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Diamond Multimedia is an American company that specializes in many forms of multimedia technology. They have produced
graphics cards A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or mistakenly GPU) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display device, such as a computer moni ...
,
motherboards A motherboard (also called mainboard, main circuit board, mb, mboard, backplane board, base board, system board, logic board (only in Apple computers) or mobo) is the main printed circuit board (PCB) in general-purpose computers and other expand ...
,
modems A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by modulating one or more car ...
,
sound cards A sound card (also known as an audio card) is an internal expansion card that provides input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under the control of computer programs. The term ''sound card'' is also applied to external audio ...
and
MP3 players A portable media player (PMP) (also including the related digital audio player (DAP)) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored o ...
, however the company began with the production of the TrackStar, a PC add-on card which emulated Apple II computers. They were one of the major players in the 2D and early 3D graphics card competition throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Diamond Multimedia is a subsidiary of Tul Corporation.


History

The company was founded by Chong Moon Lee and H. H. Huh, who acted as the technical designer. Diamond Multimedia later merged with S3, Incorporated in 1999 after a long-time cooperative business arrangement, when S3 decided to expand their business from producing graphics chipsets to manufacturing retail graphics cards. The move paralleled the 1999 3dfx purchase of STB Systems, which changed 3dfx from a graphics chipset supplier to companies including Diamond, into a vertically-integrated graphics vendor and direct competitor to S3. However, the first major product after the merger, branded as the S3 Savage 2000, was a commercial failure. Growth in the add-on sound card market, also an ongoing Diamond business, was tempered by the 2000 bankruptcy of Aureal Semiconductor and subsequent asset purchase by vertically-integrated Creative Technologies. With these market failures, the new combined Diamond/S3 company decided to change direction and leave the PC addon-board market.
SONICblue SONICblue Incorporated (NASDAQ:SBLU) was a public company based in Santa Clara, California. The firm was a manufacturer of home audio/video equipment with an estimated revenue of $100M - $250M and approximately 700 employees. SONICblue first fil ...
was formed. Diamond Multimedia resurfaced in 2003 after the brand and assets had been purchased by Best Data. Diamond again built expansion boards. The company was the defendant in a significant copyright case for its Rio digital music player, which the
Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
claimed infringed copyrights; the
Ninth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts in the following federal judicial districts: * District ...
deemed it to be a
fair use Fair use is a doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests ...
, however, in '' RIAA v. Diamond''.


Graphics cards


Speedstar

Diamond's earliest line, now defunct, was the SpeedStar series, initially based on the
Tseng Labs Tseng Laboratories, Inc. (also known as Tseng Labs or TLI) was a maker of graphics chips and controllers for IBM PC compatibles, based in Newtown, Pennsylvania, and founded by Jack Hsiao Nan Tseng. Founded in 1983, Tseng Labs' first product w ...
ET4000AX chipset, and expanded further in additional releases. The SpeedStar line was launched as a series of high-performance ISA graphics cards that excelled in
MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few oper ...
applications up through the early 1990s. However, as Microsoft Windows gained market share and newer graphics products entered the market, it was later relegated to the cheaper, value-oriented products and the SpeedStar branding was expanded to other products. Partial listing of Speedstar-branded models *Diamond SpeedStar Tseng Labs ET4000AX ISA - Older model, doesn't support true color *Diamond SpeedStar 24 Tseng Labs ET4000AX ISA - Newer model with the same chipset but different DAC, supports true color *Diamond SpeedStar 24X WD90C31 ISA *Diamond SpeedStar Pro
Cirrus Logic Cirrus Logic Inc. is an American fabless semiconductor supplier that specializes in analog, mixed-signal, and audio DSP integrated circuits (ICs). Since 1998, the company's headquarters have been in Austin, Texas. The company's audio proces ...
CL-GD5426/5428 ISA/VLB *Diamond SpeedStar 64 Cirrus Logic CL-GD5434 ISA/PCI *Diamond SpeedStar Pro SE Cirrus Logic CL-GD5430 VLB/PCI *Diamond SpeedStar SuperVGA Tseng Labs ET4000 ISA *Diamond SpeedStar A50 SiS 6326 AGP *Diamond SpeedStar A55 S3 Trio3D AGP *Diamond SpeedStar A70 SiS 6326 AGP *Diamond SpeedStar A90 S3 Savage4 AGP *Diamond SpeedStar A200 S3 Savage4 AGP


