DOS Days

Hercules Stingray

The Hercules Stingray was a budget VGA graphics accelerator card launched in November 1994. It came in both VESA Local Bus and PCI interface flavours.

 Released November 1994
Bus VESA Local Bus or PCI
Chipset Avance Logic ALG2228 (Stingray VL) or Avance Logic ALG2301 (Stingray PCI)
Standards VGA
Memory 1 MB DRAM (32-bit, 60ns or 70ns)
RAMDAC (Embedded)
Ports 15-pin DSUB (analogue RGB video out)
Part # S501 (Stingray VL)
S801 (Stingray PCI)
FCC IDs JQDA2228AV9401 (VLB), DXL9IL631C (PCI)
Price At launch: $99 (1 MB)
See Also Dynamite, Stingray Pro

The Hercules Stingray came in two model variants:

  • Stingray VL - 1 MB card based on the Avance Logic ALG2228 VESA Local Bus chipset
  • Stingray PCI - 1 MB card based on the Avance Logic ALG2301 PCI chipset

The ALG2228 and ALG2301 were low-end SVGA chipsets, able to support a maximum resolution of 1280 x 1024 interlaced if 2 MB of video memory was used, though in 256-colour mode this ran at an appalling 44 Hz refresh rate. Reducing the resolution to 1024 x 768 allowed for non-interlaced at a 70 Hz refresh rate, and this required only 1 MB of video memory.

The full list of supported graphics modes for these chipsets is listed here:

Resolution
Colors
Rate
Mode
Memory
1280x1024
256
44Hz
Interlaced
2MB*
1280x1024
16
48Hz
Interlaced
1MB
1024x768
256
70Hz
Non-Interlaced
1MB
1024x768
16
70Hz
Non-Interlaced
1MB
800x600
256
72Hz
Non-Interlaced
1MB
800x600
64K
58Hz
Non-Interlaced
1MB
800x600
16
72Hz
Non-Interlaced
1MB
640x480
16.7M
60Hz
Non-Interlaced
1MB
640x480
64K
60Hz
Non-Interlaced
1MB
640x480
256
70Hz
Non-Interlaced
1MB
*While the chipset supports up to 2 MB of video memory, no Stingray cards came with 2 MB.

 

Board Revisions

I have no information on the various board revisions for the Stingray.

 

Competition

At the end of 1994, the Stingray would have competed directly with other budget VLB and PCI cards including the Cirrus Logic CL-GD5430-based Diamond SpeedStar Pro SE and the Diamond SpeedStar 64 with its CL-GD5434 chipset.

 

In the Media

 

Setting it Up


Downloads

Operation Manual
(missing)

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Stingray Family Technical Info
Rel 1.00, 16 Mar 1996

 

Troubleshooting Guide
Version 1.10, 22 Feb 1995

For Stingray, Stingray Pro and Stingray 64 products.

DOS & Windows 3.1 Drivers
Release 3.0, 12 Jun 1995

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Files=st300i.exe and st300w.exe

Windows NT 3.5 Driver
24 Oct 1994

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File=stnt35.exe

OS/2 Warp Driver
8 Dec 1995

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File=stos2w17.exe

 

More Pictures


A VESA Local Bus version of the Stingray