AmigaActive (1530/2061)

From:Nick Lamburn
Date:21 Jun 2000 at 19:20:59
Subject:Re: Amiga 3000 Kickstart Shannigans :)

Hi Robert,

> You can only use one set of "real" ROMs at a time. To be quite honest
> I don't know why some A3000s have two sets of sockets (mine does)
> apparently most don't have sockets installed in the rear set of holes
> on the motherboard. Normally the Kickstart ROMs (or ROM Tower) are
> installed in the frontmost pair of sockets. Apparently on some
> motherboards the socket numbers are also silkscreened wrongly so make
> a note of which ROM is in which socket before you remove them.

I read something about that slikscreening problem before, somewhere, but as
they say, it was Commodore... :)

> To make life more complicated some A3000s have the rear pair of
> sockets populated with super Kickstart ROMs and nothing in the front
> sockets. If this is the case it is possible to get special 3.1 ROMs
> which go in the rear sockets. My A3000 is like this and I got my 3.1
> ROMs from Terry Smallwood in Canada (advertises in c.s.a.marketplace).
> Standard 3.1 ROMs do not work in either set of sockets (I tried :) )
> they might work in the front set with a ROM tower but that was more
> expensive than ordering the special ROMs so I didn't try.

How can I identify SuperKickstart ROMs? As I understand it from the A3000 I
am getting you can boot from 1.4 and 2.0 - this indicates to me a
superkickstart based A3000, however, i was also told that there is a ROM
Tower on the Amiga 3K as well, which has kind of thrown me.

So if these SuperKick ROMs (because I have been told it can select between
1.3/4 and 2.0) are on the Tower, I should rip 'em out (okay, a bit more
delicately than that), note the orientation and stick normal A3000 ROMs in
their place. Otherwise if the SuperKicks are in the rear two sockets, then
I have to get a special 3.1 ROM set...

>>> Or are these chips on the ROM
>>> tower even 'normal' kickstart ROMs?
>>
>> Q. Do you have a ROM tower? Not all of them did...
>>
>> My understanding was that the ROM tower could be removed and the
>> KS3.1 chips installed directly on the mobo.....
>
> AIUI the point of the ROM tower is to correct wrongly "wired" ROM
> sockets on some A3000 motherboards. Therefore if an A3000 has a ROM
> tower the 3.1 ROMs should be plugged into it, not directly into the
> motherboard sockets.

OK, so I need to get A3K 3.1 ROMs (I could live with v37.xxx ie: 2.04, but
I'm adament this is a v36 2.0 machine - I'll find out tonight hopefully) and
if the current ROMs are in the tower, I should replace those ROMs with the
3.1 ROMs. If they are not on the tower and the superkicks are at the back
then i need to get hold of this Terry guy in Canada....

Only Commodore could make it so confusing! :) Thanks for the help.

Regards

Nick.



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