As an example I have not only one Amiga 3000, but 2 Amiga 3000's. I do this across nearly every C= product line I own. My thinking here is if something blows up or dies a slow and tragic death I'll have a backup. And in a couple of real-life cases having backups has indeed come in handy and saved my butt.
And before anyone says I'm being over the top, the A3000 in particular is legendary for suffering horrible fates due to the location of the factory-installed battery, which was soldered right onto the motherboard next to some very sensitive components, particularly video.
I've not seen very many A3000's that don't have at least a bit of corrosion around the battery area. Both of my machines - in all reality - visually look very good and after removing their batteries I cleaned the affected areas thoroughly. But we all know it's what we can't see that might get us in the end. All it takes is one grain of acidic dust that I might have missed...
So, I picked up a brand new motherboard replacement. Isn't it amazing how these are being produced 29 years after the first A3000 hit store shelves in 1990?
John "Chucky" Hertell created (iirc) 100 prints of brand-new A3000 motherboards that he reverse engineered himself.
His project is called the ReAmiga 3000, and he actually created three variations for brand new Amiga 3000 motherboards.
One is called the ReAmiga 3000TH. That's the one I got. It's nearly a clone of the original motherboard with a few key differences. The main change is the entire thing can be soldered via passive "through-hole," which is the easiest form of soldering out there. The only other difference is that it uses 8MB SIMM sockets for the RAM rather than all of the old, antiquated zip and dip RAM. So there are places for two sockets so you can do one stick of 8MB or two sticks of 16MB.
There are a few other changes:
- Removed the ROM-Tower section of the roms and only have the 27C400 compatible roms to avoid confusion. I added a possibility to use 27C800 proms and by that you can have a Kickstart switch that also is available on the PCB.
- Added possibility of having both DIN and PS/2 Style keyboard connectors. STILL ONLY AMIGA!! (so A3000/4000 style NOT PC!)
- Varta battery removed, now only NON RECHARGEABLE CR2032 batteries is supported.
- Added possibility of a separate oscillator for the FPU, Jumper close to CPU selects if CPU or External clock is to be used.
They all require a lot of effort, patience and time to produce. But more than anything, I think, they provide a bit of psychological peace of mind. And some of us here at AmigaLove certainly have the chops to do this. I like to think that one day I might, too.
Incidentally, Chucky also made an ReAmiga 1200.