Amiga 3000

The Commodore Amiga 3000, or A3000, was the third major release in the Amiga computer family. Released in June 1990, it features improved processing speed, improved rendering of graphics, and a new revision of the operating system. It is the successor to the Amiga 2000.

Its predecessors, the Amiga 500, 1000 and 2000, shared the same fundamental system architecture and consequently performed 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.

In common with earlier Amigas it 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. Access for application developers was simplified.

The A3000UX was 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 towerized 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 AV-series Macintosh systems, two years later.

In its stead Commodore replaced the A3000 in the fall of 1992, six months behind schedule, with the comparatively less advanced, PC Clone influenced A4000.