Stealth

The Stealth cards of the 2D era were first launched in the early 1990s and were usually based on
GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inst ...
accelerators from
S3 Graphics S3 Graphics, Ltd (commonly referred to as S3) was an American computer graphics company. The company sold the Trio, ViRGE, Savage 3D, and Chrome series of graphics processors. Struggling against competition from 3dfx Interactive, ATI and Nvi ...
. The line later included chipsets with combined 2D and 3D capabilities. Initially the Stealth line was Diamond's high-end brand but transitioned to midrange after the Viper line was introduced. Notable members of the Stealth family have been the Diamond Stealth 3D 2000, by far the most popular S3 Virge-based board. The Diamond Stealth32, using the
Tseng Labs Tseng Laboratories, Inc. (also known as Tseng Labs or TLI) was a maker of graphics chips and controllers for IBM PC compatibles, based in Newtown, Pennsylvania, and founded by Jack Hsiao Nan Tseng. Founded in 1983, Tseng Labs' first product w ...
ET4000/W32p chipset, was capable of impressive price/performance, especially in DOS. The Diamond Stealth64 Graphics 2001, with the ARK 2000PV/MT chipset, was known for excellent DOS performance at the time. The Diamond Stealth II S220, using the Rendition Verite V2100 2D/3D accelerator, was popular with enthusiasts for its excellent price/performance for both 2D and 3D gaming. A special
BIOS In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the b ...
patch was released by Diamond for the Stealth II S220 which brought its clock speed up to the same level as the high-end Verite V2200 chip, resulting in equal performance at a significantly lower price. In the middle of the Stealth line-up, Diamond chose to implement a numbering scheme to differentiate their cards. For example, the Diamond Stealth Video
VRAM Video random access memory (VRAM) is dedicated computer memory used to store the pixels and other graphics data as a framebuffer to be rendered on a computer monitor. This is often different technology than other computer memory, to facilitate b ...
was rechristened the Diamond Stealth Video 3xxx. The numbers had more than a random meaning. Specifically, they tell the buyer the card's memory amount and type. The Stealth Video 3240 uses VRAM (3), is equipped with 2MB initially (2), and is upgradeable to 4MB (4). If the first digit was (2), then the card used standard
DRAM Dynamic random-access memory (dynamic RAM or DRAM) is a type of random-access semiconductor memory that stores each bit of data in a memory cell, usually consisting of a tiny capacitor and a transistor, both typically based on metal-oxi ...
. The numbering scheme confused many people since Diamond just renamed current cards with new names. The Stealth Video 3240 was simply the old Stealth Video VRAM. New cards did also use the scheme, however, such as the S3 Trio64V+ cards. Partial listing of Stealth-branded models *Diamond Stealth
VRAM Video random access memory (VRAM) is dedicated computer memory used to store the pixels and other graphics data as a framebuffer to be rendered on a computer monitor. This is often different technology than other computer memory, to facilitate b ...
S3-911/924 ISA *Diamond Stealth 24 S3-801/805 ISA *Diamond Stealth 24 VLB S3-805 VLB *Diamond Stealth Pro S3-928 ISA/VLB *Diamond Stealth SE S3-Trio32 VLB/PCI *Diamond Stealth64 Graphics2001 ARK 2000PV/MT PCI *Diamond Stealth32 Tseng Labs ET4000/W32p VLB/PCI *Diamond Stealth64
DRAM Dynamic random-access memory (dynamic RAM or DRAM) is a type of random-access semiconductor memory that stores each bit of data in a memory cell, usually consisting of a tiny capacitor and a transistor, both typically based on metal-oxi ...
S3-864/Trio64 VLB/PCI *Diamond Stealth64 Video DRAM S3-868 VLB/PCI *Diamond Stealth64 VRAM S3-964 VLB/PCI *Diamond Stealth64 Video VRAM S3-968 VLB/PCI *Diamond Stealth64 Video 2001 S3-Trio64V+ PCI *Diamond Stealth64 Video 2121 S3-Trio64V+ PCI *Diamond Stealth64 Video 2201 S3-Trio64V+ PCI *Diamond Stealth64 Video 2001 TV S3-Trio64V+ PCI *Diamond Stealth64 Video 2121 TV S3-Trio64V+ PCI *Diamond Stealth64 Video 2201 TV S3-Trio64V+ PCI *Diamond Stealth64 Video 2200XL VLB/PCI *Diamond Stealth64 Video 2120 S3-Trio64 VLB *Diamond Stealth64 Video 2200 S3-Trio64 VLB *Diamond Stealth64 Video 2500 ProMotionAT24 PCI *Diamond Stealth64 Video 3200 S3-Vision968 VLB/PCI *Diamond Stealth64 Video 3240 S3-Vision968 VLB/PCI *Diamond Stealth64 Video 3400 S3-Vision968 VLB/PCI *Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 S3-ViRGE PCI *Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 Pro S3-ViRGE DX PCI *Diamond Stealth 3D 3000 S3-ViRGE VX PCI *Diamond Stealth 3D 4000 S3-ViRGE GX2 AGP *Diamond Stealth II S220 Rendition Verite V2100 PCI *Diamond Stealth II G460
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
i740 AGP *Diamond Stealth III S500 *Diamond Stealth III S520 S3-Savage4 LT AGP *Diamond Stealth III S530 S3 Savage 4 Pro PCI *Diamond Stealth III S540 S3- Savage4 Pro/Pro+ PCI/AGP *Diamond Stealth III S540 Xtreme S3-Savage4 Xtreme AGP *Diamond Stealth S60
ATI Ati or ATI may refer to: * Ati people, a Negrito ethnic group in the Philippines **Ati language (Philippines), the language spoken by this people group ** Ati-Atihan festival, an annual celebration held in the Philippines *Ati language (China), a ...
Radeon 7000 AGP *Diamond Stealth Express ATI Radeon X300SE PCI-Express


