davidm@sugar.hackercorp.com (David Martin) (05/05/91)
ALL: Some one told me that they heard the A3000T would have a 68000 switchable mode to make it backwards compatible with the A500,A1000,A2x00 series of Amigas. Is their any truth to that? Sounds funky to me. Also any news on the A3000T's price yet and can current A3000 owners upgrade to the larger case? David PS Dave Haynie are you out there? Can you answer the upgrade question? Does the A3000T have a new motherboard or just a larger back plane? If I could later upgrade to a T I'd buy an A3000 using the power up discount -- David W. Martin c/o The OpCode Factory tm Seabrook, Texas, USA Commodore might make the Amiga, but the Amiga makes it possible! PLINK: DAVIDM CIS: 72510,3232 UUCP: davidm@sugar.hackercorp.com
metahawk@itsgw.rpi.edu (Wayne G Rigby) (05/06/91)
In article <1991May5.134321.25252@sugar.hackercorp.com> davidm@sugar.hackercorp.com (David Martin) writes: >ALL: > Some one told me that they heard the A3000T would have >a 68000 switchable mode to make it backwards compatible >with the A500,A1000,A2x00 series of Amigas. Is their >any truth to that? Sounds funky to me. Also any news on the >A3000T's price yet and can current A3000 owners upgrade to >the larger case? Well, unless the switchable mode is completely done in software, no. There is no 68000 or socket for one on the motherboard. I can see no purpose for such a switchable mode, unless you want to play games, in which case the hardware differences (32 bit bus, CPU clock cycle) would still not allow many games to work. It probably would be possible to build a 68000 "accelerator" card, but again, "Why?" Nearly all of the business and productivity software that doesn't work on 3000's are being converted so that they will work. No prices, yet. Myself, I don't think you'll be able to upgrade from an A3000 to an A3000T, but I could be wrong. It would be really cool, though, if you could. >David >PS Dave Haynie are you out there? Can you answer the upgrade >question? Does the A3000T have a new motherboard or just a >larger back plane? If I could later upgrade to a T I'd buy >an A3000 using the power up discount > The A3000T's motherboard is not the same as the A3000's. The slots are directly on the motherboard, and not on a back plane. >-- > >David W. Martin c/o The OpCode Factory tm Seabrook, Texas, USA >Commodore might make the Amiga, but the Amiga makes it possible! >PLINK: DAVIDM CIS: 72510,3232 UUCP: davidm@sugar.hackercorp.com Wayne Rigby Computer and Systems Engineer (in training) Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute metahawk@rpi.edu
jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) (05/06/91)
In article <1991May5.134321.25252@sugar.hackercorp.com> davidm@sugar.hackercorp.com (David Martin) writes: >ALL: > Some one told me that they heard the A3000T would have >a 68000 switchable mode to make it backwards compatible >with the A500,A1000,A2x00 series of Amigas. Is their >any truth to that? No. -- Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering. {uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com BIX: rjesup Disclaimer: Nothing I say is anything other than my personal opinion. Thus spake the Master Ninjei: "To program a million-line operating system is easy, to change a man's temperament is more difficult." (From "The Zen of Programming") ;-)
tope@enea.se (Tommy Petersson) (05/06/91)
In article <1991May5.134321.25252@sugar.hackercorp.com- davidm@sugar.hackercorp.com (David Martin) writes:
-ALL:
- Some one told me that they heard the A3000T would have
-a 68000 switchable mode to make it backwards compatible
-with the A500,A1000,A2x00 series of Amigas. Is their
-any truth to that? Sounds funky to me.
No truth at all.
-Also any news on the A3000T's price yet
Nothing more than the German guesstimate which I don't remember exactly, but
was perhaps about 600 DM.
-and can current A3000 owners upgrade to the larger case?
The motherboard is different, with the slots on it. It would be
possible to put the normal motherboard in another tower case (many are
available), but you wouldn't get the slots.
You will be able to upgrade to the new diskette drive.
-David
-PS Dave Haynie are you out there? Can you answer the upgrade
-question? Does the A3000T have a new motherboard or just a
-larger back plane? If I could later upgrade to a T I'd buy
-an A3000 using the power up discount
-
---
-
-David W. Martin c/o The OpCode Factory tm Seabrook, Texas, USA
-Commodore might make the Amiga, but the Amiga makes it possible!
