Commdore Amiga 3000 (A3000) Review

[@changofett77]

I remember back in that day a friend of mine has one of these beauties for creating 3d animation for TV and such, and he ordered to built a custom suitcase (like the ones used for instruments) to carry the 3000 and travel with it and rendering his work wherever he traveled. One of the few correct desitions in the last years of Commodore!

[@104d_3rr0r_vince]

The best amiga model.

[@ModernVintageGamer]

+Vincent GR my taste changes week by week. last week it was the A1200 :) i love them all

[@104d_3rr0r_vince]

***** lol

[@thereasonforyou7048]

+Modern Vintage Gamer Do you have a facebook account? i´d like to add you

[@SalMightyOne]

+Modern Vintage Gamer i had, well still got them, the a1000, a2000, a2000/30, a4000/60 and the a4000/60 was my absolute favorite.

[@jrherita]

Definitely the best engineered Amiga..

[@heidirichter]

One of the few Amiga models I have not had the pleasure of owning - and one I'd still love to own to this day. I had an A500, A600, A1200, A2000, A4000/040 and a CD32. Wish I hadn't sold or given them all away now.

[@ModernVintageGamer]

+Troy Wilkins absolutely agree - ive kept all my systems. do i need them all? definetly not but i cant part with them because i know ill never get them back - or perhaps if i want to - it will be for a 200% markup in price

[@heidirichter]

I'm actually looking for an A600 now, but have not had any luck finding one for a reasonable price here in Tasmania.

[@deimos2k6]

OMG seeing Elite running at that speed just hit me. I remember the almost-3 fps on full load I was able to see of that game on my poor A500 back in the old days.

[@thereasonforyou7048]

BEAUTYFUL VIDEO KEEP ON DOING MORE Commodore Amiga tributes !

[@ModernVintageGamer]

+TheReasonForYou thank you !

[@fen4554]

Learned these things powered those early Virtuality VR units.

[@alobosk]

You lucky bastard... I got one for free from John Orr himself (developer at Commodore) and I was so stupid to sell it for nothing along many other Amigas when I split from a relationship. If I'd get on a time machine I'd just go and slap myself on the day I decided to give all those (now) so valuable machines. At least I know my machines are safe and sound in a collector's hands.

[@galacticusX]

remarkable expandability in such a small desktop case!

[@gjones1348]

Great stuff as always D. I've always wanted to get into Amiga stuff, but it's so hard to find up here for some reason.

[@ModernVintageGamer]

+G Jones thanks buddy. they appear on craigslist in the midwest semi regularly but you need to throw some money into them like with most old stuff these days

[@yakovkhalip9714]

I had 2500 and 3000 amigas. Alas I sold the A2500 in 2012, but I still have the A3000 and bought and ethernet card for it. I hope to buy a videocard like in this machine)

[@Shot97]

Beautiful machine! Those old batteries always scare me to death.

[@ModernVintageGamer]

+Shot97 yes that ttrue. I've been advised i should probably remove it from the motherboard ASAP.

[@Shot97]

***** I did that for my backdoor ram on my A500. I've been meaning to put in a battery cell in it but in the meantime I'm not too worried about dates not being kept. I had bought a backup backdoor ram for the thing and yeah, that's a crapshoot,once I got it and opened it up, it was leaking. I noticed that one still works but there are certainly issues with it. Most everything works but just say randomly a certain game will crash, probably because that game is using some special memory quirk, and it will crash on that one RAM, but if I replace it with my original, works fine... So I just still use the original. Of course Commodore made it a bitch to take the backdoor RAM apart, so that gives people selling them an excuse not to give a crap... But in my opinion, none of those should be sold unless they've been cracked open and that battery has been taken out. Luckily though, yours was still looking good. Still, better safe than sorry with that thing.

[@ModernVintageGamer]

+Shot97 i agree..id prefer a battery in the A3000, because it stores all your SCSI ID settings in NVRAM. for example if you decide to change the SCSI scan timeouts and the IDs. witth no battery - at each reboot it will lose its settings. again not a big deal but a battery in an A3000 is more important than the other Amigas.

