Amiga 3000 Technical Specifications
Standard Specifications
| Case Type: | Desktop |
| Processor: | 030@16Mhz or 030@25Mhz |
| MMU: | Internal |
| FPU: | 68881@16Mhz (for 030@16Mhz version) 68882@25Mhz (for 030@25Mhz version) |
| Chipset: | ECS (Plus additional chips such as Amber, SuperDMAC and Ramsey) |
| Kickstarts: | V1.4 (Special Kickstart versions which boots the real Kickstart from a file called dev:kickstart) V2.04 (in ROM, or disk based for Kickstart V1.4) |
| Bus Controller: | Fat Buster Rev 2 Super Buster Rev 6 Super Buster Rev 7 Super Buster Rev 9 Super Buster Rev 11 (unconfirmed) |
| Expansion Slots: | 4 x 100pin Zorro III slots 1 x ECS Video Slot (inline with Zorro) 2 x Inactive 16bit ISA slots (inline with Zorro) 1 x 200pin CPU Fast Slot. |
| Standard CHIP RAM: | 1MB |
| RAM sockets: | 44256 DRAM DIP Sockets for Chip RAM (Max 2MB) ZIP sockets and DIP sockets for fast RAM |
| Hard Drive Controllers: | 1 x SCSI-II controller |
| Drive Bays: | 3 x 3.5" Drivebays (2 with faceplates, these are fixed as part of the A3000 case) |
| Expansion Ports: | 1 x 25pin Serial 1 x 25pin Parallel 1 x 23pin RGB Video 1 x 15pin VGA 1 x 23pin External Floppy 2 x 9pin Joystick/Mouse 2 x RCA Audio (Left/Right) 1 x 25pin SCSI Connector 1 x large 5pin DIN Keyboard connector |
| Floppy Drive: | 1 x Internal 880K Floppy Drive or 1 x Internal 1.76MB Floppy Drive |
| Motherboard Revisions: | Rev 6.0 (pre-production) Rev 6.1 (First production release) Rev 7.1 (Used ROM tower) Rev 7.2 Rev 7.3 Rev 8.0 Rev 8.9 Rev 9.0 (no ROM Tower, jumpers are labelled) |
| Battery Backed Up Clock: | Yes, uses "Barrel" shaped battery. |
The A3000 is regarded by some Amiga fans as the best model ever made, but they generally forget about the A3000T and A4000T which actually offer a lot more. The A3000 unlike most Amiga models, supports both ROM based Kickstarts and disk based Kickstarts, although not simultaneously. Kickstart V1.4 is actually a special version of Kickstart which loads the real Kickstart from a file called DEVS:Kickstart. Kickstart V2.04 was available as a ROM, or as a disk based version for use with A3000's which had Kickstart V1.4. A3000's fitted with Kickstart V1.4 cannot use 040 or 060 processors, regardless of what version of Kickstart is eventually booted, because it relies heavily on the integrated MMU in the 030 which varies to some degree from the MMU in 040 and 060 processors. The A3000 also contains a built in scandoubler and flicker fixer so that standard PC type SVGA monitors can be connected and display the native (PAL/NTSC) screen modes. It was available as a separate card for other Amigas called the A2320. The scandoubler can be disabled if necessary by a switch on the back of the machine. There is also a variable switch to finetune the scandoubler. The A3000 has a SCSI-II controller (WDC33C93) on the motherboard which is much faster than the standard IDE Controller that was supplied with the A4000 and other models. However some motherboard revisions have SCSI termination directly on the motherboard and others don't. You may find you need at least one SCSI device attached in order to boot, even from floppy disk. The A3000 is one of the few models of Amigas which actually has some NVRAM, primarily for storing the configuration settings of the SCSI controller, such as Controller ID, SCSI bus timeout, Synchronous mode and LUNs.
