DOS Days

STB Wind/X

STB Systems WIND/X was released in 1992, running on the S3 86C911 "Carrera" Windows accelerator chipset and came with 1 MB of VRAM.

Released 1992
Bus ISA 16-bit
Chipset S3 86C911
Standards Hercules, CGA, EGA, VGA
Memory 1 MB of VRAM (80ns)
RAMDAC  
Ports 15-pin DSUB (analogue video out), bus mouse port
Part # -
FCC ID -
Price Mar 1992: $499 (MSRP), $355 (street price)
See Also PowerGraph, PowerGraph X-24, 1280 Graphics System

It could support display resolutions as high as 1280 x 1024 in 16 colours or 800 x 600 in 262,144 colours. No Sierra HiColor DAC option was provided. VESA VBE (Video BIOS Extensions) compatibility was built into the drivers, not in the BIOS.

One good feature of the WIND/X was its provision of a bus mouse port.

STB also offered a WIND/X Ultra, which I assume came with a HiColor DAC.

 

Board Revisions

I don't have any information on board revisions for the WIND/X card.

 

Competition

The STB Systems WIND/X card directly competed with the Orchid Fahrenheit 1280, Genoa WindowsVGA, ATI Graphics Ultra / ATI Graphics Vantage, and Diamond Stealth VRAM in 1992.

 

In the Media

"The STB WIND/X test results put it on par with the generally lower-end-performing Genoa and Pixel accelerators. The Wind/X, however, performed significantly better than the Genoa and Pixel acceleratorson the Unscrolled Text BIOS Write test (the write test stressed by most vendors) but significantly worse on the Scrolled Text BIOS Write test.

Additionally, on the 320-by-200 Fill and 320-by-200 Screen-to-Screen BitBlt tests, its performance ranged from 52 to 89 percent faster than the Genoa and the Pixel."
PC Magazine, March 1992


"STB's S3-powered WIND/X board is cheaper than the 1280 Graphics System. For just $355 (estimated street price) you get 65,536 screen colors at 640 by 480,11 software drivers, and a mouse. If you don't mind fidgeting with tiny jumpers, this is a very good product.

The WIND/X showed no speed surprises, chugging right along with the rest of the S3 boards. Expect 2 to 2.5 times the speed for Excel and Word for Windows and one-third the speed for PowerPoint graphics compared to super VGA.

STB's WIND/X provides flicker-free operation at all resolutions except its interlaced 1280 by 1024 mode. It's a good performer that's loaded with nice extras. Were it not for the myriad tiny jumpers, it would merit a Best Buy. But the WIND/X is still a very good deal."
     PC World, March 1992


Setting it Up


Downloads

Operation Manual
(missing)

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Original Utility Disk
(missing)

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ROM BIOS
(missing)

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