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Author Topic: Is a ZZ9000 a good choice for me for my A3000?  (Read 199 times)

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Offline Drew1000Topic starter

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Is a ZZ9000 a good choice for me for my A3000?
« on: July 12, 2025, 03:03:54 AM »
Hi, I have a mostly stock NTSC 25mhz A3000 with a SCSI2SD fitted. I was looking into an RGBtoHDMI for it when I came across the ZZ9000.

I would use it mainly for the HDMI output for ECS modes and for the extra RAM. The RTG modes would be nice to explore, particularly with Shapeshifter for Mac II color emulation.

The USB stick support and the Ethernet support would all be useful as well.

I've seen critical reviews of the ZZ9000, often comparing it to other USB and Ethernet solutions which are faster. I'm not very concerned with speed (within reason) but I do want something reliable.

I'd like to understand how reliably the ZZ9000 performs these tasks:

  • HDMI output of NTSC ECS modes
  • RTG graphics
  • Extra RAM
  • Ethernet
  • USB thumb drive support

Thanks for any experiences you can share.
 

Offline Boing-ball

Re: Is a ZZ9000 a good choice for me for my A3000?
« Reply #1 on: July 12, 2025, 12:00:24 PM »
Hi, I have a mostly stock NTSC 25mhz A3000 with a SCSI2SD fitted. I was looking into an RGBtoHDMI for it when I came across the ZZ9000.

I would use it mainly for the HDMI output for ECS modes and for the extra RAM. The RTG modes would be nice to explore, particularly with Shapeshifter for Mac II color emulation.

The USB stick support and the Ethernet support would all be useful as well.

I've seen critical reviews of the ZZ9000, often comparing it to other USB and Ethernet solutions which are faster. I'm not very concerned with speed (within reason) but I do want something reliable.

I'd like to understand how reliably the ZZ9000 performs these tasks:

  • HDMI output of NTSC ECS modes
  • RTG graphics
  • Extra RAM
  • Ethernet
  • USB thumb drive support

Thanks for any experiences you can share.

My experiences with a A4000 and one of these boards:

The short version first. Had one, couldn’t get it to work properly. Needed a Voltage fix (Early version). Sold it.

The long version;

Bought one of these a couple of years back. Tried to get this thing to work on my A4000 desktop rig. Only thing I could get working was native video via the HDMI.
What I struggled to get working was the RTG modes, the Network interface wouldn’t be seen. Forget about the USB. Apparently this was (And maybe still) a pipe dream?

MNT as far as I am aware are not doing much with this card. I tried updating to the latest firmware (Last release a year or 2 ago). No dice!

There is a Sound module available for it as well. Not heard much from other users on this.

There is now something called the ZZ3660 (Must get this name right, or the Sheldon’s will be out in force 🙄 ), which is an all in one accelerator, HDMI, network etc. etc.. But this is still in development with Beta firmware.

 

Offline RhoSigma

Re: Is a ZZ9000 a good choice for me for my A3000?
« Reply #2 on: July 12, 2025, 03:16:33 PM »
Sorry for the problems described by the previous speaker, yes indeed the early versions had a electrical bug and the firmware had it's child illnesses, but that has changed.

I got my ZZ9000 from a production batch last year with latest firmware 1.13. and for me it was a true easy plug'n'play experience. Installed the card, P96, Genesis on my A4000T and all works in less than halfe an hour. RTG inclusive native put through and automatic flickerxing like a charm, 256MB autoconfig RAM expansion, Ethernet not the fastest but ok for Amiga needs and much faster than with a dialup modem. The only problem which still exists is the USB port, couldn't get any memory stick to work, at least not automounting partitions.

Can't tell about the Sound expansion, as I don't have it.

For me it was the best deal for my old A4000T, solved 3 problems out of the box for me:
1. Native put through and flickerfixing, finally could retire my CRT
2. Lack of RAM, 256MB is a nice addition
3. LAN connection, modem retired

About, the problem described updating the firmware by the previous speaker:
Upating is done very easy by copying the new BOOT.bin to the SD card, NEVER EVER TRY TO DO THIS ON A WINDOWS SYSTEM, as Windows screws up the file, it obviously doesn't like when you copy a file named "BOOT.bin" into the root of any drive. So best to download and copy the new firmware updates on a Linux system.