[@a4000t]

+Modern Vintage Gamer Most people replace the battery with a lithium cr2032 coin cell and holder with diode(you dont want to charge the battery). Also you can run without a battery and set the scsi prefs in the startup-sequence with something like battmem or scsi-prefs. get that nicad out man!

[@1337Shockwav3]

rip

[@amigaretroist228]

Nice Video! I have an A3000 and dont I just love it. It also has CV64/3D and also a CS060mk2 with some RAM. Its actually rather "recent" purchase as I got it in 2008. I removed the original battery and I should replace that with a new one sometime. SCSI devices seem to work without it but anyway. Another near future replacement will be the scsi-HD. One that it has wont last forever.Today I got a 80mm fan for it and a heatsink for the processor that seems to run quite hot even if its not overclocked.

[@TheLemminkainen]

Most beautiful Amiga of all. I hope Vampire will be available on it as a future!

[@VK2FVAX]

With an MMU so it can run AMIX! :)

[@troybarnes66]

Awesome. I have an Amiga 3000 and don't know what to do with it. It's an awesome machine

[@Ichinin]

Cool, never knew that the A3000 was VGA capable and had a built in flickerfixer.

[@dragonbleu1205]

Ya me too !

[@bufftankington7349]

Are you sure about the flickerfixer ? It has a scandoubler but I don't remember flickerfixer

[@davidewhite69]

all the magazines at the time made a very big deal about it, so I am surprised you dint know

[@remijakobsen424]

@@bufftankington7349 I'm sure, I've got one myself. For example flicker free 736x566 PAL hires interlace w. full overscan. It also features the ECS chipset with more screenmodes, like the Amiga 500+ and Amiga 600 later. The Amiga 3000 flicker fixer uses the same "Amber" custom chip that the official optional flicker fixer for the Amiga 2000/2500 did.

[@bufftankington7349]

@@remijakobsen424 Ok, well when I bought an old used one, I could barely sit more than an hour in front of it, the flickering was so bad. However, it was an old one. I bought the indivision ecs for mine, which solved everything

[@GaryKildall]

In that time The Amiga 500 still was a miracle I was saving money for to buy ;-)

[@Exitsing]

Best Amiga ever build!

[@ToddsNerdCave]

Great video! I didn't realize you also had a 3000.

[@ModernVintageGamer]

+Todd Gill man im a hoarder when it comes to Amigas lol. i cant part with any of them :)

[@ChrisEdwardsRestoration]

nice and brightened.

[@MaurizioCasolari]

Nice video demonstration :)

[@dave24-73]

It’s a shame the 3000 wasn’t AGA and the 1200 and 4000 AAA that was never released, that might have made a big difference. Also a Shame Commodore didn’t have photoshop and pagemaker on it, we all know an A-Max Amiga beats an equivalent Mac. I still think the 3000 has one of the nicer footprints and looks really good.

[@obsoletegeek]

Is this the one you shipped from Australia? The A3000 is the best of the desktop models IMO.

[@ModernVintageGamer]

+The Obsolete Geek yep. PAL version- 240v AC, still needs as good clean and the battery dealt with, but she hasnt been powered on in about 10 years

[@boydpukalo8980]

The 3000 really is a beautiful machine however Motorola never could remain competitive which in itself would have killed off Amiga and the Amiga had a god awful slow IO subsystem be it SCSI or IDE in the 4000. OTOH I am building an AA3000+ in a Checkmate A1500+ black case with a bunch of goodies including 128 MB (112) RAM, ZZ9000, ReA4091, Highway Pro Zorro for USB. Pretty cool and fun working with the Amiga’s. Exciting times we live in all these after Commodore folded.

[@mark12358]

I would have cleaned the A3000 inside and cards, too...before making the video. And that battery...it's waiting to die :) hurry up and junk it! cheers!

[@VK2FVAX]

I love my Amiga3000 and 3000UX

[@TableWolfMusic]

Considering what happened to commodore, I am actually glad I never owned an a3000 (despite some framerates). I mean yeah sure, a free one would be nice (as if) but I simply did not feel the heartbreak I would have felt had I not stuck to playing an a500 at a mate's house and then mates would link them together with null modem cables for stunt-car-racer or firepower or lotus etc.

