website/content/museum/acorn-computer-archimedes-a3000.md

---
title: Acorn Computer Archimedes A3000
categories:
- Computers
types:
- Professional Computer
origins:
- United Kingdom
years:
- '1989'
cpus:
- ARM 2 32 bit RISC
params:
  name: Archimedes A3000
  image: /media/museum/photos/acorn_a3000_system_2.jpg
  company: /companies/acorn-computer
  company_name: Acorn Computer
  specs:
  - label: NAME
    value: Archimedes A3000
  - label: MANUFACTURER
    value: Acorn Computer
  - label: TYPE
    value: Professional Computer
  - label: ORIGIN
    value: United Kingdom
  - label: YEAR
    value: '1989'
  - label: BUILT IN LANGUAGE
    value: BBC BASIC
  - label: KEYBOARD
    value: Full-stroke PC-AT style
  - label: CPU
    value: ARM 2 32 bit RISC
  - label: SPEED
    value: 4 / 8 mHz
  - label: CO-PROCESSOR
    value: MEMC (memory), VIDC (Video and Sound), IOC (I/O)
  - label: RAM
    value: 1Mb (up to 4Mb possible with slot in card)
  - label: ROM
    value: 512 KB (RISC OS 2) 1Mb (RISC OS 3)
  - label: TEXT MODES
    value: 132 x 32 maximum
  - label: GRAPHIC MODES
    value: '21'
  - label: COLORS
    value: 256 maximum
  - label: SOUND
    value: 8 voices
  - label: I/O PORTS
    value: Centronics, RS423, Video composite (monochrome only), RGB, optional Econet (network 250 KBits). 2 expansion slot (internal 8-bit and external 16-bit)
  - label: BUILT IN MEDIA
    value: one 3.5'' 800k disk-drive
  - label: OS
    value: RISC OS 2 (3.1 or later models, and most have been upgraded to v3)
  - label: POWER SUPPLY
    value: Built-in power supply unit
  - label: PRICE
    value: £650
  tabs:
  - photos
  - hardware
  - emulators
  - links
  - docs
  photos:
  - title: ARCHIMEDES 3000 FAMILY
    subtitle: ''
    text: ''
    image: /media/museum/photos/acorn_a3000_family_1.jpg
  - title: RIGHT SIDE
    subtitle: ''
    text: ''
    image: /media/museum/photos/acorn_a3000_rightside_1.jpg
  - title: A3000 LOGO
    subtitle: ''
    text: ''
    image: /media/museum/photos/acorn_a3000_keybcloseup_1.jpg
  - title: REAR CONNECTORS
    subtitle: ''
    text: |-
      **(1)** 16-bit bus expansion connector compatible with both earlier and later Archimedes machines\
      **(2)** Analogue RGB DB9 connector\
      **(3)** Monochrome composite video RCA jack\
      **(4)** Stereo headphone jack\
      **(5)** Parallel printer DB25 connector\
      **(6)** Serial DB9 connector. Two optional serial chips must be added before using this serial port!\
      **(7)** Optional Econet network connector\
      **(8)** Mouse connector located at the bottom of the case. Not very practical.
    image: /media/museum/photos/acorn_a3000_back_1.jpg
  - title: UNCOVERED SYSTEM
    subtitle: ''
    text: Notice the two loudspeakers (black and white leads), and the poor cardboard power supply protector.
    image: /media/museum/photos/acorn_a3000_uncovered_1.jpg
  - title: MAIN BOARD
    subtitle: ''
    text: |-
      **(1)** The switching power supply unit was made in Taiwan. It is normally covered with a cardboard protector\
      **(2)** Keyboard connectors\
      **(3)** Custom sound chip made by Philips\
      **(4)** Desktop preferences backup battery\
      **(5)** RISC-OS 3 ROM chips (4 x 128 KB)\
      **(6)** I/O custom chip (IOC). All other custom chips were made by VLSI\
      **(7)** 1 MB RAM Dip chips\
      **(8)** Floppy disk-drive connector\
      **(9)** RISC ARM 2 processor\
      **(10)** 1 MB RAM expansion module\
      **(11)** Memory management custom chip (MEMC)\
      **(12)** Video management custom chip (VIDC)\
      **(13)** Reset switch
    image: /media/museum/photos/acorn_a3000_mainboard_1.jpg
  - title: MAINBOARD CLOSE-UP
    subtitle: ''
    text: In the foreground, the ARM 2 32 bit RISC processor.
    image: /media/museum/photos/acorn_a3000_mboardcloseup_1.jpg
  hardware:
  - title: 486 CARD
    subtitle: ''
    text: Allowed Archimedes series computers to run 32-bit PC-DOS software. It was delivered with a manual, a driver disk and PC-DOS 6.3
    image: /media/museum/hardware/acorn_a39000_486card_1.jpg
  - title: GRAPHICS ACCELERATOR
    subtitle: ''
    text: |-
      Graphics accelerator card (called "ColourCard") for A3000, Archimedes and A5000.\
      Company : Computer Concepts\
      Enhanced potential for Archimedes series including 15-bit desktop modes (i.e. 800\*600 @ 256 colours).

