All about the Amiga 3000

Everything you always wanted to know about the Amiga 3000 but you where afraid to ask because no one would know the answer.

The information on this site is gathered from usenet news and various Amiga sites (most of which don't exist anymore or removed the specific Amiga 3000 pages).

For comments, submission of more A3000 sites, send mail to amiga@pimpernel.nl.

Hardware

The built in SCSI controller

The built in SCSI controller is known to cause a lot of trouble. Commodore shipped the Amiga 3000 with a beta version of the controller. This controller works fine as long as very little devices (especially not a CD-ROM player) are connected.
The Amiga 3000 can suffer from Amnesia. When the battery backed up memory fails, the controller settings are returned to default settings. This is what is called Amnesia.

Memory

The Amiga 3000 is known as a royal pain in the wallet because of the memory it uses. The Amiga 3000 was one of the first computers to use the then revolutionary ZIPP memory. However SIMMs got more popular and at this moment ZIPPs are no longer produced and can only be bought at rip off rates.

Custom chips

As any other Amiga the Amiga 3000 is based on a number of custom chips. However the Amiga 3000 has a couple of extras! Introducing: Ramsey, DMAC and Super Buster. When adding a graphics board, an old Buster (rev. 7 and lower) can cause a lot of DMA trouble, resulting in countless GURUs.

Expansion

The Amiga 3000 serries can be endlessly expanded by using Zorro boards. The Amiga 3000 has the CPU fitted on a separate board. Changing your 030 for a 040 or even 060 is as easy as removing one board and installing another.
Altough fitted with the outdated ECS chipset the Amiga 3000 has good video and graphics expansion capabilties. The Video slot allows for special video cards to be fitted.

Jumpers

The Amiga 3000T has a couple of jumpers on the mother board. The article informs as to which jumper has which function.

Software

The built in SCSI controller comes with some battery memory. This memory stores preferences for the controller. The best utility for controlling the SCSI preferences is SCSIPrefsMUI by Joshua B. Helm. It gives complete control, has an easy to use interface and good documentation.