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yann64andClaude Opus 5.5 b274874139 All machines linked to their forum thread (full comment import) 
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Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01YDRjtmAiNpo5mK5N3d7QwZ
2026-10-13 17:26:43 +02:00

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---
title: Commodore AMIGA 3000
categories:
- Computers
types:
- Professional Computer
origins:
- U.S.A.
years:
- '1990'
cpus:
- Motorola MC68030
params:
name: AMIGA 3000
image: /media/museum/photos/commodore_amiga-3000_nb.jpg
company: /companies/commodore
company_name: Commodore
specs:
- label: NAME
value: AMIGA 3000
- label: MANUFACTURER
value: Commodore
- label: TYPE
value: Professional Computer
- label: ORIGIN
value: U.S.A.
- label: YEAR
value: '1990'
- label: CPU
value: Motorola MC68030
- label: SPEED
value: 16 / 25 mHz
- label: CO-PROCESSOR
value: '3 : Super Denise (video),Fat Agnus (memory manager, blitter & copper), Paula (I/O, sound), 68881 or 68882 (math processor), SCSI DMAC'
- label: RAM
value: 1-2 MB Chip RAM, up to 18 Mb (with 16Mb FAST) and theoricaly to 4 Gb.
- label: ROM
value: 512 KB
- label: TEXT MODES
value: 60 x 32 / 80 x 32
- label: GRAPHIC MODES
value: '12 graphic modes : from 320 x 240 to 960 x 512'
- label: COLORS
value: '32 (for 320 x X modes), 16 (for 640 x X modes) among 4096 + 2 Special modes : EHB 64 colors and HAM 4096 colors on static display.'
- label: SOUND
value: Four 8 bit PCM voices
- label: I/O PORTS
value: Video (RGB, Composite), Parallel/Centronics, RS232c, SCSI, VGA, stereo sound, joysticks (atari) & mouse, 4 Zorro III internal slots, 2 ISA slots, 1 CPU slot, 1 video slot, external floppy, external SCSI-2, keyboard, Stereo audio output
- label: BUILT IN MEDIA
value: one 3.5'' disk-drive (880k), SCSI-2 Hard-Drive
- label: OS
value: AMIGA WorKBench 2.0x, Unix System (SVR4) V operating system
- label: POWER SUPPLY
value: Internal PSU
- label: PRICE
value: |-
Amiga 3000T (100Mb HD) : $4498 (USA, 1991)\
Amiga 3000T (200Mb HD) : $4998 (USA, 1991)
tabs:
- photos
- adverts
- hardware
- emulators
- links
- videos
forum_thread: 49
photos:
- title: AMIGA 3000T-040
subtitle: ''
text: Thanks to Andrew Bienhaus for this picture
image: /media/museum/photos/commodore_amiga-3000t-040_1.jpg
- title: AMIGA 3000T-040 - FRONT PANEL CLOSE-UP
subtitle: ''
text: Thanks to Andrew Bienhaus for this picture
image: /media/museum/photos/commodore_amiga-3000t-040_2.jpg
adverts:
- title: COMMODORE BROCHURE
subtitle: ''
text: Photo taken from an Amiga 3000 brochure.
image: /media/museum/pubs/commodore_amiga3000_brochure_1.jpg
hardware:
- title: MIDI GOLD 500
subtitle: by Golden Hawk Technology
text: |-
This is a MIDI interface for the Amiga 500, 2000, or 3000...
It features :\
\- one MIDI In\
\- two MIDI Out\
\- one switchable Out/Thru\
\- one MIDI/Serial Switch\
\- one Out/Thru Switch
image: /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga_golden-hawk-midi-interface.jpg
- title: AMIGA 1300
subtitle: Genlock
text: ''
image: /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga1000_1300-genlock.jpg
- title: MEMORY EXPANSION BOARD
subtitle: ''
text: 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 MB expansion card here fitted with 2 MB.
image: /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga1500_memboard_1.jpg
- title: VIDEO BOARD
subtitle: ''
text: This board featured 2 MB of RAM and allowed the Amiga to be connected to a standard VGA monitor. All the video modes could be displayed, including the interlace one.
