the Acard ARS2000. I wrote a review on it a while back here.

If you can find one, a CyberVision64 provides a really super nice high res Workbench but then you probably also want a better CPU for "the snappy" better performance. There is no limit ;-)

[don27dog]

Deneb USB if you can find one.

[Darth_X]

I will be receiving an A3000 that I bought from a local acquittance (68030 030 CPU and 68882 FPU @25mhz, rev 9 motherboard, 2mb chip ram, 2mb fast ram, Kickstart 3.1 rom, Workbench 3.9 installed in HDD and additional 8 mb Static Column ram).

I want to beef it up by adding a modem (wi-fi, if at all possible) and a bigger HDD. Any recommendations? and where to find them? Thanks.

Cool!

[Darth_X]

Deneb USB if you can find one.

And where can a person find one? ;-) I've wanted one for over a year!

[WeiXing3D]

What Size SCSI HDD are you currently using, I might be able to find you a larger SCSI Drive, I'm sure I have a few 500MB SCSI I Drives. Larger SCSI HDDs (2GB +) are usually UW and require an adapter.

I will get back to you with an answer about the HDD inside the unit once I pick it up. I just closed the deal today.

[Rodomoc]

Not sure what you intend to do with your A3000 but I can certainly throw in my two cents regarding recommendations. I run this machine myself.
 
1) fill up to 16mb ram on motherboard if possible.
2) additional ram available via some fast slot based accelerators or the new Zoram product. It is all a question of money.
3) Good deal on you already having the 3.1 kickstarts.
4) Modem? not sure. recommend standard ethernet upgrade. X-surf is a zorro based ethernet card and also includes 2 clockports (a nifty side feature)
5) I see former post about Deneb USB. This is the best Zorro based USB solution hands down. You will really like having USB ability on an Amiga. I run a clockport based Subway USB setup. Not as slick as Deneb but it does work just fine.
6) As far as hard drive, you can probably find plenty of larger SCSI drives out there for little to no $. There are modern possibilities as well. One such possibility is mentioned above (ACard adapter). I believe they have SCSI to either ATA or SATA conversion models. Now you can buy a brand new drive. There is also an Elbox Fast ATA Zorro card. I have an older model. It works fine...just takes Amiga a little longer to boot up the first time (loading drivers, starting the CDFS, etc...) After that it is great. I see they have a new version of this card that has multiple drive capability; ATA, SATA, Compact Flash). Wish I had that one.
7) I elected to go with an RTG video card. It is a GVP Spectrum 24/28. While not the best card there is, it works great. Indivision ECS is another possibility if you want to stay in ECS based video.
Accelerators are harder and more expensive to come by. I use a A3640 v3.1 which is a fairly generic 68040-25mhz and has FPU. It was cheap and does run faster than the original 68030 did.
 
Enjoy that A3000. Not many people have these machines or even like them because they are not AGA based. AGA does not matter to me, the A3000 is a very expandable big box Amiga and a real decent machine overall. Have fun with it.

[Kawazu]

1. Get a accelerator for example Cyberstorm MKII or MKIII or why not the PPC version
2. Get a GFX card
3. Get a Acard SCSI to IDE/Sata and buy yourself a 2.5" HDD, your amiga will run way cooler and will no longer sound like a jetfighter.
4. Deneb USB

There is no point in going for zorro ram if you get 128mb on the accelerator, not even a point on filling the zip slots on the motherboard. The amiga will not use the zip ram anyway becouse the ram on the accelerator is faster.

Even the SCSI read/write on the MKIII is faster then the zorro ram so thats why there is no point in going that way.

The config im using in my 3000T is the following
Cyberstorm PPC 060 50mhz/233mhz 128MB
Prometheus
Voodoo 3
Deneb
Delfina

Now max that baby out

[motrucker]

You have a snowball's chance in hell of finding one, but a Deneb will cure many problems!