      Thanks to **Chris Syntichakis**
    image: /media/museum/hardware/acorn_a5000_colorcard_1.jpg
  - title: CUMANA SCSI CARD
    subtitle: ''
    text: |-
      16-bit SCSI-1 card\
      Company: Cumana.\
      There are an external port for scanners/CD-ROM etc. and 2 internal ports for SCSI and Floptical drives.

      Thanks to **Chris Syntichakis**
    image: /media/museum/hardware/acorn_a5000_scsicard_1.jpg
  - title: SERIAL CARD
    subtitle: ''
    text: |-
      From Atomwide's site:\
      High speed serial card featuring three ports, each in the shape of a standard 9-pin ‘D’ plug. Each port on the card is capable of running at up to 460,800 bits per second, and employs a 16-byte FIFO buffer to reduce loading on the host computer’s processor, so improving communications reliability. All serial cards are standard single-width podules, and are fully compatible with Atomwide 6 and 8-slot RiscPC backplanes.
    image: /media/museum/hardware/acorn_a5000_serialcard_1.jpg
  - title: MIDI CARD
    subtitle: ''
    text: Allowed Archimedes systems to interact with any midi sound device.
    image: /media/museum/hardware/acorn_a4000_midicard_s1.jpg
  emulators:
  - title: Arculator
    url: http://b-em.bbcmicro.com/arculator/
    platform: Windows
    text: An excellent Windows-based Archimedes emulator, plays many games and has simple usage.
  - title: Red Squirrel
    url: http://www.red-squirrel.org/
    platform: Windows
    text: An Emulator of Arm based Acorn machines for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
  - title: Virtual Acorn
    url: http://www.virtualacorn.co.uk/
    platform: Windows
    text: Excellent but commercial software - £30
  - title: ARCHIE
    url: http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/campus/5427/
    platform: Multiplatform
    text: Archie is an emulation of the Acorn Archimedes hardware (A3xx/A4xx/A3xxx) for DOS/Windows
  links:
  - title: Web Wiz CAPTCHA
    url: http://www.webwizcaptcha.com
    text: ''
  docs:
  - title: TOM'S ARCHIMEDES DOCS (INTERNAL HARDWARE)
    url: http://b-em.bbcmicro.com/arculator/index.html
    cover: /media/museum/docs/couvs/vide.gif
    text: |-
      [**TOM'S ARCHIMEDES DOCS (INTERNAL HARDWARE)**](http://b-em.bbcmicro.com/arculator/index.html)written by Tom Mowalker

       compiled/archived by Tom Mowalker\
       type of document : HTML\
       source : [Arculator](http://b-em.bbcmicro.com/arculator/index.html)
  comments:
  - author: Malcolm Ramage (United Kingdon)
    date: Friday 22nd April 2011
    text: The Archimedes took regular double density 3 1/2 inch floppy disks, just the same as the ST and Amiga. Later Archimedes machines could also use High Density 1.44MB disks, but the A3000 couldn''t without an internal upgrade.
  - author: Simon (Manchester)
    date: Saturday 25th December 2010
    text: |-
      Just wondering what kind of floppy disks the a3000 took?\
      are they available on ebay?
  - author: Daniel
    date: Saturday 4th December 2010
    text: |-
      http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem$item$270673866094$ssPageName$STRK:MESELX:IT

      This is a beautiful little machine, owned and loved by my good self.

      Everything works (will upload a picture of the system switched on ASAP).

      Original manuals, software etc.

      PHILLIPS 14" Monitor

      Flashback, Lemmings, ChuckRock, E-type Jaguar, Chocks Away, many more!

      I will probably update this listing as and when I scrutinise what I have!

      Any questions, just ask! I love this machine, and to be honest, am very tempted to keep it, but I appreciate that you bidders out there have the same passion, so another good home is a welcome home....

