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Amiga 3000T

The Amiga 3000T was a tower version of the Amiga 3000.

Prototypes

Variants

Specifications

CPU

In the original A3000T/030:

In the later, A3000T/040:

TBD add link to CPU expansion

RAM

All A3000Ts have 1 MB Chip soldered on the motherboard.

Eight ZIPs sockets allow for an additiona 1 MB using 256k x 4 ZIPS

The A3000Ts shipped with 4 MB Fast RAM installed.

Fast RAM can be installed via 32 ZIP sockets which accept 16 MB Fast RAM. They accept either 1M×4 or 256k×4 80 ns ZIPs in groups of eight (one bank) but all the banks have to have the same sized chips. The RAM chips can be either static column or page mode ones. Static column ones support burst memory access and so they perform 10% faster.

Custom Chips

The A3000T is an "ECS" machine.

..

Fat Agnus - ECS display controller

Super Denise - ECS display encoder

Amber - display enhancer

Paula - audio and I/O controller

Fat Gary - system address decoder

Fat Buster - DMA arbitrary controller

Ramsey - RAM controller

Super DMAC - DMA controller

Sources

Amiga Hardware Database

Big Book of Amiga Hardware

Custom chips

Fat Agnus - ECS display controller

Super Denise - ECS display encoder

Amber - display enhancer

Paula - audio and I/O controller

Fat Gary - system address decoder

Fat Buster - DMA arbitrary controller

Ramsey - RAM controller

Super DMAC - DMA controller

The A3000T ECS chip set and display enhancer offers the following screen modes:

Low High Super

PAL, non-interlaced

PAL, scan doubled

PAL, interlaced

PAL, deinterlaced

NTSC, non-interlaced

NTSC, scan doubled

NTSC, interlaced

NTSC, deinterlaced 320×256

320×256

320×512

320×512

320×200

320×200

320×400

320×400 640×256

640×256

640×512

640×512

640×200

640×200

640×400

640×400 1280×256

-

1280×512

-

1280×200

-

1280×400

- 50 Hz, 15.625 kHz

50 Hz, 31.25 kHz

50 Hz, 15.625 kHz

50 Hz, 31.25 kHz

60 Hz, 15.734 kHz

60 Hz, 31.46 kHz

60 Hz, 15.734 kHz

60 Hz, 31.46 kHz

Euro36

A2024 320×200 - 1280×400

1024×1024 73 Hz, 15.76 kHz

15 Hz, 15.72 kHz

Multiscan

Euro72

Super72 640×480 - 640×960

640×400 - 640×800

400×300 - 800×600 60 Hz, 31.44 kHz

70 Hz, 31.43 kHz

72 Hz, 24.62 kHz

Low resolution screen modes offer up to 32 colours from a palette of 4096, 64 in EHB mode or 4096 in HAM mode. High resolution screen modes offer 16 colours from 4096, super-high resolution and productivity modes offer 4 colours from a palette of 64. Other screen modes require a Zorro graphics card.

The display enhancer doubles the scan rate of or deinterlaces the 15 kHz video modes allowing the use of VGA style monitors. 31 kHz modes can be generated also by Fat Agnus itself but they use up more DMA bandwidth and cannot be deinterlaced by Amber. The display enhancer can be disabled with a toggle switch and can be fined tuned with a trimpot on the back panel of the A3000T.

4 channel stereo 8 bit audio output with frequencies up to 28 kHz when using screen modes with 15 kHz, or up to 56 kHz when using screen modes with higher horizontal frequency. 16 bit audio requires a Zorro sound card.

All A3000Ts shipped with Kickstart 2.04 ROM which can be replaced with a 3.1 one. The ROM timing circuit provides four different speed settings for output enable (90-210 ns) and access timing (160-280 ns).

Early A3000T/030 models shipped with DMAC 01 or 02, Ramsey 04 and Fat Buster 07. The A3000T/040 utilized the DMAC 04 and Ramsey 07 in order to support the A3640. Upgrading to Super Buster 11 enables Zorro III DMA which is required by some expansion cards, for example the A4091.

Expansion slots

1× processor card slot

5× Zorro III slots

1× video slot

4× inactive ISA slots

The Zorro, ISA and video slots are all placed on the motherboard. All the ISA and video slots are in line with a Zorro III slot.

The video slot is similar to the A2000's but has a slightly different bracket.