Edge 3D

The Diamond Edge 3D was the first consumer 3D accelerator card, based on the
NVIDIA Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...
NV1 chipset. The boards were designed to be an all-encompassing entertainment solution, as the chipset and board included full 2D/3D acceleration, an audio engine capable of
General MIDI General MIDI (also known as GM or GM 1) is a standardized specification for electronic musical instruments that respond to MIDI messages. GM was developed by the American MIDI Manufacturers Association (MMA) and the Japan MIDI Standards Committ ...
synthesis, and the ability to use
Sega Saturn The is a home video game console developed by Sega and released on November 22, 1994, in Japan, May 11, 1995, in North America, and July 8, 1995, in Europe. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it was the successor to the succ ...
gamepad controllers. The architecture of the NV1 predates the Microsoft
Direct3D Direct3D is a graphics application programming interface (API) for Microsoft Windows. Part of DirectX, Direct3D is used to render three-dimensional graphics in applications where performance is important, such as games. Direct3D uses hardware a ...
philosophy and, as such, game compatibility was a problem with the Diamond Edge boards. Limited and slow Direct3D-supporting drivers did eventually show up, but performance was inadequate and buggy. The audio engine further received poor reviews regarding MIDI quality, which was a common standard for multimedia music playback at the time. Listing of Edge 3D-branded boards *Diamond Edge 3D 2xx0 SGS STG2000 (
nVidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...
NV1) PCI *Diamond Edge 3D 3xx0 nVidia NV1 PCI


Monster3D

The Monster3D line was based on 3dfx
Voodoo Graphics 3dfx Interactive was an American technology company headquartered in San Jose, California, founded in 1994, that specialized in the manufacturing of 3D graphics processing units, and later, video cards. It was a pioneer in the field from the l ...
and
Voodoo2 The Voodoo2 (or Voodoo2) is a set of three specialized 3D graphics chips on a single chipset setup, made by 3dfx. It was released in February 1998 as a replacement for the original Voodoo Graphics chipset. The card runs at a chipset clock rate o ...
chips which did not contain a 2D engine, requiring a separate VGA card connected externally using a pass-through cable. When the 3D engine was called into use, the 3dfx-based card would disconnect the 2D pass-through signal and begin driving the display directly. Both Voodoo and Voodoo2 based offerings were in production until the STB-3dfx merger. The series was highly successful as the Voodoo Graphics and Voodoo2 chipsets introduced consumer-grade 3D graphics into the PC and arcade markets, whereas such capabilities had previously been present primarily in very high-end CAD and graphic design workstations. A critically acclaimed feature of the Monster 3D II (and all other Voodoo2 boards) was the capability to connect two identical boards in a SLI (Scan-line Interleave) configuration. In SLI, a pair of Voodoo2 boards splits the effort of rendering the 3D scene between alternating raster lines, allowing performance to be nearly doubled. Listing of Monster 3D-branded boards *Diamond Monster 3D 3dfx Voodoo1 4MB PCI *Diamond Monster 3D II 3dfx Voodoo2 8MB PCI (4MB video RAM, 4MB texture RAM) *Diamond Monster 3D II 3dfx Voodoo2 12MB PCI (4MB video RAM, 8MB texture RAM) *Diamond Monster 3D II MEGAMonster bundle (Monster 3D II, MEGAMonster Voodoo2 companion board, MEGAMonster (SLI) cable) (a Voodoo2 SLI bundle offered by Diamond) *Diamond Monster Fusion Z100 3dfx Banshee 16MB PCI/AGP (Referred to as the "Mon Fusion" by the sticker on many cards)


