Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rice!uw-beaver!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!percy!parsely!agora!billsey
From: billsey@agora.UUCP (Bill Seymour)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: A3000 & Unix
Message-ID: <2028@agora.UUCP>
Date: 1 May 90 16:30:25 GMT
References: <3399@baird.cs.strath.ac.uk>
Reply-To: billsey@.UUCP (Bill Seymour)
Distribution: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Organization: Organization?  You've got to be kidding!
Lines: 47

In article <3399@baird.cs.strath.ac.uk> bsyme@cs.strath.ac.uk writes:
:OK, I've seen the A3000 at the Which? show - AND I WANT ONE!
:
: [Comments]
:
:Some questions:
:
:Is the 16MHz machine upgradable to the 25MHz specification, or is
:that major surgery?

	From what I understand (and from the Byte pics...) the 68030
and 6888(1|2) are surface mount chips, soldered onto the motherboard.
You will *not* be able to upgrade from a slower machine to a faster
machine by replacing these! :-( The soldering/unsoldering skills involved
in replacing high pin count surface mount chips are beyond mortal man...
There are pieces of hardware out there that can do this type of repair,
but they're expensive and hard to find.

:Do the custom chips have full 32 bit data paths? I'd assume that if they do,
:then they are not the same ECS chips that we've seen in 2000's. And do they
:run at the higher clock speed? If all this is so, can we expect more than two
:bitplanes in "super-hires" mode? (4 colors would seem like a limitation in the
:workstation market - mind you, the Next is getting away with it.. well it was.
::-)

	My understanding is that the custom chips are the same ECS as the
ones for the 2000. That means a  16 bit data path and the same 7.16MHz...

:When do we get a 40MHz version ;-)   

	Soon, I hope! (I'd also like more slots... The five slot limit in
the 2000 is always hitting home... I have a *lot* more than five expansion
cards, and would like to not have to tear my machine apart each time I need
to use a different setup.)

:<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
:<> Brian Syme            <> Why make things difficult, when with just a     <>
:<> bsyme@cs.strath.ac.uk <> little more effort you could make them          <>
:<>                       <> impossible.                                     <>
:<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>


-- 
     -Bill Seymour             ...tektronix!reed!percival!agora!billsey
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