There are RAM sockets on the motherboard for expanding CHIP RAM up to 2MB, providing your Agnus chip supports it. These are in the form of DIP sockets. The motherboard also contains 32 ZIP CHIP sockets and 20 DIP sockets for adding additional memory. If the DIP sockets are used then only a maximum of 4MB of Fast RAM can be added. If ZIP memory is used then 16MB of Fast RAM can be added. The ZIP and DIP sockets cannot be used simultaneously. If you intend to use Zorro III cards which make use of Zorro III DMA then you need to upgrade Buster to Rev 11. The Zorro III and ISA expansion slots are on a daughterboard (riser card) which is connected to the motherboard and rises vertically from it.
SCSI Problems
The A3000 may suffer SCSI related problems when several SCSI devices are attached to the bus. The most common are random SCSI bus lockups, especially with CD-ROMs and tape driver and random checksum errors when copying large files between devices. These problems can, in most cases (providing termination and jumpers are correct) be attributed to the WD33C93A SCSI controller chip in the A3000. Most, if not all, A3000s shipped with the WD33C93A-PL 00-04 chip revision. This chip had known bugs when multiple devices were present on the SCSI bus. The WD33C93A-PL 00-08 chip revision addresses and fixes the above problems.
WD33C93A-PL 00-08 9131 F (Latest Revision)
WD33C93A-PL 00-04 9201 D (default release)
INT2 Modifications
Certain accelerators, primarily those with onboard SCSI may require the INT2 modification to function fully. The A3000's CPU Fast Slot does not contain the INT2 signal as found on the A3000T, A4000 and A4000T. An INT2 modification guide can be found here.
Motherboard Layout
- RCA Stereo Jacks
- VDE selector switch
- Video finetune adjustment
- VGA connector
- Amiga Video connector
- SCSI & Parallel port
- External Floppy
- Serial port
- Amber gate array
- System expansion bus
- Super DMAC gate array DMA controller for SCSI
- System ROM
- Paula Audio I/O
- Denise Enhanced 1280 hires
- Fat Agnus
- Fat Gary gate array system address decoding
- Fast RAM
- Chip RAM
- Fat Buster gate array DMA Arbitur for motherboard
- MC68030 microprocessor 16/25 Mhz
- MC68881/82 Math coprocessor
- Ramsey gate array Dynamic-static RAM controller
- Fast RAM (DIP)
- CPU Fast Slot
- Mouse/Joystick
- Mouse/Joystick
- Keyboard
- Internal SCSI and Floppy Connectors
- System power 135 Watt power supply
Jumpers
| JUMPER | PINS | 16MHz PAL 313311-01 |
16 MHz NTSC 313311-02 |
25 MHz PAL 313311-03 |
25 MHz NTSC 313311-04 |
FUNCTION |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| J100 | 4 | 2-3 | 2-3 | 1-2 | 1-2 | QUADCLK (Quadrature Clock Source) |
| J101 | 3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | FPU Clock Source |
| J102 | 3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | BRDCLK (System Clock Source) |
| J103 | 4 | 3-4 | 3-4 | 3-4 | 3-4 | FPU CS/BERR |
| J104 | 3 | 1-2 | 1-2 | 1-2 | 1-2 | CPUCLK (CPU Clock Source) |
| J151 | 3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | 1-2 | 1-2 | ROM Timing |
| J152 | 3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | 1-2 | 1-2 | ROM Timing |
| J180 | 3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | A2000 ROM Compatibility Jumpers |
| J181 | 3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | A2000 ROM Compatibility Jumpers |
| J200 | 3 | 1-2 | 2-3 | 1-2 | 2-3 | NTSC/PAL Select |
| J350 | 3 | 1-2 | 1-2 | 1-2 | 1-2 | Tick Clock Source |
| J351 | 3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | Disable DF1: (1-2 enable) |
| J352 | 2-3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | Light Pen Source | |
| J481 | 3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | VDE Scan Double Only Jumper |
| J482 | 3 | 1-2 | 1-2 | 1-2 | 1-2 | VDE PLL Loop Adjust |
| J483 | 3 | - | - | - | - | VDE Factory Test Points |
| J800 | 3 | 1-2 | 1-2 | 1-2 | 1-2 | WD33C93 |
| J851 | 3 | 1-2 | 1-2 | 2-3 | 2-3 | RAM Controller Speed Jumper |
| J852 | 5 | 4-5 | 4-5 | 4-5 | 4-5 | -012A Ramsey Only (See Notes) J852 connecting pins 2 & 3 : 1Mbit, in 256k x 4 J852 connecting pins 1 & 2 : 4Mbit, in 1m x 4 |
| J853 | 3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | 2-3 | -012A Ramsey Only (See Notes) |
Notes:
J150, J151: ROM Timing.