image: /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga1500_videoboard_1.jpg
- title: A570 CD-ROM
subtitle: ''
text: Thanks to David Griffith for this picture
image: /media/museum/hardware/amiga_cdrom_a570_1.jpg
- title: HARD DISK CARD
subtitle: ''
text: |-
40 MB SCSI card from SUPRA CORP.
Additional SCSI devices could be connected in chain trough the back connector
image: /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga1500_hdboard_1.jpg
emulators:
- title: Amiga Forever
url: http://www.amigaforever.com/
platform: Windows
text: Complete but commercial Amiga emulator
- title: AMIthlon & AmigaXL
url: http://amigaosxl.haage-partner.de/index-e.html
platform: Windows
text: Powerful commercial emulators
- title: WinFellow
url: HTTP://FELLOW.SOURCEFORGE.NET
platform: Windows
text: Probably better at some games than UAE, but not as versatile.
- title: WinUAE
url: http://www.winuae.net/
platform: Windows
text: The best Amiga emulator ? :-)
- title: Max UAE
url: http://maxuae.de/
platform: Apple
text: UAE for Mac OS X
- title: AmigaSYS
url: http://amigasys.fw.hu/
platform: Unix / Linux
text: AmigaSYS is a pre-installed full Amiga OS for WinUAE
- title: Pocket UAE
url: http://pocketinsanity.sourceforge.net/
platform: Other platform
text: Amiga Emulator for Pocket PC
- title: Experimental UAE
url: http://www.rcdrummond.net/uae/
platform: Multiplatform
text: Standard UAE enhanced with features from WinUAE.
- title: MESS
url: http://www.mess.org
platform: Multiplatform
text: MESS now emulates the Commodore Amiga
- title: UAE
url: http://www.freiburg.linux.de/~uae/
platform: Multiplatform
text: '(Ubiquitous Amiga Emulator) for BeOS, Mac OS, Linux, NextStep, MSDOS, OS/2 and Win95/NT : Homepage.'
links:
- title: Amiga animations
url: http://www.randelshofer.ch/animations/
text: A collection of Amiga Animations. This is the only site where you can see them online!
- title: Amiga Interactive Guide
url: http://amiga.emugaming.com/
text: Excellent site ! A lot of very interesting infos there.
- title: Amiga Island
url: http://www.virtualpast.de/
text: Excellent site with ROMs to download!
- title: Amiga Web Directory
url: http://www.cucug.org/amiga.html
text: ''
- title: AMIGART.COM
url: http://www.amigart.com
text: Nice site with Amiga news
- title: Back to the Roots
url: HTTP://WWW.BACK2ROOTS.ORG/
text: Amiga culture, guides, huge collection of legally downloadable software, and much more.
- title: Lex Site - Amiga Hardware Database
url: http://amiga.multigraph.com/
text: The website title says it all!
- title: NetBSD-Amiga
url: http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/amiga/index.html
text: ''
- title: Old Computer Mags
url: http://www.old-computer-mags.com/
text: Scans of old computer and videogames magazine
- title: Recorded Amiga Games
url: http://www.recordedamigagames.org
text: Speedrun, longplay and misc videos of Amiga games and more.
- title: RetroPack
url: http://www.retropack.co.uk/
text: Website dedicated to selling original Amigas, CD32s and Amiga/CD32 Games.
- title: The Amiga Monitor
url: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/MikeWebb/amhome.html
text: ''
- title: The Big Book of Amiga Hardware
url: http://www.amiga-hardware.com/
text: Pics & info (pinouts, jumpers etc.) for just about every piece of Amiga related hardware there is
- title: The English Amiga Board
url: http://eab.abime.net/
text: Community site for Amiga fans
- title: World-Wide Amiga - Online!!