[WeiXing3D]

Pardon my ignorance, but it's been 20 years since I last had a chance to enjoy my times with my loyal A500 before I sold it, is this the
DENEB USB 2.0 CONTROLLER you are all talking about?:

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=795

Are there any other alternatives to add a modem and USB connectivity to my "new" A3000?

Not sure what you intend to do with your A3000 but I can certainly throw in my two cents regarding recommendations. I run this machine myself.
 
1) fill up to 16mb ram on motherboard if possible.
2) additional ram available via some fast slot based accelerators or the new Zoram product. It is all a question of money.
3) Good deal on you already having the 3.1 kickstarts.
4) Modem? not sure. recommend standard ethernet upgrade. X-surf is a zorro based ethernet card and also includes 2 clockports (a nifty side feature)
5) I see former post about Deneb USB. This is the best Zorro based USB solution hands down. You will really like having USB ability on an Amiga. I run a clockport based Subway USB setup. Not as slick as Deneb but it does work just fine.
6) As far as hard drive, you can probably find plenty of larger SCSI drives out there for little to no $. There are modern possibilities as well. One such possibility is mentioned above (ACard adapter). I believe they have SCSI to either ATA or SATA conversion models. Now you can buy a brand new drive. There is also an Elbox Fast ATA Zorro card. I have an older model. It works fine...just takes Amiga a little longer to boot up the first time (loading drivers, starting the CDFS, etc...) After that it is great. I see they have a new version of this card that has multiple drive capability; ATA, SATA, Compact Flash). Wish I had that one.
7) I elected to go with an RTG video card. It is a GVP Spectrum 24/28. While not the best card there is, it works great. Indivision ECS is another possibility if you want to stay in ECS based video.
Accelerators are harder and more expensive to come by. I use a A3640 v3.1 which is a fairly generic 68040-25mhz and has FPU. It was cheap and does run faster than the original 68030 did.
 
Enjoy that A3000. Not many people have these machines or even like them because they are not AGA based. AGA does not matter to me, the A3000 is a very expandable big box Amiga and a real decent machine overall. Have fun with it.

[mousehouse]

Yes that's the one. It's been sold out for a while and no new cards will be produced anymore. It's hard to find one second-hand, I've seen them being traded on eBay for > $300...

[stefcep2]

Its really easy to throw silly money at amiga's these days, but if  you really want to throw money at it, yeah get the graphics card, but then you'll want a fast cpu, more RAM etc. ( Or just boot up WinUAE and pocket the money: RTG on WinUAE generally works very very well )

IMO just add some ram (but I've found as low as 4 MB gets a lot done on an amiga), a bigger hard drive is nice, and just enjoy the ECS chipset.  Having a VGA output is nice too

[bbond007]

Pardon my ignorance, but it's been 20 years since I last had a chance to enjoy my times with my loyal A500 before I sold it, is this the
DENEB USB 2.0 CONTROLLER you are all talking about?:

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=795

Are there any other alternatives to add a modem and USB connectivity to my "new" A3000?

You can add a PCI bussboard which will give you access to USB.

You could also add something with a clockport (like X-Surf) and add a subway to that, but subways are getting hard to find as well and will be slower than a denab.

[WeiXing3D]

You can add a PCI bussboard which will give you access to USB.

You could also add something with a clockport (like X-Surf) and add a subway to that, but subways are getting hard to find as well and will be slower than a denab.

Thank you for reply. I forgot to mention that the model I'm receiving is a 3000 desktop model. I found several options (pricey by the way) of PCI bus boards with USB port but for the 3000T model. Can I still use that one?
Like I explained this is my first 3000 (I had a 500 last century:lol:), so I need some coaching and easier to digest guidance:confused:

All in all, what I want is to be able to connect my 3000 to a printer using a USB connection and add internet connectivity.  Of course, I need things that I can still find and buy with relative ease. Any help will be welcomed.