Welcome to the Alpha-Top Homepage on MacDat!

Alpha-Top Corporation was the laptop division of GVC Corporation, a Taiwan-based company best known for their modems and computer monitors. As an Original Design Manufacturer (ODM), Alpha-Top's laptops were sold through various local-market distributors, rather than by Alpha-Top themselves.

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Company History

Alpha-Top was created in 1994, and released their first laptops in 1995 - the Pentium-based Green751, and the 486-based Green740, which were sold by a handful of smaller OEM distributors. In 1996, they released the 3-spindle Green753, their first CD-ROM laptop, and the Green755, a smaller CD-ROM laptop that used a modular bay, rather than having both drives built in. The Green753 did fairly well in reviews as a value laptop, and was sold by a large number of OEMs.

In 1997, Alpha-Top released the Green753+, an enhanced version of their 1996 laptop that supported faster processors, among other improvements. 1997 also saw Alpha-Top pick up their first manufacturing deals with major brands. They partnered with both Micron Electronics and NEC to create custom versions of their Green755 - the Micron TransPort VLX and the NEC Ready 200/300T Series. Many of these Micron and NEC laptops were an enhanced version of the Green755, never sold as a generic, but known internally as the Green756, which similarly to the Green753+ added faster processor support and other enhancements.

In 1998, Alpha-Top released the Green735, which was likely intended as a successor to the Green753+. It supported both the latest Intel Tillamook CPUs and the older Socket 7 standard, including chips from AMD. Also released in 1998 were the Green759 and Green770. The two laptops shared the same case - The Green759 was a Pentium 1/AMD laptop, and the Green770 was a Pentium II with 3D-accelerated graphics.

Near the end of 1998, they struck another contract with Micron - this time manufacturing the TransPort Trek II, which like the Green756 was based on a custom design that Alpha-Top only sold to Micron, and once again NEC, who sold it as the Ready 440T. This model was known internally as the Green760 and/or Green790. The Trek II ended up being very successful, and Alpha-Top ended up producing several revisions of the design through 1999 and 2000.

1999 was a big year for Alpha-Top. Besides continued manufacturing of the Trek II, they also introduced two new laptops - the Green795 and Green797. The former was an AMD socket 7 laptop, and the latter was an Intel Socket 370 laptop. Both shared a somewhat similar design to the Trek II, but were sold as generics to small OEMs, unlike the Green760/790.

Apple Partnership

Alpha-Top's largest acomplishment in 1999, no doubt about it, was signing a contract with Apple to become a manufacturing partner for the iBook. This contract was a big deal for them, as evidenced by the fact that they hardly released any other laptops in 2000 - I believe the only one was the Green400. My guess is that most or all of their manufacturing capacity was now dedicated to producing the iBook.

In 2001, they did release more generic/ODM laptops, alongside iBook manufacturing (including the new "Snow" models released that year). The Green720 was a 3-spindle laptop that used desktop Pentium III processors. They also launched the Green500, which was an ultralight subnotebook. Both of these were sold by WinBook as the J1 and X1 respectively. A version of the Green720 called the Green799 was also introduced as a generic laptop to be sold to small distributors. They also launched an AMD laptop, the Green710, which I know hardly anything about currently.

ECS Buyout

Throughout 2001 (and possibly earlier), Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS), another Taiwanese hardware manufacturer, had begun a partnership with Alpha-Top, I believe including an investment (the details are fuzzy). What I do know for certain is that in August, 2001, ECS and Alpha-Top began a full merger, in which Alpha-Top would cease to exist. GVC Corporation was likely motivated to sell Alpha-Top due to financial issues, as their stock had experienced a 40% drop after some of their executives were investigated for insider trading. ECS likely wanted to merge with Alpha-Top in order to gain their lucrative iBook manufacturing contract.

Following the merger was a murky period. Despite the agreement happening in August, 2001, laptops didn't show up on ECS' websites until December 2002, leaving a gap year. The company MADE laptops during this time, I know that much. In late 2001, the Green510 was released and sold as the WinBook X2 - it was basically a spec-bumped Green500. The Pentium 4 desktop replacement Green730 released in 2002. The problem is that I can't find any online references from either company to these systems - beyond a very broken Alpha-Top page from 2002 which I don't believe was updated since 2001 anyway.

In 2003, ECS began listing new laptops from the "Green" series on their website, and would continue to release new models throughout the next few years, before phasing out the "Green" branding. For post 2001-models, see MacDat's section on ECS.

GVC's fate came shortly after ECS bought Alpha-Top. In late 2002, they merged with Lite-On, who were already invested in GVC previously. This was the end of the GVC brand.

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Much of the information on the laptops themselves came from the Orphaned Laptop Support Group's archived website (formerly run by DeltaDon on the VCF Forums).

Own an Alpha-Top laptop? I'm in need of information on many models, along with images. See this page for info on how to reach me.

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Model List of Alpha-Top laptops (sorted by age)