mirage 3000 tower

[dschallock]

Does anyone know if the Elbox Mirage 3000 tower would work without a mediator card if you only wanted to use it with zorro cards?
I guess another way to ask is: will the mirage 3000 daughter board work without a mediator plugged into it as long as there are just zorro cards plugged in and no pci cards?

[jostberg]

Yes it will work with Zorro cards only, I used mine like that for some time.

[dschallock]

Originally Posted by jostberg

Yes it will work with Zorro cards only, I used mine like that for some time.

Ok, awesome to know. And you don't need the mediator plugged into the last slot at all right?

Also... the power plug in on the mirage daughter board, does that have any function in a scenario where you only used zorro boards?

Thanks for sharing your experience. It's a small group that has used this tower and even smaller that has used it this way I imagine.

[grelbfarlk]

I'm just wondering, why would you want to? Want to towerize an A3000 but skip the cost of the Mediator bridge? Or the rest of it works but not the bridge?

[dschallock]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

I'm just wondering, why would you want to? Want to towerize an A3000 but skip the cost of the Mediator bridge? Or the rest of it works but not the bridge?

Good question.
So I do have a working mediator card. But the mediators purpose is to be able to utilize PCI cards for video, sound, network, usb, etc. I have zorro cards for those purposes that I prefer: picassoIV, AD516, x-Surf 1000, along with a personal animation recorder and a TBC IV card. The Amiga 3000 came with 4 zorro slots (one of which has the video slot). The Mirage tower and its daughter board expands that to 7 zorro slots (and 1 video slot like normal). Usually 1 of those slots has to be used by the mediator card if you are going to use PCI cards but it sounds like if your not you can fit an extra 3 zorro cards in the 3000. Additionally the mirage tower includes a 300 watt power supply that has been wired to work directly with the 3000. It produces the -5v that most modern ATX power supplies don't have. with a full stack of zorro cards, several drives, and a warpengine accelerator I was frequently over taxing the original power supply so that is another bonus. Lastly, as much as I truly love the look of the Amiga 3000 (best looking computer) when you have that system packed with boards it is crowded and hard to keep cool. The mirage tower gives oodles of space and therefor keeps things cooler.
Now, I don't have all this working yet because I am chasing down another mystery problem that has popped up with my system, but theoretically this will make a very nice workhorse tower 3000 system with awesome zorro cards packed to the hilt.

[Locutus]

Yes, all of this will work fine :-)

I have a Mirage3000 setup without PCI bridgeboard but otherwise fairly loaded (060, SCSI drives, CV64, Xsurf, Highway, Delfina, Serial card, i2c card)

Keeping it cool is reasonably easy, the biggest problem is the big fat SCSI cables that end up blocking airflow. Hunt down some rounded ones, they are rare but exist.

[whaka]

Originally Posted by dschallock

I was frequently over taxing the original power supply

the original A3000D psu is not a bad one.
i have a fairly loaded 3000D too, and another lightly loaded.
but i noticied on both psu and motherboard connectors are prone to oxydation.
this is not a big deal on light setup, but on loaded setup this can produce serious power loss on 5V and overload on the less oxydized connectors wich have to support abnormal load (and produce heat thru the wires...). cleaning connectors could help a lot.

[Locutus]

Still, keeping the Zorro card bay cool is a massive pain if you have all cards fitted.

[nexus]

the mediator bus board is just a backplane board
the daughter card for the mediator just bridges that zorro slot to pci
this is why i can use it in a micronik z3-i to enable pci slots