Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!sunc.osc.edu!malgudi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uwm.edu!bionet!agate!shelby!rutgers!cbmvax!daveh From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Wrong board size for Amiga 3000 Message-ID: <15326@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 22 Oct 90 21:48:22 GMT References: <5086@crash.cts.com> Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 51 In article mwm@raven.relay.pa.dec.com (Mike (My Watch Has Windows) Meyer) writes: >Hey, why should I pay for all them extra slots? Don't need no video; >don't really need even one Zorro ]I[ slot, but not having one at all >could be painfull, so the price break would have to be real good to >go to none. How about a stripped-down 3000 with just one slot? I'm not the mechanical designer who'd work this out, or the Marketing Group who would order it. But I figure, IF you could shrink down the power supply enough on the right side of the case, the existing A3000 motherboard would fit in a shorter box with prehaps a single Zorro III slot that comes to the same height. If the supply (which of course also puts out less juice since, in cutting out three Zorro III, two PC, and a video slot, you get back about 8-10 Amps) doesn't grow too much when shrunk vertically, you might still have room for the internal floppy and one really small hard disk or second floppy. Obviously a number of other permutations are possible, it's really a question of just how much money that would save. >Actually, given the nice design on the 3000, the cost of extra slots >is negligible. Look at what's on the expansion daughterboard - almost >nothing. I'd be surprised if that board adds even 1% to the cost of >the machine. I don't know the exact cost, but the only real expense of that board is the connectors, so it's a drop in the bucket compared with hard disks and 68030s. >Nuts, the slots don't even chew up space on the the motherboard. The Motherboard has 1 Buster Chip and 10 TTL buffers to drive the expansion bus, along with of course the two connectors. Not entirely trivial in the board space it uses, though it's not a really expensive feature. If they wanted a bare bones "AmigaStation" with no slots, the Buster functions used by the motherboard could be done up in a PAL instead, and some reasonable amount of board space/complexity would be freed up. >So hey, DaveH - how about a "slot terminator" for the A3000 (if >needed), along with a drive tray suitable for holding low profile >(half-height, maybe?) 5 1/4" drives (especially tape drives!). How many drives do you need?!? The real trouble that would cause is that these 5.25" drives especially need lots of +12V, which you don't get in the A3000. The 3000 supply delivers something like +5V@17.5A and +12V@3A, versus the 2000's +5V@20A and +12V@8A. >