Review of the Mitac Paragon 286 VE, 16MHz AT-Compatible With VGA Copyright 1988 David W. Batterson Mitac began making XT and AT compatibles for other companies in 1982. Only recently did it start selling its ATs and 386s under the Mitac label. Although it now also produces a 386 tower PC, and a fully-licensed IBM PS/2-compatible, it has had good success with its Paragon series of small-footprint PCs. The unit I chose for review is the Paragon 286VE, with 16MHz, onboard video adapter (Paradise Plus VGA) and a 40MB hard drive. Standard RAM is 1MB. There are two serial ports (a 25-pin and 9-pin), and one parallel. And even with the compact size, there are six expansion slots (one half-size and 5 full-size). The Mitac comes with MS-DOS 3.30A, and GW-BASIC version 3.22, along with complete manuals for each. It's also compatible with OS/2. There's the usual socket for an 80287 math co-processor. Mitac supports LIM EMS (Lotus/Intel/Microsoft Expanded Memory Specification) 4.0; onboard RAM can be increased up to 8MB. It has that totally reliable workhorse: a Phoenix BIOS. First a word about the hard drive. It's a 3 1/2" drive manufactured by Conner Peripherals: the CP-342. Although rated at 40MB, the formatted drive came up with about 42.7MB. The average access time is 29ms, with a 1-to-1 interleave. I was extremely pleased with the quietness of this drive. I spoke to a technical representative from the company at COMDEX/Fall, and he told me that their drives are the quietest in the industry. It is definitely quieter than Seagate and MiniScribe drives I've tested. You particularly notice the difference when you boot or turn off the Paragon 286 VE. The CP-342 drive features automatic error correction. It also performs an automatic diagnostics routine at start-up time. This hard drive is Grade A all the way, and I applaud Conner Peripherals for a fine product. The Paragon 286VE comes with both 1.2MB 5 1/4" and 1.44MB 3 1/2" floppy drives. The 5 1/4" drive is supplied by Mitsubishi. The 3 1/2" drive, made by Alps, is mounted vertically to save space. A problem with the vertical array is that to insert or remove a 3 1/2" disk, you have to move the keyboard out of the way. So that's a bit of an irritation. I generally use 5 1/4" disks most of the time, though. There is space for an additional 5 1/4" drive. There's also an optional 60MB tape backup. Dimensions for the CPU unit are 14 3/4" x 16 1/2" by 6". Power supply is an adequate 145 watts. A real-time clock with battery backup is standard equipment. The power switch is conveniently located on the front panel, next to the reset button. There's a light to indicate 16MHz mode. You vary the speed between 16MHz and 8MHz by pressing the <\> combination. You then receive an audible signal--2 beeps for 16MHz and 4 for 8MHz mode. The Paradise VGA Plus card can be configured in other ways than the default VGA mode. If you have an NEC MultiSync (or compatible) monitor, it will support 800x600 graphics resolution in 16 colors. Otherwise, the resolution is 640x480 with 16 colors or b&w, and 320x200 with 256 colors or 64 shades of gray. It also supports EGA, CGA, MDA, Hercules, Plantronics, and 43 line/132 column text modes. You can change these using the VGAPLUS.EXE program. There's also a video test program, and ROMCHECK.COM to check the system BIOS date (this one was dated 7/30/87). The VGA monitor supplied was a 13" Tatung CM-1496, analog type, with .31mm dot pitch. Besides color mode, a switch lets you select amber, green or blue display. After many hours of use, I suffered no eyestrain. However, the monitor swivels but doesn't tilt, as you would expect. Mitac's enhanced 101 keyboard is acceptable, but doesn't deserve any awards. It doesn't have the click-tactile feel I prefer, like Northgate's OmniKey/102 keyboard. But I realize many users, including Compaq owners, like the soft keyboards. The Mitac comes with the Advanced Disk Manager (ADM) utility program. This allows you to customize a hard disk installation. You can create up to 16 partitions, and can assign passwords for hard disk access. ADM also lets you extend the hard disk space beyond DOS' usable 32MB limit, up to 512MB! At the factory, Shadow RAM is enabled. This executes the system and video BIOS through RAM (the 640K - 1 MB area), providing increased speed. You can disable Shadow Ram if you prefer. By using the ADM utility, you can permit your software to access that extra 384K as Extended memory. In some cases, this may be preferable to using the Shadow RAM feature. I like the 286VE very much. The 16MHz CPU, 0-wait state, BIOS going through Shadow RAM, and the peppy hard disk all work in combination to provide blazing speed and performance. Software just cooks on this machine! The compact size saves valuable desk space--I need all the space I can get on my desk! I think Mitac will find a ready market for these PCs. This review unit had a suggested list of around $2700, but shop around for a good street price. For more information, contact American Mitac Corp., 410 E. Plumeria Dr., San Jose, CA 95134; (800) 648-2287, (408) 432-1160, FAX: (408) 432-0866. # David W. Batterson writes computer reviews, articles and commentary. You can reach him via MCI MAIL: DBATTERSON.