Viper

The Viper line was Diamond's high-end offering. Initially it consisted of a graphics accelerator board for VLB or PCI that was a combination of two graphics chips. For non-GUI environments such as DOS, the original Viper used an Oak Technology OTI-087 display chip with its own 256 KB DRAM. This chip was rather slow and basic. The Viper SE card moved to a Weitek 5186 chip with 1 MB DRAM for non-GUI functions. For GUI environments such as Windows, the Viper cards used a
Weitek Weitek Corporation was an American chip-design company that originally focused on floating-point units for a number of commercial CPU designs. During the early to mid-1980s, Weitek designs could be found powering a number of high-end designs an ...
graphics co-processor which accelerated many drawing functions and performed very well for its time. The original Viper used the Weitek P9000/P9001, while the Viper SE used a Weitek P9100, both lines equipped with 2-4 MB
VRAM Video random access memory (VRAM) is dedicated computer memory used to store the pixels and other graphics data as a framebuffer to be rendered on a computer monitor. This is often different technology than other computer memory, to facilitate b ...
. The separate slow DOS chip was a problem for owners who played DOS games because these chips were quite slow and had limited and buggy
VESA BIOS Extensions VESA BIOS Extensions (VBE) is a VESA standard, currently at version 3, that defines the interface that can be used by software to access compliant video boards at high resolutions and bit depths. This is opposed to the "traditional" int 10h BIO ...
implementations. While the GUI accelerator was very capable, drivers from Diamond were rather buggy and were only revised a few times during the lifetime of the card. Towards the end of the 1990s, the Viper line consisted of NVIDIA-based graphics cards. The Diamond Viper V330 used the highly integrated
RIVA 128 Released in August 1997 by Nvidia, the RIVA 128, or "NV3", was one of the first consumer graphics processing units to integrate 3D acceleration in addition to traditional 2D and video acceleration. Its name is an acronym for ''Real-time Interactiv ...
accelerator that featured very capable 2D, 3D and video acceleration. The later Diamond Viper V550 and V770 utilized the RIVA TNT and
RIVA TNT2 The RIVA TNT2 is a graphics processing unit manufactured by Nvidia starting in early 1999. The chip is codenamed "NV5" because it is the 5th graphics chip design by Nvidia, succeeding the RIVA TNT (NV4). RIVA is an acronym for ''Real-time Intera ...
accelerators which were evolutions of the RIVA 128. In 1999, Diamond was acquired by
S3 Graphics S3 Graphics, Ltd (commonly referred to as S3) was an American computer graphics company. The company sold the Trio, ViRGE, Savage 3D, and Chrome series of graphics processors. Struggling against competition from 3dfx Interactive, ATI and Nvi ...
and became primarily a supplier of products based upon their graphics accelerator chips. The Diamond Viper II Z200 was based upon the S3 Savage 2000, a supposed NVIDIA
GeForce 256 The GeForce 256 is the original release in Nvidia's "GeForce" product-line. Announced on August 31, 1999 and released on October 11, 1999, the GeForce 256 improves on its predecessor (RIVA TNT2) by increasing the number of fixed pixel pipeline ...
killer. Unfortunately the chip itself was not fully functional and the drivers were very buggy. Partial listing of Viper-branded boards *Diamond Viper
Weitek Weitek Corporation was an American chip-design company that originally focused on floating-point units for a number of commercial CPU designs. During the early to mid-1980s, Weitek designs could be found powering a number of high-end designs an ...
P9000 VLB/PCI (Released 1993) *Diamond Viper SE Weitek P9100 VLB/PCI *Diamond Viper PCI Weitek P9100 PCI *Diamond Viper Pro Video Weitek P9100 VLB/PCI *Diamond Viper V330 nVidia Riva 128 PCI/AGP *Diamond Viper V550 nVidia Riva TNT AGP *Diamond Viper V770 nVidia Riva TNT2 AGP *Diamond Viper II Z200 S3 Savage 2000 AGP *Diamond Viper ATI Radeon X600PRO PCI-Express *Diamond Viper ATI Radeon X1300 PCI-Express *Diamond Viper ATI Radeon X1800 PCI-Express


