ZXnet

Mitac Paragon 88

A well-made Turbo XT class machine with integrated RTC (CR2032 battery!), floppy controller, single serial port, parallel port, and Paradise CGA video in a compact desktop enclosure. It was introduced by Mitac in the late 80s to compete with the IBM PS/2 Model 30. In machines equipped with 768K of RAM, the top 128KB of conventional memory is bank-switchable to support a 128K RAM disk without affecting available memory for applications.

According to a 1988 Preview, these machines were sold in New Zealand by Pacific Computers in two configurations. For $2,995 you got 768K of RAM, dual floppy drives (any combination of 5.25" and 3.5"), monochrome display, keyboard, and Star NX-1000 printer. For $3,995 one of the floppy drives was replaced with a 35MB hard disk.

Utilities

I've pulled a few of what appears to be original Mitac utilities from the hard disk in one of my machines which may be of interest. The config.sys file was:

        FILES=30
        BUFFERS=20
        DRIVPARM = /D:1
        DEVICE = VDISKM.SYS 128 128 64
        DEVICE = TIMER.SYS
        DEVICE = ANSI.SYS
        COUNTRY=061
    

The T10.COM sets the CPU speed to 10MHz and turns the green Turbo LED on, while T5.COM sets the CPU speed to 4.77Mhz and turns the green Turbo LED off. SHIPKIT.COM parks the hard disk. VDISKM.SYS is a RAM drive that uses the additional 128K bank of RAM not available to DOS applications. RTC.COM might be something to do with the integrated RTC. TIMER.SYS might be RTC-related too. The other utilties (CGA.EXE, HIRES.COM, MDGRAPH.COM, MDLIST.COM, PCGA.COM) appear to be for switching graphics modes - not sure if these are Mitac-specific or not.

Links

• Preview on Page 16 of the October 1987 issue of New Zealand Bits & Bytes
• iF Design Award 1988 - Mitac Paragon 88, 286, 286S, 386

In the Collection

I somehow have two of these machines. The first one, pictured on this page, I got from Newstead Country Garage sometime around 2000-2002 who had been using it for accounts as late as 1999/2000. It came with an Intra 12HP51T mono display, and probably some kind of keyboard. It might have been where my Star NX-1000 printer came from too. Based on labels inside the machine, the Garage may have purchased it second-hand at some point in the 90s. The hard disk may have been added by its original owner.

I don't remember when the other machine entered the collection, or where it came from. It is in somewhat worse cosmetic condition and doesn't currently work due to a short on the motherboards 12V rail. It is labeled "parts" so possibly there are other issues with it besides the likely failed tantalum capacitor - there was some corrosion from an unidentified source in one small area of the motherboard which could have damaged some vias and 74 series logic chips.

While I don't think I've ever so much as powered on Computer #2, the first one I did play around with a little in 2001/2002 after I first got it. But at the time computers older than a 386 weren't much interest to me so in 2002 it was stored and not touched again until July 2024 when it was removed from storage for cleaning, testing and inventory, and upgraded with an SMC WD8003EP network card (BNC and AUI).

While the Intra display I received with it no longer works correctly (probably needs a recap), the computer itself (including ST-225 hard disk) still works perfectly.

In February 2025 this machine spent a week or two setup on a desk where it was used for testing a few MDA Displays (the Intra and the ADI), some file transfer testing with MS-DOS Kermit (in order to write up some notes/getting started infomation, and it was further upgraded with a 2400bps V.22bis modem resulting in this video of it dialing in to another computer. It now has two expansion slots free.

The installed modem gives the following responses to the ADI commands:

    ATI1 = 000
    ATI2 =
    ATI3 = Copyright (c) 1993 IrSSC, V3.00 - 9302
    ATI4 = PARALLEL INT-HYB SC11092 * NO MNP * SRFAX *
    ATI5 =
    

On the 9th of February 2025, a second serial port was added as it only has one onboard and I had two one-port 8bit ISA serial cards lying around and I couldn't think what else to do with them. COM2 has a DB25F connector.

Inventory Data

This is a subset of the hardware inventory record for this computer. It may be more up-to-date than the rest of this page.

Acquired from Newstead Country Garage sometime around 2000-2002. Has 768K RAM. Hard disk contents from previous owner remains.
2024-07-16 Fetched from storage along with the other Mitac and the PBX
2024-07-17 Dismantled, cleaned, FDD lubricated, POSTed OK with a VGA card and the hard disk disconnected.
2024-07-18 Booted from FDD OK, HDD connected and booted OK, backed up hard disk via Kermit. Last files are from around 2002, last files from previous owner are from 1999/2000.
2024-07-19 Installed NIC
2025-02-06 Installed Modem
2025-02-09 Installed second serial port

Unknown where this came from or when. Currently in its as-received state aside aside from being cleaner. 
Labeled "parts", this machine may have had other problems besides the shorted 12V rail on the motherboard.
2024-07-16 Fetched from storage along with other Mitac and the PBX
2024-07-20 Dismantled, cleaned. PSU works OK, 12V rail on motherboard is shorted. Motherboard power connectors left disconnected.