From: shite@sinkhole.unf.edu (Stephen Hite) Subject: How to get rid of your Diamond Speedstar 24 Date: 22 Jul 1992 23:25:01 GMT
For those of you that have been following my saga of trying to get a
decent 17" monitor / good et4000 card these past few days, you've already
read that the DS 24 is NOT the same as the Diamond Speedstar HIColor
with the 15-bit RamDac chip. HOWEVER, these vendors /think/ that when you
say HIColor you mean the DS 24. Look, all we really want is a decent
et4000 card that has some high dot clocks so we can run X386 1.2E with
viewing comfort...specifically, an 80 dot clock is nice when you have
a good 17" monitor (by all means, if someone finds an et4000 that can
can go higher, mention it to the group).
I ordered the HIColor and I got the DS 24. I called back High-Tech USA
in the Computer Shopper and here's how the conversation went:
Me: I received the wrong graphics card from you. I didn't order the
DS 24, I ordered the DS HIColor with the 15-bit RamDac chip.
HT: ...but it's a better card.
Me: ...but I'm not running DOS, I'm on Unix using X and the proprietary
nature of the card makes it unsuitable for my purposes (namely, to
drive X386).
HT: ahhh, okay...
Me: I really don't care about the high color feature, so why don't we do
this...I understand you have the Orchid Prodesigner IIs. This will
fit my needs. Give me an RMA number, I'll send you the
DS 24 and you send me the OP IIs and we'll call it an even swap.
HT: sounds good.
Well, what I lose is the UPS ground to send the DS 24 to them and I want
them to send me the OP IIs UPS blue (about $7), so I lose $10 from the
original deal. I blow ten dollars hitting 2 large buckets of golf balls
at the driving range so I can live with this. ;-)
I got e-mail from several people already saying that they've tried to
get information out of Diamond Computer about setting the clocks on
the DS 24 and they've gotten the cold shoulder.
In summary, try to get a swap for the Diamond Speedstar+ or the
Orchid Prodesigner IIs (very common card for vendors to carry and the
ones from '92 have an 80 dot clock according to the X386 mode database).
Good luck to the ones trying to figure out how to set the clocks or
disassembling VMODE and porrting the vital parts to GAS.
There /is/ a HiColor version of the Orchid Prodesigner IIs but I'm
too chicken to get this one for fear of there being something funky
with that as well (then I'm back to square 1).
Steve Hite
shite@sinkhole.unf.edu