FireGL

The name "FireGL" stands for Diamond's workstation-class 2D/3D graphics cards. This brand was originally created decades ago as just "Fire" by the design team of the professional computer graphics pioneer SPEA Software AG from
Starnberg Starnberg is a German town in Bavaria, Germany, some southwest of Munich. It is at the north end of Lake Starnberg, in the heart of the " Five Lakes Country", and serves as capital of the district of Starnberg. Recording a disposable per-cap ...
(Germany) that was acquired by Diamond in 1995. Products whilst under the hood of Diamond were: *Diamond Fire GL, based on the
3Dlabs 3Dlabs was a fabless semiconductor company. It was founded in 1994 with headquarters in San Jose, California. It originally developed the GLINT and PERMEDIA high-end graphics chip technology, that was used on many of the world's leading computer ...
GLINT 300SX and S3 Vision968 (for 2D) chips, PCI interface *Diamond Fire GL 1000, based on the 3Dlabs Permedia NT (Permedia + GLINT Delta) chips, PCI interface *Diamond Fire GL 2000, based on the 3Dlabs GLINT 300SX, GLINT Delta and
Avance Logic Realtek Semiconductor Corp () is a fabless semiconductor company situated in the Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan. Realtek was founded in October 1987 and subsequently listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 1998. Realtek currently manufactu ...
ALG2564 (for 2D) chips, PCI interface *Diamond Fire GL 3000, based on the 3Dlabs GLINT 500TX, GLINT Delta and
Avance Logic Realtek Semiconductor Corp () is a fabless semiconductor company situated in the Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan. Realtek was founded in October 1987 and subsequently listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 1998. Realtek currently manufactu ...
ALG2564 (for 2D) chips, PCI interface *Diamond Fire GL 4000, based on the Mitsubishi 3DPro/2mp chipset and Cirrus Logic CL-GD5446 (for 2D) chip, PCI interface *Diamond Fire GL 1000 Pro, based on 3Dlabs Permedia2 chip, PCI/AGP interface The
FireGL AMD FirePro was AMD's brand of graphics cards designed for use in workstations and servers running professional Computer-aided design (CAD), Computer-generated imagery (CGI), Digital content creation (DCC), and High-performance computing/GPGP ...
team was bought by
ATI Ati or ATI may refer to: * Ati people, a Negrito ethnic group in the Philippines **Ati language (Philippines), the language spoken by this people group ** Ati-Atihan festival, an annual celebration held in the Philippines *Ati language (China), a ...
(later
AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufact ...
) in 2001 once the combined Diamond/S3 dropped out of the graphics market to form
SONICblue SONICblue Incorporated (NASDAQ:SBLU) was a public company based in Santa Clara, California. The firm was a manufacturer of home audio/video equipment with an estimated revenue of $100M - $250M and approximately 700 employees. SONICblue first fil ...
. ATI continues the Fire GL lineup. As of September 2007, thus long after that business, Diamond was also preparing a new video card, based on the latest-generation R600 graphics core. This was the same core as used for ATI driven FireGL V8650 and V8600 cards. Diamond altered the PCB reference design and labeled their device VFX 2000 series professional workstation graphics card. It came with at least 2 GB
GDDR4 GDDR4 SDRAM, an abbreviation for Graphics Double Data Rate 4 Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory, is a type of graphics card memory (SGRAM) specified by the JEDEC Semiconductor Memory Standard. It is a rival medium to Rambus's XDR DRAM. GDDR ...
memory on board.