[@sjarken3979]

You dont need a A2000/3000/4000 for games anyway, for games there are cheaper amigas for that. But Amiga was alot more then games!

[@AnnatarTheMaia]

They're rare and hard to find, and when one does find one, they cost, oh, do they cost! The A3000UX is the rarest of them all, meant to be a UNIX workstation, it shipped with a Commodore version of AT&T System V Release 4.0 UNIX on tape.

[@homejonny9326]

Thanks for the video! Any chance of a video about AmigaOS spreadsheet softwares? I love spreadsheets.

[@tjlazer71]

If you have the original VARTA battery REMOVE IT ASAP! IT WILL LEAK AND DESTROY your motherboard!!!!!!

[@thorham1346]

Indeed. Can't be stressed enough: Barrel batteries kill mobos.

[@Hagledesperado]

This. If you don't remove the battery _before_ it leaks, you _will_ regret it. And that battery is long overdue for leaking. Please save your A3000, remove the battery ASAP.

[@1337Shockwav3]

I happened to be extremely lucky there with the A3000D I found on the side of the road. Basically one of the leads corroded off causing the leak to stop, making the repair an absolute walk in the park (had to replace 3 passive components at best). Also - I haven't seen a battery damaged amiga that couldn't be repaired yet (I have with Archimedes machines tho), with my current repair being an A3000T which had its' battery severely leak over an area of 20x8cm.

[@MrSEA-ok2ll]

Always the dream amiga

[@8bitbubsy]

Did you replace the battery yet? Because at 2:30 it clearly *has* leaked, and one of the chips above it have very green pins. Your A3000 is probably dying soon if you don't neutralize the battery leak.

[@YesterchipsMIG]

Too bad, that you cannot use the SCSI Port on your Cyberstorm Accelerator.... the SCSI Module only fits in an A4000. Thanks for this great video, I like the A3000 a lot. I just don't get it, why they had removed the "Amber" Chip from the A4000 Board again... Well, thats Commodore ;)

[@davidewhite69]

Commodore works in mysterious ways..... they made a lot of blunders, removing Amber was definately a blunder

[@crpgdev]

I was going to ask if you would be doing some more Amiga videos! Didn't realise you had a 3000 - a great machine. I was planning to try my hand at a bit of coding for the classic Amigas but couldn't decide on C or assembler.

[@ModernVintageGamer]

+CRPG Dev yep this one has been kept in storage for many years, I finally decided to fire it up again. as for coding I would look at assembler over C. So much more control over the hardware and 68000 assembly is fun to learn :)

[@crpgdev]

+Modern Vintage Gamer Thanks. A lot of the Amiga books I've read online seem to focus on C but Assembler certainly feels like the right way to go for game programming on the Amiga ;)

[@daishi5571]

+CRPG Dev Just my 2 cents but I would recommend both. Motorola built a fine line of processors for MC/Assembly (I cut my teeth on 6809 back in the early 80's) however coding just in assembly is a slog. Most of what you need to program will not require the fine control of assembly and will take much longer to create. However there is nothing to stop you from doing a bulk of your program in C which is much faster to put together a program, and just do the low level access and timing essential parts in assembly. As I said just my 2 cents, whatever you choose good luck.

[@artstatedigital]

As always, a nice in-depth overview of the gear ...but what happened to your cleaning cloths this time? 😉 It looked really grubby up close.

[@ModernVintageGamer]

this was an older video before i really got into the restorations, i still have this system and am planning on it..stay tuned :)

[@artstatedigital]

Lucky man! I only have two A500's. I had to replace the keyboard membrane on one, as cleaning didn't resolve the issue, nor did graphite application. Love your videos, always quality and factual. Regards from NZ.

[@thorham1346]

Was that a barrel battery? If so, replace it before it's too late.

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

what about using a SCSI-to-SATA adapter board which allows you to use SATA hard-drive in a SCSI connection.

