suggestions for upgradeing amiga 3000 (ram)

[sovietconscript]

well was a big time amiga 500 user when i was a kid but fell out of the amiga scene for many years. recently decided to get back into amigas and bought a early version amiga 3000. my goal is to max it out as much as i can but as its early version is has the 16mhz cpu and all the early chips (buster, scsi controller ect..)

first i suppose i need ram especially since i eventually want to upgrade to OS 3.9 or at least 3.5 as far as i can tell i only have 2megs of chip ram even though there seems to be ZIP DRAM in the slots.

http://img32.imageshack.us/my.php?image=am3.jpg

http://img20.imageshack.us/my.php?image=am1b.jpg

so can anyone reccommend a ram card or anything? i see alot of zip ram on ebay but is all zip ram amiga compatable?

furthermore can anyone recommend a source for finding the newer replacement chips i'll need? or any other reccommendation on upgrades

i live in the US if thats relevent. i know this stuff seems to be more common over in europe unfortunitly for me.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by sovietconscript

so can anyone recommend a ram card or anything?

Three ways to add RAM to A3000.

1. Motherboard : Zip RAM or Zip2SIMM converter.
2. Accelerator with RAM : Cyberstorm, Apollo, WarpEngine
3. Zorro III RAM card : DKB3128, FastLane SCSI card

Originally Posted by sovietconscript

i see alot of zip ram on ebay but is all zip ram amiga compatable?

Nope. It must be 20-pin and must be either 256Kx4 (Maximum 4Mbytes) or 1Mx4 (Maximum 16Mbytes).

However there must be something wrong with your motherboard if your existing ZIP RAM is not showing up. You need to check each chip, make sure they are all fitted correctly, all the same size & type and then review all jumper settings. J851-J853 are the most important.

Originally Posted by sovietconscript

furthermore can anyone recommend a source for finding the newer replacement chips i'll need?

You'll never get a DMAC -04 from anywhere, which rules out a RAMSEY -07.
You can get a Buster -11 from many places.
You can get a WD SCSI -08 from many places.

You do not need to upgrade the buster until you want to use an accelerator or a Zorro III card. You do not need to upgrade the SCSI chip until you have problems.

Originally Posted by sovietconscript

I live in the US if that's relevant.

SoftHut, Reds Retro and AmigaKit are your main shops. But Vesalia in Germany will ship to USA.

[sovietconscript]

ah, Alexh you have truely been invaluable to me. thanks

i did buy that scsi > ide converter so hopefully that will be working when i have the time to get it all together.

can i load the os from the disks to the cf card through the amiga like it was a normal HD?

[Chain]

yup, it works like "classic" HD

[alexh]

Originally Posted by sovietconscript

can i load the os from the disks to the cf card through the amiga like it was a normal HD?

Yes, but I would not do that.

I would use a USB->CF card reader in conjunction with WinUAE and install AmigaOS and all applications and tools on the PC before transferring to Amiga.