Amiga 3000D rev 6.1 Kickstart 3.1 ROMS

[Jay Minerooo oxxxx]::::::::::::::::::::>]

Hi, people.

I'm trying to boot my Amiga 3000 Desktop rev 6.1 with original Commodore
A3000 3.1 ROMS and it seems no way to.
The screen keeps in black, and there is no activity on SCSI disks or DF0:
Does anyone know how? Jumpers configuration, hardware trick... or
something?

It boots ROMS 2.04 fine (softkicking).

The computer came (buyed second hand) without ROM tower. ¿Does it matter?
Thanks in advance.

[Daniele Gratteri]

Post by Jay Minerooo oxxxx]::::::::::::::::::::>
I'm trying to boot my Amiga 3000 Desktop rev 6.1 with original Commodore
A3000 3.1 ROMS and it seems no way to.

That is a really old motherboard revision...

Post by Jay Minerooo oxxxx]::::::::::::::::::::>
It boots ROMS 2.04 fine (softkicking).

Are these really ROMs or are they EPROMs?

Post by Jay Minerooo oxxxx]::::::::::::::::::::>
The computer came (buyed second hand) without ROM tower. ¿Does it matter?

I think it does!
A friend of mine has a 7.3 motherboard, still quite old, and it had the ROM
tower with true 2.04 ROMs, however on "The Big Book of Amiga Hardware" I see
this photo:

Loading Image...

of a 6.1 motherboard fitted with EPROMs into the developer sockets. Sockets
for ROMs do not work in those old revision due to some differences in
pinout, and so I think a ROM tower is needed, or at least you do need EPROMs
programmed with KS 3.1

[de Selby]

Post by Jay Minerooo oxxxx]::::::::::::::::::::>
I'm trying to boot my Amiga 3000 Desktop rev 6.1 with original Commodore
A3000 3.1 ROMS and it seems no way to.

I have one of those very old models, too, and I solved the problem by
softkicking the 3.1 ROMs. (I put them in place of the 2.04.) AFAIK the
3.1 soft ROMS were never sold officially but as a developer tool only. I
got them when I bought the Amiga 3000 in an online auction. Who has more
information on this?

BTW, the 68040 CPU card which I bought via ebay a few years ago doesn't
work with that revision, either, even if there was enough space in the
box. Why???
-dS

[Daniele Gratteri]

Post by de Selby
BTW, the 68040 CPU card which I bought via ebay a few years ago doesn't
work with that revision, either, even if there was enough space in the
box. Why???

As far as I know, 68040 boards need at least KS 2.04, while the Kickstart
"under the hood" used for softkicking really is "1.4", which probably
doesn't support '040.

[de Selby]

Post by Daniele Gratteri

Post by de Selby
BTW, the 68040 CPU card which I bought via ebay a few years ago doesn't
work with that revision, either, even if there was enough space in the
box. Why???

As far as I know, 68040 boards need at least KS 2.04, while the Kickstart
"under the hood" used for softkicking really is "1.4", which probably
doesn't support '040.

Sounds reasonable. Thanks for the hint.
-dS

[Peter Corlett]

Daniele Gratteri <***@NOSPAMemail.it> wrote:
[...]

Post by Daniele Gratteri
As far as I know, 68040 boards need at least KS 2.04, while the
Kickstart "under the hood" used for softkicking really is "1.4",
which probably doesn't support '040.

I wrote a tool that used the A3640's MapROM hardware to load any
binary image as a Kickstart (regardless of checksum or size, which
Commodore's MapROM tool checks) and both Kickstart 1.2 and 1.3 work
just fine.

I assume that Kickstart 1.x just sees the A3640 as a very fast 68020.

[Daniele Gratteri]

Post by Peter Corlett
I wrote a tool that used the A3640's MapROM hardware to load any
binary image as a Kickstart (regardless of checksum or size, which
Commodore's MapROM tool checks) and both Kickstart 1.2 and 1.3 work
just fine.
I assume that Kickstart 1.x just sees the A3640 as a very fast 68020.

I see... Then the following text may be the right answer to Selby's
question. It is from a very old (back to 1993) review of the Mercury 68040
accelerator for A3000. It seems I forgot about MMU incompatibilities and
then I thought it was a KS problem...

HARDWARE


Commodore Amiga A3000 or A3000T, with ROM Kickstart version
2.04 or later. (You can use other Kickstarts from disk with
appropriate software, but you must have at least 2.0 in ROM.)


The reason that 2.0 Kickstart ROMs are needed is that the
SoftKick A3000 (with 1.4 ROMs, which loads
"wb_2.x:devs/Kickstart" from disk) uses the 68030's MMU to
map the disk loaded Kickstart. Since the 68040's MMU is
incompatible with the 68030's, this would fail.

[Michael van Elst]

Post by Peter Corlett
I wrote a tool that used the A3640's MapROM hardware to load any
binary image as a Kickstart (regardless of checksum or size, which
Commodore's MapROM tool checks) and both Kickstart 1.2 and 1.3 work
just fine.

You need Kickstart 2.04 or later to boot an 68040 and you need
the 68040.library to handle the unimplemented instructions
(mainly FPU instructions).

It is certainly possible to _run_ older Kickstarts, particularly
if you disable the 68040 data cache. Some accelerator cards
also had their own boot ROMs so that they worked in a machine
with a Kickstart 1.3 ROM.

[Jay Minerooo oxxxx]::::::::::::::::::::>]

Post by de Selby
I have one of those very old models, too, and I solved the problem by
softkicking the 3.1 ROMs. (I put them in place of the 2.04.)

I only have the 2.04 Superkickstart disk, and the distributor that selled me
the original 3.1 ROMs said did not have anymore.
However, I tried to soft-boot the A3000 with other rom images (A4000, A1200,
A600...) but none of them worked.

Does anyone e-mail me the kickstart file??

Thanks in advance,

Jaaaay

[Jay Minerooo oxxxx]::::::::::::::::::::>]

Post by Jay Minerooo oxxxx]::::::::::::::::::::>
Does anyone e-mail me the kickstart file??

Please to ***@yahoo.com

:-)

[zack_mk1]

Hi Jay,

Try searching at groups.google.com for these keywords:
"comp.sys.amiga amiga3000 romtower"
"Amiga 3000 install 3.1 ROM"
"A3000/16 and AmigaOS 3.1"

Also check this link:
http://www.ianstedman.co.uk/haynie/systems/amiga3k/docs/pcb.rev.txt

This is the wat I understand it; If your A3000 is an older revision
(6.1 is one of the first) I originally came with a romtower. If you
want to upgrade to kickstart 3.1, you need to install "normal" A3000
3.1 chips in this romtower.

If your A3000 is a newer revision, it didn't came with a romtower. In
this case you still use the "normal" A3000 3.1 chips directly on the
motherboard.

The problem is (as in your case), if you have an old revision, which
should have the romtower, but don't have that anymore, you need some
special A3000 3.1 chips, with a different pinlayout.

As the special A3000 3.1 chips, or romtowers are probably not easy to
find these days, I think softkicking is your best option.

Best regards,
Jacob Jensen