What to do with amiga 3000?

[cowdog360]

All,

I recently acquired my Amiga 3000 at the Goodwill outlet, and it is in fantastic shape. It's a 25Mhz model with the latest motherboard revision. The first things I have done are replace the battery (that had no leaking remarkably) and PALs. It has the 2.04 ROMS and it boots up and runs well. I'd like to be able to play some games on it, but I'm kind of stuck at this point. I don't have any disks or anything. The machine just came with the unit, key board and mouse.

What are my next steps? Should I be getting an IDE controller and putting a CF drive in there so I can use WHDLoad? Should I get a floppy emulator?

The other option I'm seriously considering is just selling the 3000 and getting a 1200 (which was my favorite machine I had right before I went to college) instead.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[Magic]

In my opinion you now own one of the finest Amiga's made (of course they all are). It may have a 1.76HD floppy, have you tried it? Others will chime in about software, but first Congratulations! I would keep it and look for a 1200 to add.

 

[OoZic]

First step is to use a VGA monitor with it Updating the rom to 3.1 is also recommended.

Does it have a SCSI drive? Use it for the OS and WHDLoad. If not you can buy a SCSI drive for not that much money. SCSI->IDE->CF card is an option (not the Aztec Monster) or you can try to find a Buddha (Zorro-II interface) or FastATA4000 (Zorro-III interface) card and use it with a CF adapter.
Best thing is a Deneb USB card (you can even boot from USB), but for that I recommend a 040 or 060 processor. the 030 from the A3000 can do it, but it won't be fast. Deneb is very expensive but worth every penny.

A1200's for sale here on Amibay. No way you can find a 3000 for that price. A 3000 is the best machine Commodore ever made. After that they started cutting prices and used cheap hardware (non-buffered IDE controller for example for the 600 and 1200) for the Amiga. But if you are really into AGA games, the 3000 can't do it, only ECS max.

 

[Aysel]

If your just looking to run games I would pick up a Buddha and a CF card, assuming you have more than four meg of zips on the board that's pretty much all you need to run whdload and access just about every game made Also pick up a 17 inch crt and hook it up to the VGA out, I have a 3000 and its my favourite Amiga too... I've put a Picasso IV, A2386 and an A3640 in there and it get more use than anything else I own.

The A3640 is a nice cheap upgrade and gives some of the more 3d intensive games such as Frontier II and Falcon a good boost.

Don't get rid for an A1200, buy one of those as well ��

 

[cowdog360]

Yes, it does have the original 100MB drive. It's the 25Mhz model, and has 8MB of ZIP ram so 10MB total. Not a bad score from rescuing out of a cardboard box. I do currently have it hooked up to the VGA out on my Dell 23" panel, since it's what I have around the house. I'll have to look around for a CRT to see what I can get. I do love the machine though, I just don't know how many old machines my wife is going to let me have kicking around. I still have my old Powermac 7200 from '95 as well lol.

Sounds like the IDE card would be the best route.

 

[hsc]

Congratulation for this beauty A3000


Sorry my english.

All the best
Amiten