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They're only the "leader" because they have no significant competition in the after-market add-on card market. Just try and name two other sound card manufacturers.

Others have pointed out diamond I can not say in all honesty I have bought one of their sound cards. Circa 5 years ago the cost of a SB128 was roughly equal to a base end Diamond solution, and there was reasonable assurance that the SB128 would work.

Razer I'm not directly familar with, and at $200 for a base model, I'm not likely to invest in it, well, unless that extra shielding actually does an effective job at eliminating the EM noise generated by the system.

Voyetra Turtle Beach much to my surprise is still around, as spoken of by others, and offer a base $30 solution and a $60 solution.

Asus either has or plans to release the Xonar D2 and D2K, but as it doesn't exist in any form other than a press release, I know jack about it.

Cmedia it would seem not only makes onboard audio but pci audio as well. I "might" have met one released by MadDog, but i'm going by memory and relative look of the card.

the earliest stealth card i remember was in the early ninties like 1991, 1992 don't remember seeing any before that but that doesn't mean there wasn't any.

I see that Diamond still has their line of "Stealth" video cards. http://www.diamondmm.com/stealth.php I'm trying to find what year these cards initially launched.

What a terrible press release. The date isn't on it, and it doesn't tell us what chip they're using. this other press release (which also sucks) says they'll be using chips from ATI and NVidia. Aha, the stealth products page says that there are four stealth products, some of which are nvidia, and some of which are ATI. No, THAT ain't going to be confusing. I give this incarnation of Diamond about a year and a half before they fold again.

Diamond is back. Best Data picked them up and relaunched the company(sans the audio division, which someone else owns).

You mean like this?

I personally find NVidia's TwinView to work a lot better, if you have a card with two outputs, which most of the GF4s and higher seem to have now.

We might as well ask about S3 if we're asking about Matrox. Remember that great card they had a while back?

The best we can hope for is a pricewar I think. Cheaper Nvidia or ATI cards is always better.

The ReplayTV and Rio products are what SonicBlue is perhaps more recently known for - but don't forget some of the huge companies of yesteryear that SonicBlue also gobbled up. For starters,

Diamond Multimedia, who was once one of the larger producers of mainstream video cards,

and S3, the unforgettable yet forgettable video chipset.

..then you want a replayTV.

S3 does. I guess they bought out Diamond which is where I got my FireGL card from. I must say, I really liked my FireGL 1000 Pro when I got it - still a good card for 2D applications, although its usefulness for current 3D is starting to wane... They also seem to have dropped the "FireGL" line of things.

Microsoft did us all a disservice by creating a lame new 3D api

What else did you expect? Microsoft has a huge Not Made Here (NMH) problem - if they didn't make it, they need to either:

1. Reinvent it so that it only works through MS sponsered methods, or
2. Buy whoever does make it.

IANAL, but I think Diamond Rio the country band and Diamond Rio the MPEG audio player might collide in the trademark namespace. Are brands of music and brands of music equipment separate namespaces?

But music differs from source code in one aspect. It can be performed

I'd consider a MIDI file (MIDI can now store lyrics) the source code, Timidity the compiler, .wav an object file, BladeEnc a linker (even though it may be illegal), and the MP3 file the compiled executable that runs on a machine called Diamond Rio, I mean, Diamond Rio.

Games can be publicly performed for pay too. Have you been to a video arcade?

I have a rather simple list this year, though it's a lot more than last year (where my list basically amounted to "whatever.")

1) Diamond Rio. My discman just doesn't cut it anymore. Too many CDs, too little space to carry them all with me...

2) A new CD-ROM drive. Ya know, this 12x was top of the line when I bought it. Two weeks later I saw a 24x for the same price. Now I find out it can't read CD-Rs.

3) Slashdot Shirts!

And now for the items that are a bit lower priority, and more of a stretch:

4) A Voodoo 3. Don't start a Voodoo vs. TNT war here, okay? Just agree that it's better than my ATI RagePro.

5) A CD-R drive. Yeah, R, not RW. For some reason I don't quite fully trust the RWs.

6) A new monitor. 640x480 works, but it sucks.

1. Got to www.shopper.com and search for "Rio" to find the lowest pre-rebate price; last time I checked it was $124 from shopping.com .
2. Order it!
3. Mail the rebate form from Diamond along with the UPC from the Rio box, and wait for your $50.

Firm cranks up MP3 player for the car
By Stephanie Miles
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
March 11, 1999, 4:25 p.m. PT

Hoping to follow in the footsteps of the popular Rio portable MP3 player, a British company is about to launch what it says is the first digital music player for the car.

a href="http://www.cnet.com/Resources/Info/Glossary/ Terms/mpeg.html">MP3 (MPEG-3) is a digital audio format which allows consumers to download near-CD quality music from their PCs. Users can pick from an almost unlimited supply of legitimate and pirated music titles. Rio, manufactured by Diamond Multimedia, is a portable and relatively inexpensive MP3 player.

Diamond said recently it has already shipped over 100,000 units, since its launch late last year, despite a messy legal battle with the recording industry, which was seeking an injunction against Rio's distribution until better safeguards against piracy were in place.

Do you want to know more?

Read related news View story in The Big Picture Go to Message Boards Search News.com

Empeg has started production on Empeg Car, according to the company's Web site. Empeg Car, which runs on the Linux operating system, is powered by a 200-MHz StrongARM processor.

The removable stereo unit includes an FM radio receiver, and 2.1GB capacity to store up to 35 hours of music. Users download MP3 files from the PC to the stereo unit via the USB or serial port.

Empeg will begin shipping in late March. The Empeg Car Player with display, car mount, remote control, cables, and Windows-based software to download music titles will start at $999 for the 2.1GB version. The company is offering larger capacity models and other display colors.

"The initial design is to go in your car, but you can use it at home, on a boat...almost anywhere," according to the Empeg Web site.

The URL for the Rio accessories should be http://www.diamondmm.com/products/current/rio-acc. cfm (click me). This is why you make sure to close your HTML tags :)

-mike kania

You guys keep saying "that'd be nice to put linux on it when it comes out" but there are already several products that are touchscreen laptops. Most with attached keyboards, one or two without. Here are two of them:

• Fujitsu Biblio MC8 - touchscreen laptop (2.6 lbs, P200-233)
• Panasonic CF01 - touchscreen notepad, external keyboard (2.2 lbs, Am586-133)

Additionally, wireless networking is starting to be cheaply available (albeit a short range of ~150 feet indoors) - Diamond HomeFree costs only about $100-$150 a node. CHEAP compared to previously available wireless network cards! NOTE: Proxim is offering a product (Symphony) hat has identical specs. I'm not sure whose product is whose here. I suspect that proxim is the mfg, and diamond is OEM'ing it.