A3000 Discussion

[danbeaver]

I acquired an A3000 a couple of weeks back and had never seen nor read much about them before although I've owned other Amigas since 1986. The motherboard seemed fine but the floppy was dead. After cutting up my hand and removing everything to get the PSU cradle out, I noticed the unfamiliar ZIP RAM.  Weird wobbly things, I then read up on the RAM situation and wondered WTF?  Overlapping ram addresses?  I then checked the battery and not only was the clock working, the battery (original) held a full charge. I replaced it anyways with a coin kit, but felt bad about it.

The DF0 drive sits almost center and DF1 goes to the right, which opposite of the normal A2000; but the FDD cable length prevents switching the two.

The onboard SCSI controller is the same as the A2091's WD33C93-04 that can't be all that great. I like the Amber chip and it functions well, but overall the case is small and cramped, hard to disassemble and assemble, the PSU cradle sits a millimeter above my A3640 card, and the daughter board has to be in place to boot. The shipped KS 2.04 prevents using Picasso96 on my EGS Spectrum 24/28 board and large HDDs. I find it odd that it was considered to be used as a UNIX workstation.

I put some odds and ends in there but could not get MUI to work nor my Subway hanging off my X-Surf. Of course MiamiDX won't work without MUI, but the ZorRam 256MB card works. Tried adding 16 MB of motherboard ZIPs but one broke off a pin during installation and had to order more.

What comments do the A3000 users out there have on this beast?

[TheBilgeRat]

Buster revision should be upgraded to eleven.

That's all I got.

[cameng]

I acquired an A3000 a couple of weeks back and had never seen nor read much about them before although I've owned other Amigas since 1986. The motherboard seemed fine but the floppy was dead. After cutting up my hand and removing everything to get the PSU cradle out, I noticed the unfamiliar ZIP RAM.  Weird wobbly things, I then read up on the RAM situation and wondered WTF?  Overlapping ram addresses?  I then checked the battery and not only was the clock working, the battery (original) held a full charge. I replaced it anyways with a coin kit, but felt bad about it.

The DF0 drive sits almost center and DF1 goes to the right, which opposite of the normal A2000; but the FDD cable length prevents switching the two.

The onboard SCSI controller is the same as the A2091's WD33C93-04 that can't be all that great. I like the Amber chip and it functions well, but overall the case is small and cramped, hard to disassemble and assemble, the PSU cradle sits a millimeter above my A3640 card, and the daughter board has to be in place to boot. The shipped KS 2.04 prevents using Picasso96 on my EGS Spectrum 24/28 board and large HDDs. I find it odd that it was considered to be used as a UNIX workstation.

I put some odds and ends in there but could not get MUI to work nor my Subway hanging off my X-Surf. Of course MiamiDX won't work without MUI, but the ZorRam 256MB card works. Tried adding 16 MB of motherboard ZIPs but one broke off a pin during installation and had to order more.

What comments do the A3000 users out there have on this beast?

Definitely cramped. Waiting on my new ks chips until its ready for rebirth and cyberstorm compatibility. I am blessed with the later buster chip on board which I hope will avoid conflicts. Stay tuned

[danbeaver]

Buster revision should be upgraded to eleven.

That's all I got.

Buster 11 on order from Vesalia, as is KS 3.1 ROM's; WD chip replaced with AMD from Mech's site.   Is there a 14MHz mod for the SCSI chip?  Is it even needed?
ZorRam 256MB works. Replaced non-working floppy with a HD one I bought last year thinking it was an A4000 compatible.  Put a new Teac HD drive in with an adapter for use as a 880K drive for installs; I have a Buddha/Catweasel in working fine, but I'll later hook up the Teac to it for full HD support.  Can't fit a 68-pin HDD due to adapter blocking posterior (tight) hard drive site; so hooked it up with a MB->F-to-M SCSI cable-> 50-to-68-pin adapter->68-pin SCSI cable to HDD for now.

I am hoping 3.1 ROM allows MiamiDX, Picasso96, and Poseidon to work.:laugh1:

[amiga-penn-wchester]

I know that the a3000 is usu. considered to be the peak of the maturity of the ami architecture, but I didn't like it a whole lot from - yes a space perspective - that and its cost.   Certainly looks nicer than an A2000 but I still like the 2000 due to the fact that there's just a lot you can do with it.

I always wanted a 3000T.

Speaking of batteries, I'm still running on the original Varta batt on my rev 6.3 A2000. Doesn't seem to have leaked.

[matt3k]

First comment is congrats!
I always preferred the 3000D over any other Amiga, I've owned all of them at one point and IMHO it is the perfect size/performance of the Amigas.

You did all you really need to do, Buster 11, 3.1 ROMS, and updated SCSI.  Now sit back and enjoy it.

Some tips and thoughts - First the 3000D does not have overwelming heat issues to speak of, even with your 040.  That said, I keep the feet slightly elevated to keep the bottom cooler.

Finding the latest ramsey and dmac aren't worth the time and money.  Many systems with the older chips run just fine.

The power supply is perfectly adequate for a fully expanded 3000D.  I have had - Warp Engine 3040, Phonepak, Delphina, Retina Z3, and an Ariandne in one system with no issues.

That all I can think of at the moment...  

Enjoy...
Amazed, simply amazed that the battery didn't leak.  Many 3000's have issues thanks to leaky battery.

[ChaosLord]

I never upgraded any chips in any of my A3000s and never needed to in the slightest.  Always worked fine.

I think u r crazy to "upgrade" ur SCSI chip.

I have owned many Amiga hard drive controllers and the built in SCSI chip in the A3000 is by far the best one.  Its the only one I ever had that supported removeable media properly.