The ROM timing circuit provides four different speed settings to match the output enable and access timing of the system ROMs. To set the jumpers, determine the output enable time and access times for the ROMs you wish to use. The ROM must have lower values than the setting you select. System standard ROMs have T(oe) = 110ns and T(acc) = 250ns.
| CLOCK | J151 | J150 | T(oe)(min) | T(acc)(min) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16Mhz | 2-3 | 2-3 | 157ns | 250ns |
| 16Mhz | 2-3 | 1-2 | 220ns | 312ns |
| 16Mhz | 1-2 | 2-3 | 282ns | 375ns |
| 16Mhz | 1-2 | 1-2 | 345ns | 437ns |
| 25Mhz | 2-3 | 2-3 | 90ns | 160ns |
| 25Mhz | 2-3 | 1-2 | 130ns | 200ns |
| 25Mhz | 1-2 | 2-3 | 170ns | 240ns |
| 25Mhz | 1-2 | 1-2 | 210ns | 280ns |
| J180 | J181 | |
|---|---|---|
| A2000/A500 ROMS | 1-2 | 1-2 |
| A3000 ROMS | 2-3 | 2-3 |
| J852 | J853 | |
|---|---|---|
| -012A Ramsey w/ 256K4 RAMs | 4-5 | 2-3 |
| Later Ramseys w/ 256K4 RAMs | 2-3 | 1-2 |
| Later Ramseys w/ 1M4 RAMs | 1-2 | 1-2 |
Amiga A3000+
Note: The AA3000 and A3000+ were two attempts by Commodore to build an AGA based Amiga 3000, although they were two separate projects the designs and goals were very similar and because neither project hit the market the boundaries between the two projects is very blurred. It is unclear what information applies to which project , or even if it applies to both. Therefore this page is intended for both the AA3000 and A3000+.
Standard Specifications
| Case Type: | Desktop |
| Processor: | 030@25Mhz |
| MMU: | Internal |
| FPU: | 68882@25Mhz |
| Chipset: | AGA |
| Kickstarts: | V3.0 |
| Bus Controller: | Super Buster Rev 7 |
| Expansion Slots: | 4 x 100pin Zorro III slots 1 x (AGA?) Video Slot (inline with Zorro) 2 x Inactive 16bit ISA Slots (inline with Zorro) 1 x 200pin CPU Expansion slot |
| Standard CHIP RAM: | 2MB (ZIP Chips) |
| RAM sockets: | ZIP Chip Sockets |
| Hard Drive Controllers: | |
| Drive Bays: | 1 x SCSI-II Controller |
| Expansion Ports: | 1 x 25pin Serial 1 x 25pin Parallel 1 x 23pin RGB Video 1 x 23pin External Floppy 2 x 9pin Joystick/Mouse 2 x RCA Audio (Left/Right) 1 x 25pin SCSI Connector 1 x Keyboard Connector |
| Floppy Drive: | 1 x Internal 1.76MB Floppy Drive |
| Motherboard Revisions: | Rev 0 (A3000+, Most components were socketed) Rev 1 (A3000+, Completed audio sub-system, most components surface mounted) Rev 2 (AA300) |
| Battery Backed Up Clock: | Yes, uses "Barrel" shaped battery. |
The AA3000 is a very rare machine with only a handful in existence (estimated between 3 and 6). Commodore are rumoured to have produced as many as 50 but destroyed almost all of them around the time they went into liquidation. Unfortunately the AA3000 was never officially released to the public. The AA3000 and A3000+ were essentially different projects, with similar goals. The case design was basically the same as the A3000 case (including PSU) probably with some minor modifications for the Zorro slots as they are aligned slightly differently. They are about 1" closer to the case and obviously the label on the case would be changed to reflect the machines name. This machine is almost a hybrid between the A4000 and A3000 containing a fully functional AGA chipset on an A3000 style motherboard with SCSI onboard. The AA3000/A3000+ lacks the Amber chip which is found on the A3000 for scandoubling and flickerfixing the Amiga's native display for output to a PC style SVGA monitor. The motherboard contains space for a planned DSP which was rumoured to provide 16bit audio and addtional maths processing capabilities. The machine also contains a standard 200pin CPU Fast Slot for adding processor