Radeon HD

Radeon HD series. Partial listing of Radeon HD branded models *Radeon HD 3650 1GB GDDR2 PCI Express *Radeon HD 4870 X2 *Radeon HD 6770 XOC


Sound cards


Monster Sound

The Diamond Monster Sound gaming sound card series was the first sound card to have its own on-board processor to handle audio operations. The Monster Sound cards were the first to support hardware mixing acceleration with
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washingt ...
's new
DirectSound DirectSound is a deprecated software component of the Microsoft DirectX library for the Windows operating system, superseded by XAudio2. It provides a low-latency interface to sound card drivers written for Windows 95 through Windows XP and can ...
and DirectSound3D audio
API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...
s. Most, if not all, also supported Aureal's burgeoning A3D API. The original Monster Sound card was distinct in this regard, but also controversial because it possessed poor
DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicatio ...
game compatibility which was still critical at the time. DOS game audio was only functional within a
Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturi ...
DOS box. It came equipped with a 2MB AdMOS MIDI daughterboard. The Monster Sound M80 was similar to the original Monster Sound, but lacked 4 speaker support. It also had a reduced quality AdMOS MIDI daughterboard (1MB). Monster Sound MX200 had excellent
General MIDI General MIDI (also known as GM or GM 1) is a standardized specification for electronic musical instruments that respond to MIDI messages. GM was developed by the American MIDI Manufacturers Association (MMA) and the Japan MIDI Standards Committ ...
quality because of the high quality patch set (licensed from Roland) it was equipped with on its 4MB Dream
daughtercard In computing, an expansion card (also called an expansion board, adapter card, peripheral card or accessory card) is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an electrical connector, or expansion slot (also referred to as a bus slo ...
. Otherwise it was technically identical to the original Monster Sound. The Diamond Monster Sound MX300 was based on the Vortex2 audio
ASIC An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC ) is an integrated circuit (IC) chip customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use, such as a chip designed to run in a digital voice recorder or a high-efficien ...
from Aureal Semiconductor. It was a substantial step forward in gaming audio, with impressive 3D audio positioning and other effects. It utilized the then state-of-the-art Aureal A3D 2.0 3D audio API. Monster Sound MX400 was advertised as being one of the first sound cards with hardware
MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...
decoding acceleration. This was a redundant feature because the central CPUs in PCs at the time were more than capable of handling MP3 playback. It was also somewhat complicated to make use of the MP3 acceleration because special software was needed to use it. The Vortex2-equipped MX300 was a superior card for 3D audio. Aureal had gone into bankruptcy and was dissolved, so their last generation of chips were never released. Diamond instead used ESS's less powerful chips to continue the line. The MX400 was the last of the Monster Sound cards. *Diamond Monster Sound PCI *Diamond Monster Sound M80 PCI *Diamond Monster Sound MX100 PCI *Diamond Monster Sound MX200 PCI *Diamond Monster Sound MX300 Aureal Vortex2 PCI *Diamond Monster Sound MX400
ESS The suffix ''-ess'' (plural ''-esses'') appended to English words makes a female form of the word. ESS or ess may refer to: Education * Ernestown Secondary School, in Odessa, Ontario * European Standard School, in Dhaka, Bangladesh Governme ...
Canyon3D PCI


Sonic Impact

The Sonic Impact was the value-oriented sound card line from Diamond. Whereas the MonsterSound lineup was targeted at no-holds-barred gamers, the Sonic Impact cards were more generally aimed, and were cheaper and less powerful. Still the lineup consisted of several capable cards. *Diamond Sonic Impact S70
ESS The suffix ''-ess'' (plural ''-esses'') appended to English words makes a female form of the word. ESS or ess may refer to: Education * Ernestown Secondary School, in Odessa, Ontario * European Standard School, in Dhaka, Bangladesh Governme ...
Maestro2 PCI *Diamond Sonic Impact S90(A/B) Aureal Vortex1 PCI *Diamond Sonic Impact S100 ESS Allegro PCI


XtremeSound

Diamond XtremeSound is the first sound card line launched after the company's restructuring in 2003. *Diamond XtremeSound - 5.1/16 bit Sound Card (XS51)
C-Media C-Media Electronics, Inc. () is a Taiwan computer hardware company that manufactures processors for PC audio and USB storage, and wireless audio devices. Products ISA audio * CMI8328 * CMI8330 PCI audio * CMI8338 * CMI8738-SX * CMI87 ...
CMI8738-LX PCI *Diamond XtremeSound - 7.1/24 bit Sound Card (XS71) C-Media CMI8768 PCI *Diamond XtremeSound - 7.1/24 bit Sound Card with Dolby Digital Live (XS71DDL) C-Media CMI8768+ PCI


