Amiga 3000

Amiga 3000
Amiga 3000 Front
TypePersonal computer
Release dateJune 1990 (1990-06)
Introductory priceUS$3,379 (equivalent to $7,900 in 2023)
Discontinued1992
Units sold14,380 units in Germany (including Amiga 3000T sales)
Operating systemAmigaOS 1.3 or 2.x,
Unix SVR4
CPUMotorola 68030 @ 16 or 25 MHz
Memory2 MB[1]
PredecessorAmiga 2000, Amiga 2500
SuccessorAmiga 4000

The Amiga 3000, or A3000, is a personal computer released by Commodore in June 1990. It is the successor to the Amiga 2000 and its upgraded model Amiga 2500 with more processing speed, improved graphics, and a new revision of the operating system.

Its predecessors, the Amiga 500, 1000 and 2000, share the same fundamental system architecture and consequently perform without much variation in processing speed despite considerable variation in purchase price. The A3000 however, was entirely reworked and rethought as a high-end workstation. The new Motorola 32-bit 68030 CPU, 68882 math co-processor, and 32-bit system memory increase the integer processing speed by a factor of 5 to 18, and the floating-point processing speed by a factor of 7 to 200 times. The new 32-bit Zorro III expansion slots provide for faster and more powerful expansion capabilities.[2]

In common with earlier Amigas the 3000 runs a 32-bit operating system called AmigaOS. Version 2.0 is generally considered to have a more ergonomic and attractive interface than previous versions, which were designed with television sets as a lowest common denominator display. Access for application developers was simplified.

The A3000UX is an A3000 variant bundled with the UNIX System V operating system. Commodore had a licensing agreement with AT&T to include a port of Unix System V (release 4). Commodore also sold a tower variant called the A3000T.

An enhanced version, the Amiga 3000+, with the AGA chipset and an AT&T DSP3210 signal processing chip was produced to prototype stage in 1991. Although this system was never released, Commodore's negotiations with AT&T over the proper way to bundle their VCOS/VCAS operating system software in a personal computer environment helped Apple Computer deliver their Quadra 660 and Quadra 840 AV-series Macintosh systems, two years later.[3] Instead of the Amiga 3000+, Commodore replaced the A3000 six months behind schedule, in the fall of 1992, with the A4000.

The machine is reported to have sold 14,380 units in Germany (including Amiga 3000T sales).[4]

  1. ^ Here, K, M, G, or T refer to the binary prefixes based on powers of 1024.
  2. ^ Haynie, Dave (20 March 1991), The Zorro III Bus Specification (PDF), Commodore-Amiga, Inc., archived from the original (PDF) on 16 July 2012, retrieved 2 September 2011
  3. ^ Haynie, Dave (17 July 1991), The Amiga 3000+ System Specification (PDF), Commodore-Amiga, Inc., archived from the original (PDF) on 16 July 2012, retrieved 7 September 2011
  4. ^ Bergseth, M. (November 25, 2014). "AMIGA SOLD IN UNITS BY COMMODORE IN GERMANY REVEALED". Distrita - Where to Go. Archived from the original on July 13, 2017. Retrieved May 15, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)

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