cards as found in the A3000 and A4000. The particular machine shown in the photographs is actually used with a Commodore A3640. The machine also came with the same Kickstart, in the same ROM format as the A4000, that is KS 3.0 on two ROM chips. The Zorro and ISA slots were also on a daughterboard (riser card) which is connected vertically to the motherboard. Ever fancied an A3000 with the AGA chipset and DSP? Well try and get your hands on one of these babies! :) This machine is reported to be very stable and runs AGA games just as any A4000 or A1200 would.
A3000+ According to Dave Haynie
"The Amiga 3000+ was the first computer based on the Pandora chipset (which was later dubbed AA, then AGA). Revision 0 of this system first booted successfully in February of 1991, thanks due to a chip revision that got the display logic actually working. This is revision 1, which completed the audio subsystem, and moved to surface-mount components.
As the name suggests, this system was being designed as a drop-in replacement for the existing Amiga 3000 motherboard. In addition to the features everyone knows from the Amiga 3000, and from later computers such as the Amiga 4000, the Amiga 3000+ sported the AT&T DSP3210 digital signal processor as a coprocessor.
You can see quite a bit of support circuitry for the DSP in the upper lefthand corner of this board. There was an audio CODEC here, designed to allow 16-bit, 2-channel recording and playback. This was very cutting edge at the time, such chips, common today, where just becoming available. In addition, there was a separate mono CODEC with hardware phase correction, which supported modem protocols up to V32. The actual DSP was located above and to the right of the CPU.
Note: this is the real Amiga 3000+, very rare. Most of the Amiga 3000+ type systems out, whether boards or whole computers, are actually the scaled-down "AA3000", which was after the A3000+ had been cancelled, by the Bill Sydnes administration, as a product." - Dave Haynie
Amiga A3000UX
The A3000UX is essentially the same machine as the standard A3000, however it was labelled A3000UX because it was shipped with an alternative UNIX operating system called Commodore Amiga UNIX, affectionately known as Amix. Amix was a full port of AT&T's System V SVR4 UNIX and included the X Window System which is a server for hosting graphical environments and the Open Look graphical interface. The A3000UX only ever used versions of the A3000 motherboard which contained an 030@25Mhz and a 68882@25Mhz (as opposed to an 030@16Mhz and 68881@16Mhz) and was usually shipped with the Commodore 3070 tape drive and a three button mouse. Other Amigas were generally shipped with two button mice. Optionally the A2410 graphics card, A2065 Ethernet card and the A2232 multi-port serial card were also shipped with the machine. The A3000UX is fully capable of running AmigaOS in every way the "normal" A3000 is but was supplied with the special Kickstart 1.4 ROMs that were designed to either boot UNIX or load the real Kickstart from a file. Shortly after release, Sun Microsystems, a major UNIX vendor was interested in rebadging the A3000UX for supplying as an entry level UNIX workstation. Unfortunately in true Commodore style, the deal fell through. Commodore also released another UNIX based workstation called the A2500UX.
Amiga A3200
The A3200 is believed to be an early project name for what became the Commodore A4000. No A4000's were ever released with the A3200 designation, but they probably would have been supplied with the Commodore A3630 (with an 020 fitted). This board actually carries the names "A3200/A3400".