Diamond SpeedSTAR 24

The SpeedSTAR 24 was released about 1 year after the SpeedSTAR and supported resolutions up to 1,280 x 1,024. The core clock ran at 65 MHz. Just as with the original SpeedSTAR, it was considered to have good VGA performance for the 2D era.

	Released	Early 1992
	Bus	ISA 16-bit
	Chipset	Tseng Labs ET4000AX
	Standards	Hercules, CGA, EGA, VGA
	Memory	1 MB DRAM (60ns or 70ns)
	Ports	15-pin DSUB (video out) 26-pin VGA Feature connector
	RAMDAC	Music Semiconductor TR9C1710 Samsung KDA0476PL Sierra Semiconductor SC11483CV Diamond SS2410
	Part #
	FCC ID	FTUSPEEDC, FTUSPEEDD
	Price	Feb 1993: $129-$149
	See Also	SpeedSTAR

The SpeedSTAR 24 shipped with a variety of RAMDACs:

• Music Semiconductor TR9C1710 or Samsung KDA0476PL - 8-bit colour depths (256 colours max)
• Sierra Semiconductor SC11483CV- "HiColor" 15-bit colour depth (sometimes called TARGA video mode)
• Diamond SS2410 - "TrueColor" 24-bit colour depth (sometimes called XGA video mode)

It is believed that the video BIOS versions are designed to work with any of the above RAMDACs, with presumably some detection code to set the modes accordingly. Bear in mind, however, that older BIOS versions may not support some higher colour depths. Additionally, Diamond's VESA mode utility, VMODE, only supports 8-bit colour depths so I recommend you use UNIVBE instead.

SpeedSTAR 24 owners could also buy and fit the optional Diamond TVGA Multimedia Option Card to the Multimedia Connector (top-right of the card next to the faceplate) which provided professional-level NTSC and PAL video signals.

One of my visitors, Chris Martin, tested both his SpeedSTAR 24 (see image below) and SpeedSTAR 24X on a Vendex 888-XT to see if they work in an 8-bit ISA slot. His findings indicate that the SpeedSTAR 24 *does* work in his XT machine, but the SpeedSTAR 24X does not. The SpeedSTAR 24 has jumper pins on JP1 (just below the RAMDAC chip), and setting these to 1-2 enabled puts the cards into what's called 'normal bus timing' (2-3 means 'alternate bus timing'). The IRQ2 jumper was also enabled, and the card's four DIP switches were all 'ON'. He also used FASTBIOS.SYS which made text modes faster.

 

Board Revisions

Just one board revision is known for the SpeedStar 24, which is C1.

 

Competition

 

 

In the Media

 

 

Setting it Up

The SpeedSTAR 24's DIP switches translate as follows:

SW1	Reserved
SW2	Turbo/Normal display memory (ON=Turbo (16-bit ISA slot only), OFF=Normal)
SW3	16-bit/8-bit BIOS access (ON=16-bit, OFF=8-bit)
SW4	Turbo/Normal BIOS access (ON=Turbo, OFF=Normal)

Downloads

Operation Manual The original user manual for the Diamond SpeedSTAR 24.	Original Utility Disk (missing) Get in touch if you can provide this missing item!
Video BIOS ROM Version 5.00 Courtesy of Vogons user Baoran. Dumps of Low and High BIOS chips from a SpeedStar 24 card. These are 32 KB each in size and are labelled 'SPEEDSTAR VGA DBIOS-H 5.00' and 'SPEEDSTAR VGA DBIOS-L 5.00'.	Video BIOS ROM Version 5.01 Courtesy of Vogons user Baoran. Dumps of Low and High BIOS chips from a SpeedStar 24 card. These are 32 KB each in size and are labelled 'SPEEDSTAR VGA DBIOS-H 5.01' and 'SPEEDSTAR VGA DBIOS-L 5.01'.	Video BIOS ROM Version 6.01 Courtesy of Vogons user Imi. Dumps of Low and High BIOS chips from a SpeedStar 24 card. These are 32 KB each in size and are labelled 'SPEEDSTAR VGA DBIOS-H 6.01' and 'SPEEDSTAR VGA DBIOS-L 6.01'.
Windows 3.1 Drivers Version ? Windows 3.1 display drivers with support for up to 1280x1024 in 16 colours, 1024x768 in 256 colours, and 800x600 in 65536 colours.

 

More Pictures

A SpeedSTAR 24