A while ago, I set out to build myself the Ultimate Amiga - a machine which would represent the pinnacle of Amiga Technology.

It's the best basic box, with absolutely the best kit inside it. In a hugely bizzare twist, it's also Brand New, even though many bits are 10 years old.

I bought one of the last A3000T motherboards from a chap who raided a service depot. Initially, he was after about £475, but I finally (over a period of a couple of years) beat him down to a mere £75.

In a wild stroke of luck, I managed to find some very nice Dutch folks who had stocks of original A3000T cases - unused, still in original packaging!. It cost me more to get it shipped over to England than the case cost, but it was well worth it.

The final piece was the PSU, which I managed to buy from Amiga Tech in Germany, it took a couple of emails and several months, but eventually they decided to bother selling to me. I also got an original keyswitch, LED board, and Power Button!.

It took me a while to get it all together and working - I was almost thwarted by a blown filter on the keyboard power line. It's all working now, and I'm a very proud father :)

Freaky - The Spec

• Amiga A3000T Chassis
• Phase 5 Cyberstorm PPC 68060@50mHz, PPC604e@233mHz
• 128M Fast on Cyberstorm, 2M Chip
• System Drives - SCSI Quantum Fireball 4.3gig + SCSI HP 2gig (soon to be replaced by a F&W drive)
• Panasonic CW7502B SCSI 8x/4x CDR in top bay.
• Teac CD532s SCSI CD-Rom - vertical mounted.
• Nakamichi MJ5.16s 16x 5 Disc Changer - vertical mounted.
• Phase 5 CyberVision PPC 8M Permedia2 Graphics card.
• Commodore A2065 Ethernet card.
• DPS Personal Animation Recorder
• DPS Capture Card (pairs up with above)
• IDE Quantum Fireball 3.8 and 3.2 gig drives, giving between 25 and 60 minutes of video storage.
• ACT Prelude 16 bit soundcard
• WACOM PenPartner Graphics Tablet.
• Daewoo 17" Monitor

Fourky - The nice leftovers

• A4000 Desktop Revision D motherboard.
• Ex-Almathera Prototype RBM towerhawk case, 7 slot daughtercard.
• Cyberstorm 2
• 96M on Cyberstorm, 16M motherboard fast, 2M chip.
• Western Digital Caviar 4.3gig IDE
• Scabby 4x IDE CD-Rom (Thanks Scathe)
• CyberVision3D + Scandoubler
• Commodore A2065 Ethernet Card.
• VLab Y/C video digitiser card.
• Commodore A4091 SCSI card.
• BTC Generic 15" monitor.

JunkBox - Some more bits 'n bobs.

• Desktop A3000 Chassis
• Commodore A3640 processor card (040@25)
• Amifast 16M Fast memory.
• Cybervision3D graphics card.
• Commodore A2065 Ethernet Card.
• Scabby Quantum LP52s SCSI drive (just to kick the RDB's)
• TandemCD+IDE
• Connor 1.2 gig IDE drive.
• Scabby Ettore Sotsass designed Olivetti VGA monitor.

Gateway - The doorway to the outside world

• Desktop A3000 Chassis
• Stock 030@25
• 12M Zip memory on Motherboard.
• 6M 16 bit SlowFast on Supra AddRam.
• No Graphics card
• Hydra Amiganet Ethernet Card.
• Commodore A2232 7 port Serial Card.
• No Keyboard
• No Monitor
• Pace 56 Modem.
• Supra 33k6 Voice modem.
• Casio QV100 digicam
• Scabby Quantum LP52s
• Scabbier Quantum 104
• Zip Drive
• Sony MO drive.

Chargen - The wedge downstairs

• Commodore A1200
• Apollo 1230 030@40 mHz
• 8M Fast, 2M Chip.
• CNet CN40BC PCMCIA Ethernet Card.
• Aura 12 Bit soundcard.

Sixy - The cute little one

• Stock A600
• 100M 2.5 inch HD.
• Liana Parallel networked.

Five - Currently down (broken for spares)

• A500+ (the one commodore never officially admitted to)
• GVP HD8+ SCSI controller (but no drive on it)
• Missing Paula, CIAs, Furry Battery....

There are also the usual Amiga collection of mice, joysticks, printers, parallel port samplers, and all that stuff which you can never find when you really need it :)

Not to mention a few thousand floppies :)