[@fkthewhat]

Are you in Aus? Where do you find stuff like this?

[@1973Washu]

If Commodore had not gone belly up then we would probably all be using something based on Amiga hardware rather than the IBM based machines we have now.

[@thatguyontheright1]

Likely not. But it'd be nice to have a 4th option.

[@sjarken3979]

I would be happy if i could use Workbench instead of Windows and Linux, its just better in every way. Other then that i dont care too much about who made it.

[@valenrn8657]

PA-RISC is dead Itanium is dead

[@BertGrink]

Probably the sexiest Amiga ever :D

[@thorham1346]

Not design based. As much as I like Amigas, they're from a time when designers liked to design boring gray boxes.

[@danyoutube7491]

@@thorham1346 To me it's not boring, it's aesthetically smart and professional to have a neutral, bland colour. The shape of it's fascia is subtly stylish too, which is what I think most admirers see in it. It is also more compact than the A2000 case, its predecessor.

[@mavideoart]

Can u advise the jumpers setting on the A3000 motherboard? Also are the cyberstorm card map rom able?

[@Alphadec]

the amiga I always wanted but never got :(

[@BertGrink]

Same here, but at least i have an A1200 + RamJet card with 4 MB and an 68881 FPU

[@kjakobsen]

I want one now. :(

[@WolfySnackrib666]

Amiga power!!!

[@nine7295]

I own the A3000 since 1990. The video port (so called VGA) is 15 pin, not 9 pin. Have you actually taken a look at it?

[@kee1haul]

I had A1200 which one was more powerful?

[@JimmiG84]

The A3000 had a faster CPU and was far more expandable. The A1200 had better graphics capabilities because of the AGA chipset vs ECS, but the A3000 could easily be upgraded with a better video card (RTG). The A1200 was quite disappointing for late 1992, considering the A3000 had come out 2.5 years earlier. But they were aiming for a low price point which meant scaling back on everything. Still, some really good expansions were made for the trapdoor slot of the A1200.

[@kee1haul]

JimmiG84 I felt they banked alot on the AGA chip. Funny how in just two years later the Playstation came along!

[@yakovkhalip9714]

I have a A3000 in working condition... Wish I have more time to use it )

[@anticat900]

Loved my old 3000, but I've long since sold ☹️. Just the access the aga software that isnt retargetable lets it down.

[@lactobacillusprime]

Great Amiga!

[@dragonbleu1205]

2 years now. Do you have replace this horrible varta battery ? I hope so now ;-)

[@Tonestronaut]

I bought one on eBay 15 years ago. Great for early '90s productivity software, but unfortunately one of the least game-friendly Amigas. Most OCS games require a 68000 and Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3, and it doesn't have the AGA chipset, so it's neither here nor there. Gamers, get an A500 and keep it in stock configuration, and get an A1200 and an accelerator card. Or just get WinUAE or FS-UAE for your PC.

[@yakovkhalip9714]

I have a 3000 Amiga - I run games on it with WHDload software - it runs all non AGA games on it)

[@DoRC]

I know this is an old video but I just wanted to suggest you get that old battery out of there asap. I've seen what a battery I was "keeping an eye on" can do to a motherboard in pretty short order. It's not pleasant

[@laimisrinkevicius3428]

innovative amiga :)

[@xl000]

Could you do something useful in terms of today's standards with it ? I mean, except the latest software designed for it ?

[@NEWCASTLE-UNITED-1892]

When will this be released ?

[@Lorfarius]

Why would you recommend this over the A4000?

[@sjarken3979]

It has built in kickstart switcher, so you could use 2 kinds of roms and switch between them with software. And it has built in flicker fixer. I had to buy an external flicker fixer for my A4000, believe me when i say it was a pain to use vs. A3000. Dont get me wrong, A4000 is a good machine, they just did everything right with A3000.

[@ryanyoder7573]

I love mine.

[@digitalman2112]

Wish I had never parted with mine :(

[@kuntosjedebil]

Agreed. Selling mine was the biggest mistake...