Its super fast, uses little CPU time.  There is nothing more that u could ask for.

My U202 (or was it U203) PAL chip went out on me and I had to replace it.  I think every A3000 owner had to do this.


The smallness of the case is why I never liked the A3000.  The case was designed by that mentally retarded PepsiCo guy who had no business sweeping the floors of Commodore Business Machines, much less running the company.  He TOTALLY RUINED THE A3000.  He intentionally made it incompatible to the Video Toaster.  Yeah, just TRY to cram a video toaster in there.

The fact that the A3000 came with awesome Amber chip and Awesome SCSI chip was just a  credit to the engineers who snuck stuff onto the motherboard when dumbass pepsico guy was not looking.

The A3000 does have 32-bit chipram, making it the absolute best ECS machine ever.   And it has Zorro 3 slots, right?  So that is a big +

My first A3000 system was around $3000.00 with monitor.  My 2nd was a couple of years later when C= had them on sale for $700.00 so I bought a 2nd one.  YAHOO!  Then the A4000 came out right afterwards which cost me another $3300.00 with monitor iirc.  How did they go broke with me giving them so much money?

[ChaosLord]

I don't understand how u got an A3640 card in your A3000?

I have 2 A3640 cards laying around here (and 2 Amiga 3000s) but no way could those giant things ever fit in there.  They have a giant heat sink on them.

[amiman99]

I don't understand how u got an A3640 card in your A3000?

I have 2 A3640 cards laying around here (and 2 Amiga 3000s) but no way could those giant things ever fit in there.  They have a giant heat sink on them.

I have one too, you just need a slim heat sink on 040 and it will fit fine.

[magnetic]

Interesting thread.. some of my observations if you dont mind

1. The a3000 is the hardest amiga to take apart and work on/upgrade

2. The reason the a3000 is so small is because they were competing with the pc formfactors at that time and had to reduce the size drastically from the a2k.

3. Buster 11 is NOT necessary unless you are using high end zorro3 boards or certain boards.

4. Upgrading scsi chip will NOT increase speed and probably only helps with multiple devices. If you have a couple of units the default chip is fine. the a3000 scsi is very fast for an amiga as it has DMA and with a fast scsi drive is a sweet setup.

5. a3640 fits fine with a low profile heatsink (like the one that came on the amiga technologies a3640)

6. The Video Toaster 4000 fits perfectly in an a3000, i just saw a nice setup like this on us ebay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/221163563442?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

[ChaosLord]

Interesting thread.. some of my observations if you dont mind

1. The a3000 is the hardest amiga to take apart and work on/upgrade

+1

2. The reason the a3000 is so small is because they were competing with the pc formfactors at that time and had to reduce the size drastically from the a2k.

"They" were not competing against anything or anyone.  Mr. Pepsico (I forgot his real name) wanted the Amiga to "be cool like that NeXt machine" which came in a stupid crappy pizza box case.

3. Buster 11 is NOT necessary unless you are using high end zorro3 boards or certain boards.

Probably right.  I only ever had..... a Symposium voicemail card, which did not even do DMA at all.

4. Upgrading scsi chip will NOT increase speed and probably only helps with multiple devices. If you have a couple of units the default chip is fine. the a3000 scsi is very fast for an amiga as it has DMA and with a fast scsi drive is a sweet setup.

Makes sense.  I only ever had 2 drives on my A3000s.  1 internal hard drive + 1 external Magneto-Optical read/write removeable media drive with a stack of disks.  Oh wait, for a few years I had 2 internal hard drives + the external MO drive.

I was intentionally trying to break 1 of the drives.  It was only 100MB and way to small to be useful for much back in 1990s.  So I ran my voicemail on it 24/7 trying to make the drive break.  But dammit, that Quantum drive just would not die.

And my A3000 was one of the very very first ones.  It did not even come with a kickstart ROM.  It loaded kickstart off the HD which was very very kewl and ez to upgrade to a new kickstart.

So I say the original SCSI chip is good for 2 internal drives + 1 external drive, at least.

5. a3640 fits fine with a low profile heatsink (like the one that came on the amiga technologies a3640)

+1

6. The Video Toaster 4000 fits perfectly in an a3000,

At the introduction of the Amiga 3000 and for a few years thereafter, there was only 1 VideoToaster and it only fit in the A2000.

[Zac67]

The earlier WD SCSI chips are buggy with disconnect/reconnect which you can avoid with fast drives altogether. With tape drives and/or CD-Rs it may become an issue.

Anyway, the 3000 is the coolest and most beautiful Amiga.
(It does have its challenges when disassembling the machine or cramming as much hardware as possible into the case - but its not for beginners. )

[amigamad]

I had a an amiga 1500 and an amiga 3000d and a desktop a4000 for me the a3000 was far better than both the 1500 and 4000 the only thing it lacked was the aga chipset from the 4000 ,i found it came apart as easy as any other amiga .

[hishamk]

+1
"They" were not competing against anything or anyone.  Mr. Pepsico (I forgot his real name) wanted the Amiga to "be cool like that NeXt machine" which came in a stupid crappy pizza box case.

Thomas Rattigan.

We need an E! Where are they now kind of show.

[ChaosLord]

The earlier WD SCSI chips are buggy with disconnect/reconnect which you can avoid with fast drives altogether. With tape drives and/or CD-Rs it may become an issue.

Weird that I never encountered this bug in all my A3000 years 1990-1998.  My MO Drive was really really sloooow.  I think it only wrote at like 75KB/sec

What are the symptoms of this buggy disconnect/reconnect?
Or how would I know if I had the bug?