The four ISA slots have their power and ground pins activated only. In order to access the slots by the A3000T a BridgeBoard has to be installed. With an installed BridgeBoard three ISA AT compatible cards can be used in the remaining slots. Inactive slots can be used for non intelligent cards like TBCs or fan cards.

The A3000T has the same 200 pin processor card slot as the one later utilized in the A4000. Processor cards designed for the A4000 can be used almost without restrictions.

The A3000T has a vast array of upgrade options, including processor cards, SCSI controllers, retargetable graphics cards, video digitizers, ethernet cards and many other types of expansion.

Drive bays

3× 3.5" front bays

1× 5.25" horizontal front bay

2× 5.25" vertical front bays

2× 5.25" rear bays

One of the 3.5" front bays is occupied with an A3010 880 kB or an A3015 1.76 MB floppy disk drive.

The A3000T shipped with a SCSI hard disk drive installed into one of the rear bays.

Interfaces

1× serial DB25 male, RS232

1× parallel DB25 female, Centronics

1× video DB23 male, analog RGB

1× VGA DB15 male, analog RGB

2× mouse/game DB9 male

2× stereo audio RCA jack

1× keyboard 5 pin DIN

1× external floppy DB23 female

1× internal floppy 34 pin header

1× external SCSI DB25

1× internal SCSI 50 pin header

The built in SCSI host adapter - based around the Western Digital 33C93 SCSI controller - supports up to seven devices connected simultaneously. The controller's configuration is stored in a NVRAM powered by the same battery which the clock is.

The floppy drive controller supports up to four devices - two attached to the internal floppy header and two connected to the external floppy port. Both double and high density disk drives are supported.

Motherboard revisions

rev 2 - A3500

prototype board

four Kickstart ROM sockets

rev 6.1 - A3000T (Photo)

production board

two Kickstart ROM sockets

Other components

power supply: 280 W power output

monitor power connector

6× standard 4 pin power connectors

2× mini 4 pin floppy drive power connectors

battery backed up clock

0.25 W internal speaker

Standard Specifications

Case Type: Full Tower

Processor: 030@25Mhz or

040@25Mhz (via Commodore A3640)

MMU: Internal

FPU: 68882@25Mhz (for 030 version)

Internal (for 040 version)

Chipset: ECS (Plus the additional chips Amber, SuperDMAC and Ramsey)

Kickstarts: V2.04

Bus Controller: Super Buster Rev 7

Super Buster Rev 9

Super Buster Rev 11 (not confirmed)

Expansion Slots: 5 x 100pin Zorro III slots

1 x ECS Video Slot (inline with Zorro)

4 x inactive 16bit ISA slots (2 inline with Zorro)

1 x 200pin CPU Fast Slot.

Standard CHIP RAM: 1MB (but supports 2MB)

RAM sockets: ZIP Sockets for Chip RAM

ZIP and DIL sockets for Fast RAM.

Hard Drive Controllers: 1 x SCSI-II Controller

Drive Bays: At least:

2 x 3.5" (2 with floppy faceplates)

3 x 5.25" (3 with faceplates, 2 vertical, 1 horizontal)

Expansion Ports: 1 x 25pin Serial

1 x 25pin Parallel

1 x 23pin RGB Video

1 x 15pin VGA Connector

1 x 23pin External Floppy

2 x 9pin Joystick/Mouse

2 x RCA Audio (Left/Right)

1 x 25pin External SCSI connector

1 x large 5pin DIN Keyboard connector

Floppy Drive: 1 x Internal 880K Floppy Drive (for 030 version)

1 x Internal 1.76MB Drive (for 040 version)

Motherboard Revisions: (Earlier revisions are likely to be A3500 motherboards)

Rev 6.1

Battery Backed Up Clock: Yes, uses "Barrel" shaped battery.

It is easy to assume that the A3000T is the same as the A3000 but shipped in a full tower instead of a desktop case, however the A3000T is infact a totally separate motherboard. The A3000T is a huge machine and probably has the largest motherboard of any Amiga, including the A4000T. It is similar to the A3000 but offers far more expandability. The Zorro and ISA slots are fitted directly onto the motherboard rather than being on a daughterboard (riser card) as they are in the desktop A3000. The A3000T probably has a small amount of NVRAM designed to hold the configuration settings for the SCSI controller which is the same chipset as in the desktop model. The A3000T also has a keylock and has an internal speaker for playing native audio, however external speakers can still be used. The A3000T contains a builtin scandoubler which allows PC type SVGA monitors to display the native NTSC and PAL Amiga screenmodes, which can be disabled with a switch on the rear.

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