Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!metahawk From: metahawk@itsgw.rpi.edu (Wayne G Rigby) Subject: Re: A3000 Questions? Message-ID: Sender: Wayne Rigby Nntp-Posting-Host: jec414.its.rpi.edu Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY References: <1991May8.185513.14126@clark.edu> Date: 9 May 91 07:01:19 GMT Lines: 56 In article <1991May8.185513.14126@clark.edu> danr@clark.edu (Dan Reuther) writes: > I am thinking of using the Power Up program and upgrading my A2000 to >an A3000. I have several questions that I would like answered to help me >make my decision. > > 1. I know that the A3000 will support the 68040 but am I correct in > saying that the A2000 will not support the chip? I'm not quite sure what you mean by support (the A3000's 32 bit architecture makes it much easier to interface to the 68040 than the A2000's 16 bit bus). There are 68040 accelerator boards being designed for the A2000 series. > 2. The 3000 has its hard disk controller on the motherboard, not in > an expansion slot, right? Can you add other hard drives to this > controller or do you have to get a new controller and take up an > expansion slot? Yes, the disk controller is on the motherboard, and all you need to do to add other drives is to by a SCSI hard drive and plug it into the SCSI port on the 3000. Of course, if you want to, you canbuy a controller and plug it into a slot, but a SCSI drive is cheaper. > 3. The 3000 has fewer expansion slots than the 2000 but it has two > of the main things expansion slots are used for on the motherboard > (up to 18meg, hard disk controller) so even though it has fewer slots > it is equally if not more expandible than the 2000? Almost. Considering you can get a card for the 2000 that contains a hard drive controller, a hard drive, and 8 megs of RAM, only one slot is taken up to get these capabilities. The 3000 has 4 Zorro III slots, with one inline with the video slot and two inline with the IBM slots. The 2000 has 5 Zorro II slots, 2 IBM slots, with two of the Zorro slots inline with two more IBM slots, and there's a seperate video slot. With only one slot taken up with the drive/controller/RAM card, the 2000 still has 2 more IBM slots and a seperate video slot, which allows more flexibility. Of course the inline video slot of the 3000 series could mean some interesting peripherals in the future. > Now for some questions about my 2000. Can't help you here. > Thanks for the help, > > a very confused Amiga person > Dan Reuther. > >danr@clark.edu > > Wayne Rigby Computer and Systems Engineer (in training) Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute metahawk@rpi.edu