      There are some very good online-bookable couriers, so I think £20 should cover it, though maybe over two shipments (at the same time).
  - author: Harris Khairuddin (Bath)
    date: Monday 27th February 2006
    text: I have an A3000 with 4mb upgrade and RISC OS 3.11. Is the RAM module compatible with the A3010 and A3020?
  - author: michael tesh (sheffield)
    date: Wednesday 25th May 2005
    text: does the a3000 have an modem add on?
  - author: Martin (Scotland)
    date: Monday 18th October 2004
    text: My dopey mother sold my A3000 when I was out of the country, but I still have some files I'd like to retrieve - any ideas how i can do this?
  - author: Ace (sheffield england)
    date: Monday 13rd September 2004
    text: |-
      is there a acorn risc pc (a5000) around ive been after one for ages im after some games as well\
      p.s.i collect old computers and synthesizers
  - author: Andrew McConville (Scotland)
    date: Tuesday 1st June 2004
    text: |-
      Have never personally owned an A3000 - had a A3010, but I thought I'd share this:

      My school Maths department had one(as did most of the depts in the school had an Acorn of some sort - Art topped the list with six! All different variants too.....) and over time it became known as "The beast" for the amount of upgrades that one of the teachers had performed. When I left it was running at "A5000" spec - Arm 3 25Mhz, 120MB internal HD 8MB ram (yes 8MB!) He'd gone and got one of the drive/board upgrades which gave it a 1.6 MB FD and internal podule expansion like the A3020's....\
      SO for anyone looking to upgrade... if you can still find them, then these may be worth getting. If I had known that the expansion of the A3000 was so much better than the A3010 that I got, I probably would have paid the extra £100 to buy a new one over the price I paid for my new A3010.
  - author: Sam Thornley (South normanton)
    date: Thursday 17th July 2003
    text: |-
      I was setting up my A3000 and noticed on the under side near the mouse port is a compartment\
      with a screw.I undid the screw to find what looked like a batery compartment (AA size) .I think this was\
      made for CMOS back up batery. :-)
  - author: ash purdie (pixton England)
    date: Wednesday 30th April 2003
    text: I love Acorns there just amazing.
  - author: Sam Thornley (South Normanton (England))
    date: Saturday 22nd March 2003
    text: I have a A3000 with a internal hard drive. But the hard drive does not work.
  - author: Ace (Sheffield England)
    date: Tuesday 18th March 2003
    text: I own a Acorn A3000 but to add to my collection i was wondering where i could get an A4000 risc pc and a bbc master compact.
  related:
  - /museum/acorn-computer-a4
  - /museum/acorn-computer-archimedes
  - /museum/acorn-computer-archimedes-a3010
  - /museum/acorn-computer-archimedes-a3020
  - /museum/acorn-computer-archimedes-a4000
  - /museum/acorn-computer-archimedes-a5000
  - /museum/acorn-computer-archimedes-a7000
  oc_id: 697
  source:
    url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230607194932/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=697
    date: '2023-06-07'
---

The Acorn Archimedes A3000 was based on the Archimedes [A410](/museum/acorn-computer-archimedes/) but in an 1040ST/Amiga A500-style wedge unit. Designed for the home market, it was intended as a replacement for the [BBC Micro](/museum/acorn-computer-bbc-model-a-b-b/) and like the earlier Archimedes models it was only really used in British schools up until very recently.

Acorn started to phase out the Archimedes name and the machine was now simply badged Acorn A3000. Rumours have it that some of the Acorn A410 models had serious reliability problems and had to be recalled, so the Archimedes name was dropped to boost the machine's reputation.

Like the Atari and Amiga computers it had a built-in keyboard and disk drive located on the right-hand side, but unusually it also had two stereo speakers on either side of the unit. This form factor is ideal for a school environment as it doesn’t take up too much space and was often used with a metal plinth allowing a monitor to stand on top, usually an Acorn-badged Phillips 8853 (AKF12) or 8833 MK11 (AKF17).

The A3000 had two expansion ports. The internal one was a cut down 8-bit version of the type found on the earlier Archimedes machines. The second one, on the rear of the case, was a 16-bit version fully compatible with both earlier and later machines.

The operating system could read PC 720K disks and provided improved facilities for hard disk and networking, as well as some apps included in ROM which would appear on the task bar, such as Paint, Edit, and other useful programs.

The A3000 was replaced by the [A3010](/museum/acorn-computer-archimedes-a3010/) and [A3020](/museum/acorn-computer-archimedes-a3020/) models in 1992.

Thanks to **Jonathan Hayward** for his help.