url: http://www.amiga.org/
text: ''
- title: Web Wiz CAPTCHA
url: http://www.webwizcaptcha.com
text: Reviews of Amiga software, hardware
videos:
- title: Commodore Amiga commercial - EXIT
url: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=8721405286052618769&hl=fr
text: 'Length: 41 s'
- title: Commodore Amiga 500 commercial
url: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=5737538578208665725&hl=fr
text: 'Length: 29 s'
- title: Commodore Amiga 1000 commercial
url: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=5356507595228759374&hl=fr
text: 'Length: 32 s'
- title: Commodore Amiga 600 italian commercial
url: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-768109352967297990&hl=fr
text: 'Length: 19 s'
- title: Commodore Amiga packs commercial
url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdaMq8JLyHA
text: 'Length: 21 s'
- title: Commodore Amiga TV Ad - Celebrities
url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEFoj6sbDjU
text: 'Length: 29 s'
- title: Commodore Amiga 500 promotional video
url: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=9038863557655975739&hl=fr
text: 'Length: 15 min 06 s'
- title: 'Computer Chronicles: Amiga 3000 (1990)'
url: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=6336054364333755091&hl=fr
text: 'Length: 29 min 09 s'
- title: 'Computer Chronicles: Amiga & Atari (1985)'
url: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=8978343825632445107&hl=fr
text: 'Length: 29 min 18 s'
related:
- /museum/commodore-amiga-1000
- /museum/commodore-amiga-1200
- /museum/commodore-amiga-1500
- /museum/commodore-amiga-2000
- /museum/commodore-amiga-2500
- /museum/commodore-amiga-4000
- /museum/commodore-amiga-500
- /museum/commodore-amiga-500-plus
- /museum/commodore-amiga-600
- /museum/commodore-amiga-600hd
- /museum/commodore-cdtv
oc_id: 30
source:
url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230327012043/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=30
date: '2023-03-27'
---
The Commodore Amiga 3000 is the successor of the [Amiga 2500](/museum/commodore-amiga-2000/) (itself a successor of the [Amiga 2000](/museum/commodore-amiga-2000/)). It was replaced three years later with the [Amiga 4000](/museum/commodore-amiga-4000/).
[Amiga Interactive Guide](http://amiga.emugaming.com/) description :\
The A3000 is a powerhouse in comparison to previous Amiga, it was sold as a high-end graphics workstation. For a time it was used by W Industries as the basis of their highly acclaimed Virtuality machines. At the heart of the A3000 was the powerful 68030 (described in ST/Amiga Format as a 'as a mainframe on a chip'). In addition the A3000 was the first Amiga to feature the new Kickstart 2 upgrade and Zorro III slots.
To emphasis the A3000s capabilities as a high-end workstation, two operating systems were included:\
The first was the newly released Kickstart/Workbench 2. This was unusual by the fact that Kickstart was stored on the hard disk rather than in ROM. This was similar to the A1000 that required Kickstart to be loaded from floppy disk before anything else could be done.
The second OS to be included with the A3000 was the Unix System (SVR4) V operating system. This allowed the use of the Unix graphical interface, X Windows and Open Look. It also came with standard networking capabilities (probably a first for Commodore), such as TCP/IP, NFS and RFS for networking between different operating systems. In a bizarre twist, the Unix OS was sold on a magnetic tape rather than floppy disk.
Three Amiga 3000 models were produced : 3000, 3000UX, and 3000T.
The **3000** was the desktop model (pictured here) which shipped with flippable 1.3 or 2.0 AmigaOS Roms. The **Amiga 3000T**, released in 1991, was a tower system with built-in speaker, 32Mb RAM, high-resolution mouse, 100 Mb hard-drive, a lot of Zorro II slots, a variety of drive bays, and a 25Mhz 68030 with a 68882 math coprocessor. The **3000UX** shipped with "AMIX", Commodore's System-5 derived UNIX which was very nice and came with X-windows. It was Commodore's only serious attempt to get into the UNIX workstation market, and a noble effort that unfortunately failed utterly.
Notice there are some rare versions of the Amiga 3000: the **3000/16** (the speed is only 16 MHz) and the **Amiga 3000+** which uses an AGA video chip and a DSP. The 3000+ was a prototype only. A few units are known to exist, but they are not supported. The DSP was able to function as a software modem in some configurations, which was extremely cool.
---
**Jurgen Schober** adds:\
Also note, the A3000 (A3000T/4000/4000T) came with Zorro3 slots. This was unique at the time, as it is comparable to todays PCI expansion. It was a true 32 bit high speed expansion system, fully backwards compatible to (older) Zorro2 16bit bus. 16Bit cards could be used in the 32bit slot in parallel with 32bit cards without harming the performance.\
The buscontroller (Buster) had known flaws and the protocol was hard to implement and Zorro3 boards were very expensive, but even Comodore released a 32bit SCSI-II HD controller for these Amiga models. A lot of hi-res graphics boards have been built for the faster 32bit mode, too.
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