Yet another company jumping on the personal computer-in- the-living room bandwaggon is Mitac International Corp, which is launching the MP4015, a box the company describes as the first in a multimedia moniputor series. The actual personal computer is iAPX-86-based, has both Peripheral Component Interconnect and AT buses, up to 64Mb main memory, up to 256Kb cache. Input-output is through two serial ports, parallel port and enhanced IDE. It comes with 16-bit stereo sound and is SoundBlaster Pro-compatible. It has full colour support and VGA capabilities. The MP4015, has both floppy and hard 3.5 disk drive and a CD-ROM drive. It comes with MS-DOS and Windows and support for TV/MPEG playback and has a 15 monitor. The television tuner accepts all VHF and UHF channels, cable television, supports NTSC and PAL video standards and can support up to 65,536 colours. It has full MPEG playback of live video in the VGA window on screen, or the full screen; the MPEG can support resolutions of 640 by 480 up to 1,024 to 768; and it also supports various Compact Disk standards including Karaoke, video and audio. Mitac, of Taipei, Taiwan, says it will market the product itself but it expects the moniputer to be a very popular with OEM customers, as are its range of notebooks. At CeBit Mitac unveiled three new notebooks. The entry level 4023S comes as either a colour or mono machine but is modular so that the screens can be swapped. It has a floppy disk drive, a removable 2.5 hard disk drive and a Type 3 PCMCIA slot. It costs ú2,300 for the colour copy and ú850. The next level is the 4024, a multimedia-equipped notebook with a choice of screens, audio support and CD-ROM drive among the added extras. This will cost ú1,700 when it ships in June. The top of the range is the 5021 that comes with a Pentium processor, has a 32-bit Peripheral Component Interconnect bus, uses Phoenix Technologies Ltd’s BIOS, and come with optional MPEG and television tuner boards. This will also be available in June at a cost of ú2,000.
