Diamond SpeedStar Pro

The SpeedStar Pro was Diamond's first graphics accelerator, and the first time they built a card based on a Cirrus Logic chipset. The core clock speed ran at 80 MHz, with memory running at 50 MHz. It supported Windows resolutions up to 1,280 x 1,024 in 16 colours, and at lower resolutions 65,536 colours with 1 MB of installed video memory.

	Released	June 1993
	Bus	ISA 16-bit or VESA Local Bus
	Chipset	Cirrus Logic CL-GD5426 or CL-GD5429 or CL-GD5428
	Standards	Hercules, CGA, EGA, VGA
	Memory	1 MB FPM (expandable to 2 MB)
	Ports	15-pin DSUB (video out) 26-pin VGA Feature connector
	RAMDAC
	Part #
	FCC ID	FTUISA5426A (ISA version), FTUSA5426A (VLB version)
	Price	At launch: $136 (ISA) / $142 (VLB), Dec 1993: $116 (VLB), May 1994: $109 (ISA) / $115 (VLB), Dec 1995: $97 (VLB)
	See Also	SpeedSTAR 24, SpeedSTAR 24X, SpeedStar Pro SE

The Fast Page Mode (FPM) memory used by the SpeedStar Pro series ran at 70ns. ISA-based cards came with 1 MB of the traditional 20-pin DIP DRAM chips with expansion to 2 MB requiring the new 40-pin SOP (Small Outline Package) DRAM chips. The ISA-based card also had a single jumper to select 0WS (zero wait state) operation.

The VESA Local Bus cards came with either two 512 KB 40-pin SOP DRAM chips, with expansion to 2 MB requiring you to install eight further 20-pin DIP DRAM ICs, or with the eight DIP sockets populated and expansion requiring the two 40-pin SOP chips. I assume the different memory configurations were simply due to the availability (or lack of) of certain ICs.

The ISA-based SpeedStar Pro was sold as the SpeedStar Pro VGAwhile the VESA Local Bus version was called SpeedStar Pro VLB.

The driver disk includes a convenient "GO.EXE" DOS utility to assist in installing drivers for Windows 3.1 and OS/2 2.0.

Later versions from early 1995 came with the later CL-GD5429 "Alpine" chip instead.

Board Revisions

Competition

In the Media

Setting it Up

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