Other Sound Cards

*Diamond Sonic Pro (ISA) *Diamond Mozart (ISA) *Diamond Sonic Sound (ISA) *Diamond Sonic Sound LX (ISA) *Diamond Sonic 3D (ISA)


Other products


TrackSTAR

Diamond's first product (under the corporate name Diamond Computer Systems) was the TrackSTAR, an 8-bit ISA plug-in card for the IBM PC that emulated an
Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-mol ...
. An early advertisement from 1984 also claimed it would add
CP/M CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/ 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. Initially ...
compatibility via the included
Z80 The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples we ...
processor. The TrackSTAR was redesigned to fit in the shorter expansion slot of the
Tandy 1000 The Tandy 1000 is the first in a line of IBM PC workalike home computer systems produced by the Tandy Corporation for sale in its Radio Shack and Radio Shack Computer Center chains of stores. Overview In December 1983, an executive with Tandy C ...
and was key to that marque's expansion into the educational computer market.


Rio PMP300

Diamond's innovation created the
Rio PMP300 The Rio PMP300 is one of the first portable consumer MP3 digital audio players, and the first commercially successful one. Produced by Diamond Multimedia, it was introduced September 15, 1998 as the first in the "Rio" series of digital audio pla ...
, one of the first consumer MP3 players, but they soon sold their MP3 player line and no longer provide support for it.


SupraMax DSL modems

The SupraMax line is a popular value DSL modem line. The brand has a lineage going back to Supra, Inc.


Diamond Micronics motherboards

Diamond began manufacturing PC-compatible
motherboard A motherboard (also called mainboard, main circuit board, mb, mboard, backplane board, base board, system board, logic board (only in Apple computers) or mobo) is the main printed circuit board (PCB) in general-purpose computers and other expand ...
s after purchasing Micronics Computers Inc. in 1998.


Maximum DVD

Diamond was an early (1997) entrant into PC DVD kits with their Maximum DVD 1000DB-VAR (Value Added Reseller) and 2000-RETKIT (RETail KIT). These kits bundled a 'feature reduced' (several
pin header A pin header (or simply header) is a form of electrical connector. A male pin header consists of one or more rows of metal pins molded into a plastic base, often apart, though available in many spacings. Male pin headers are cost-effective du ...
s and other parts not installed) full length PCI
MPEG2 MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods, w ...
analog overlay decoder card made by division. This card connected to the VGA card with an external passthrough cable, a 3.5mm (1/8") external patch cord to the soundcard's line-in jack, and the analog audio cable from the included Toshiba SD-M1002
DVD-ROM The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
drive connected to the division card while a second cable passed the audio on to the soundcard's internal connector. Diamond also made kits called the Maximum DVD 1500 and 2500. (Hardware specifications unknown.) The drivers and player software for these are not compatible with the DVD 1000 and 2000. They are a slightly newer product with the 'Navigator' player software having a cleaner user interface. None of these DVD kits are
DirectX Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direct", ...
compatible and as the drivers are the
VxD VxD is the device driver model used in Microsoft Windows/386 2.x, the 386 enhanced mode of Windows 3.x, Windows 9x, and to some extent also by the Novell DOS 7, OpenDOS 7.01, and DR-DOS 7.02 (and higher) multitasker (TASKMGR). VxDs have acces ...
type, they will only work with
Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturi ...
through 98SE. Dual-layer DVDs are not supported in original Windows 95 or 95a, but are in the various versions of 95 OEM Service Release 2. Windows 98 or 98SE is not recommended due to problems that may happen with video color and alignment. Only the bundled player software can use the hardware MPEG2 decoding of the card.


SCSI adapters

Diamond produced the capable but relatively low-cost FirePort 40 SCSI adapter in the late 1990s.


References

#
  • "BEST DATA PRODUCTS COMPLETES ACQUISITION OF DIAMOND MULTIMEDIA BRANDS AND ASSETS "
    by Best Data Products Inc., October 28, 2003, retrieved December 23, 2005

    by Michael Scott & Harm Hanemaayer, February 19, 1997, retrieved December 23, 2005

    by 4th Wave Inc., May 13, 1998, retrieved January 13, 2005


    External links

    *{{Official website, https://www.diamondmm.com/
    Diamond Xtreme Sound 7.1 review
    Portable audio player manufacturers Electronics companies of the United States Manufacturing companies based in California Companies based in Los Angeles Graphics hardware companies