[@rimbaud0000]

sadly ridiculously expensive when it came out and already behind the curve on graphics and sound. Commodore moved so slowly 😭

[@BertGrink]

yeah the big C was their own worst enemy: at around the time i got my A1200 they had more or less ceased doing advertising campaigns, and worst of all, prohibited the engineering team from developing new chips for future-gen Amigas! That was a totally bonkers move if you ask me.

[@danyoutube7491]

@@BertGrink They had run themselves into a corner, they were very low on funds by that stage so couldn't have done anything even if they were to break their ancient habits and make a smart decision :). But then they were always choosing the cheaper option, even though it usually turned out to be a false economy that caused problems down the line and hamstrung the company. The one good cheap machine they did make, the A500, was not really compromised upon. 512K of RAM was good for a home computer in 1987, the chipset was still formidable, impossible to match for the price in its capabilities, it had decent expansion potential via the left side port (albeit requiring bulky cases to be added to the machine which also added some expense to products) and was relatively compact without any loss of function (i.e. it had a NUMPAD unlike the A600!).

[@SevenDeMagnus]

Cool.

[@SeltsamerAttraktor]

This wasn't a review. That was showing off.

[@paparansen]

the music is realy annoying ^^

[@pferreira1983]

You call this the third major release. I guess since the 500 isn't a workstation Amiga it doesn't count? It was released in 1987 so it predates the 3000 that's why I mention it.

[@workingman00]

remove that battery and replace with cr2032+diode

[@niklasnonboeandersen3369]

Im selling mine if anyone are interested

[@MrWesleymoon]

I have the every amiga fully decked out ! I gave all them the same name I call them WINUAE

[@a4000t]

For god sake,please quit using sysMISinfo-even the new sysinfo4 is not right. Amigans in the know do know how bad and inaccurate this prog is. Diskspeed4.2,Syspeed2.6,bustest,scout,aibb,rscp etc all give more accurate results. :)

[@MrWesleymoon]

My amiga is far superior! It is called winuae :-)

[@optimalsupreme5080]

Wrong it was released in 1987 ..every copyright on the motherboard menas it was made during that year that is all aka you have 4000 saying 1993 then 1994 .Deos that mean they came out in 1994 no. Dammit people wake up who started this bs . I even have a pic of a 3000 with the @ at 1989 so there goes that theory of 1990 out the water. Also, I have a cd32 from 1990. People get the dates right Amiga tech started in 1979 under Lorraine then in 1980- early 81 high torro by late 81 early 82 it was changed to amiga and was inc as such. 113 where made ..Which was why they almost went under the first time. Why in the heck do you think commodore bough them out around then ..dah you have to have something ..Dammit wake up .If they didnt amiga wouldnt be around at all. Then amiga was released in 1984 ..Sure to much fan fare later on ,but dam much earlier . We seem to forget Newteks toaster was released much earlier too. Then it was shown world wide at the sbac then comdex shows..Why they didnt want to fail .Good grief people This was the way with the 3000 they had to prefect it IT was going from ocs to ecs.

[@remijakobsen424]

You are wrong, Amiga 3000 was released in 1990, that is well documented. It was reviewed in May 1990 issue of Byte magazine. Dave Haynie is still around, the main engineer behind it. Of course some parts are dated 1989 and maybe older, but the Amiga 3000 was not in production before 1990. Commodore bought Amiga corp in 1984, not in 1982. After the summer CES in 1984. This is well documented with interviews of Jay himself and others working there.

[@nine7295]

I was right there then, owned the A500 then the A3000. You don't know what you are talking about.

[@danyoutube7491]

Lol, the CD32 came out in 1990 did it? Perhaps you were thinking of the CDTV, though even that was not out until 1991. I was reading Amiga magazines back then (and indeed anyone can check out a lot of Amiga magazine scans online today and thereby verify it first hand) so know what I am talking about. The Amiga was made on breadboards until not long before its release in 1985, it was not finished by any stretch of the imagination in 1982 and there certainly wouldn't have been units sold. The more I read the more I think this guy was a troll, he was implying that ECS was a vast step up from OCS...