-PLINK: DAVIDM CIS: 72510,3232 UUCP: davidm@sugar.hackercorp.com
Tommy Petersson
tope@enea.sedaveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (05/07/91)
In article <1991May5.134321.25252@sugar.hackercorp.com> davidm@sugar.hackercorp.com (David Martin) writes: >ALL: > Some one told me that they heard the A3000T would have >a 68000 switchable mode to make it backwards compatible >with the A500,A1000,A2x00 series of Amigas. Some one has been smokin' some of that loco weed. That's silly, not to mention impossible. All correctly written AmigaOS programs have no problem with the A3000 or A3000T. The few that don't work, if they haven't been upgraded by now, are probably not worth your time anyway (keep in mind, we have had 32 bit systems out since 1988). A good portion of the compatibility problems people have run into on the A3000 have been due to 2.00, not the A3000 hardware, and most of those have been fixed by now, and should show up in the final 2.0x software release. Most of these changes are apparently not bug fixes, but magic tricks to get around bad programming practices in applications. >PS Dave Haynie are you out there? Yup. Finished a deck last weekend and a chip today, so I get to read news for a few minutes. >Can you answer the upgrade question? No, that's a Sales and Marketing question, and as such, any answer is going to vary by country anyway. >Does the A3000T have a new motherboard or just a larger back plane? Now that's a technical question. The A3000T has a new motherboard. >David W. Martin c/o The OpCode Factory tm Seabrook, Texas, USA -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy "That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight" -R.E.M.
daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (05/07/91)
In article <2a6g4dh@rpi.edu> metahawk@itsgw.rpi.edu (Wayne G Rigby) writes: >In article <1991May5.134321.25252@sugar.hackercorp.com> davidm@sugar.hackercorp.com (David Martin) writes: >It probably would be possible to build a 68000 "accelerator" card, Actually, no. It's reasonably efficient to convert 68030 bus signals into 68000 signals. The A3000's Buster chip does this to support Zorro II modes on the Zorro III bus. Going the other way is pretty inefficient. The A3000's Buster chip also does this, to support Zorro II DMA into A3000 Chip RAM, but it's not pretty. Any 68000 plug-in toy would tend to run slower than an A500, which wouldn't make things any more compatible than they are now. Also, the A3000's Fast RAM and a number of I/O registers could not be accessed, since they're either out of 24-bit space, or 32-bit only registers. > Wayne Rigby -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy "That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight" -R.E.M.
greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Greg Harp) (05/07/91)
In article <1991May5.134321.25252@sugar.hackercorp.com> davidm@sugar.hackercorp.com (David Martin) writes: > Some one told me that they heard the A3000T would have >a 68000 switchable mode to make it backwards compatible >with the A500,A1000,A2x00 series of Amigas. Is their >any truth to that? Sounds funky to me. Well, the A3000T _is_ backward-compatible with all Amigas. Software that isn't forward-compatible is purely the fault of the programmer. -- Greg Harp |"I was there to match my intellect on national TV, | against a plumber and an architect, both with a PhD." greg@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu| -- "I Lost on Jeopardy," Weird Al Yankovic
FelineGrace@cup.portal.com (Dana B Bourgeois) (05/08/91)
Recently (after finishing a chip and a deck!) Dave H. mentioned that the A3000 and A3000-T have different motherboards. Aside from purely physical differences like more slots or moving parts around, adding ground plane, changing a connector: does the A3000-T motherboard have any new features that make it 'more-better' than the A3000? Could we be let in on any "secrets" in the hardware? Please? Dana Bourgeois @ cup.portal.com (I fed you the straight line as we agreed, Dave, so go ahead and brag.) ;->
daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (05/08/91)
In article <42094@cup.portal.com> FelineGrace@cup.portal.com (Dana B Bourgeois) writes: >does the A3000-T motherboard have any new features that make it 'more-better' >than the A3000? Could we be let in on any "secrets" in the hardware? >Please? Sorry, but there's really no great new magic in the A3000T, it's basically a Tower A3000, just as you would expect. One video, five Zorro III, four ISA slots, lots of drive bays, monster power supply. It does have an internal speaker with automatic gain control, but that's hardly anything earth shaking. The very first A3000 prototype, the one sometimes called "New York City", was practically the same idea as the A3000T motherboard. Big, in other words. We got the decision to shift to the "Cute Desktop Box" configuration by the next revision, and overall I agreed with the decision, since not everyone needs or wants something as big as an A3000T. I didn't actually have much to do with the A3000T, since, as mentioned, there wasn't a whole lot of new stuff in there. That doesn't mean there isn't any new engineering; any time you take a design and lay it out differently, things may have to change just to make it work properlyt. But no one sees this in the final result. -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy "That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight" -R.E.M.
swansonc@acc.stolaf.edu (Chris Swanson) (05/19/91)
Greetings Dave! >>>>> On 8 May 91 16:42:17 GMT, >>>>> in message <21392@cbmvax.commodore.com>, >>>>> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) wrote: daveh> I didn't actually have much to do with the A3000T, since, as daveh> mentioned, there wasn't a whole lot of new stuff in there. daveh> That doesn't mean there isn't any new engineering; any time you daveh> take a design and lay it out differently, things may have to daveh> change just to make it work properlyt. But no one sees this in daveh> the final result. daveh> -- daveh> Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" Well, since you "Never Rest" and you didn't work too much on the 3000-T, what were/are you cooking up now? :)> Regards, -+Chris -- Chris Swanson, Chem/CS/Pre-med Undergrad, St. Olaf College, Northfield,MN 55057 DDN: [CDS6] INTERNET: swansonc@acc.stolaf.edu UUCP: uunet!stolaf!swansonc AT&T: Work: (507)-645-4528 Home: (507)-663-6424 I would deny this reality, but that wouldn't pay the bills...