Below is a list of links to the websites of many companies that either made or sold laptops. I haven't looked into most of these brands yet, just a brief check to see if their website has been archived. If I say I have no info yet, I'm sure it's there on their site, I just haven't looked through it yet.
Archive Status indicates how well the site has been preserved on the WayBack Machine.
OEM: Sold rebadged laptops from an ODM.
ODM: Designed & Manufactured laptops that they then sold to OEMs to badge and sell under the OEM's name.
MFG: Company that designed AND sold their own laptops under their own name, instead of selling them to OEMs. I'm still counting those used a manufacturing partner but otherwise designed and sold the laptop themselves as a Manufacturer/MFG. One example of this would be Compaq, where Inventec was used as a manufacturing partner for their LTE 5000 Series laptops, but they still designed the laptops themselves and Inventec didn't sell them to other OEMs.
A company can fall into multiple or all of these categories! For example, AST made many of their own laptops (Premium Exec, PowerExec, Ascentia 9xx), but also sold many ODM laptops from other companies (Ascentia J, A, M, others), and they also acted as an ODM, allowing DEC to re-badge and sell the PowerExec. So they fall under all three.
| Brand Name | Website(s) | Notes | OEM, ODM, or MFG? | Archive Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Acer | www.acer.com | I haven't looked much into Acer's 90s laptops at this time. | ODM & MFG | Seems to be there but I haven't looked much into it. |
| Acom | www.acomlink.com | Sold a variety of stuff including Twinhead, Featron, maybe Dual? | OEM | It's there. |
| Alpha-Top Corporation | www.alphatop.com.tw www.gvc.com.tw |
Division of GVC, sold to ECS in August 2001. ODM Manufacturer of the "GREEN" series laptops. | ODM | alphatop site has one capture from 2001 - I don't think they HAD a website prior. I was able to find a few pages from digging deep in GVC US's EXTREMELY broken archived site, which are linked as well. Just added - GVC's Taiwanese site, which is much better archived. |
| Amrel | www.amrel.com/ati.htm | Some American defense company that made rugged laptops as one of their product lines, and maybe also some regular ones? I know nothing about them. | ? | It's there, but their links trip up archive.org so you'll have to manually input them into the top nav bar. |
| AMS Tech (Associates Mega-Sub Systems) | www.amstech.com | OEM, sold many laptops from a variety of ODMs. | OEM | Decent (i think), but I haven't looked through them much yet. |
| Apple Computer Inc. | www.apple.com | It's Apple. | MFG | Decent (I think) |
| ARM Computer | www.armcomputer.com | Not the same ARM as the processor architecture. From what INCREDIBLY LITTLE research I've done so far, they sold Alpha-Top, Compal, and Dual laptops. Likely other stuff too. | OEM | The site's there, but I haven't looked into it at all yet. |
| AST Computer | www.ast.com | Formerly AST Research. | All three. | Very good - drivers were on an FTP but were archived here. |
| Astro Research Inc. | www.astronote.com | Astro sold Dual laptops and possibly others. | ? | It's there. |
| Broadax Systems, Inc. | www.bsicomputer.com | These people sold a lot of Nan Tan/Clevo/Kapok stuff | OEM | It's there. |
| Chem USA Corp. | www.chemusa.com | These people sold the Chembook line of laptops, made by a bunch of the usual suspects. I haven't looked into them yet. | OEM | It's there. |
| Chicony | www.chicony.com.tw | Large Taiwanese ODM. They're still around today but haven't made laptops since the late 1990s, they're last model being a Pentium III system. | ODM | It's there, haven't checked to see how much stuff is there though. |
| Clevo |
www.clevo.com.tw |
Large ODM, still in business today. Also known under the names of Kapok and Nan Tan Computer, scroll down to find the Kapok site. They had no site under the Nan Tan name that I could find. | ODM | Seems decently archived. I've not yet looked into it much though. |
| Commax Technologies | www.commax.com | Commax sold a bunch of ODM laptops - Clevo/Kapok, Chicony, Mitac at least, probably more. | ? | It's there. |
| Compaq | www.compaq.com | Compaq laptops were all only sold by them, but they did partner with ODMs for production. The LTE Lite was made by Citizen, and the LTE 5xxx laptops were Inventec. No other company sold the same laptops though. | MFG | I haven't checked yet. I'm sure there's something there. |
| Comtrade | www.comtrade-pc.com | Found them in an old list, it appears they may have sold Nan Tan/Kapok/Clevo stuff. | ? | It's there. |
| CTX International |
www.ctxintl.com www.ctxcomputers.com www.ctx.com.tw |
They had three websites for whatever reason. The first two had mostly the same information while the third was their main "hub" page. | MFG | Well archived, but their drivers were on an FTP so that's all gone. |
| Cyberchron Corporation | www.cyberchron.com | Looks like they made/make rugged computers. I have not looked into them further yet. | ? | It's there. |
| Cypress Computer, Inc. | www.cypress-computer.com www.cypresscomputer.com |
Another OEM. They sold Chicony laptops. I haven't looked into them yet. | OEM | It's there. |
| Dell | www.dell.com | It's dell. | MFG & OEM | I haven't fully explored the site yet but the archive doesn't seem great. |
| Digital Equipment Corporation | www.windows.digital.com | Digital I believe was both an OEM and an MFG, not positive on the latter though. I haven't looked into them much yet. | OEM & MFG(?) | It's there. |
| Dolch Computer Systems, Inc. | www.dolch.com | Manufactured some lunchbox-style portables and at least one huge laptop. I haven't looked into them much yet. | MFG??? | It's there. |
| Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) |
www.ecs.com.tw www.ecsusa.com |
Purchased Alpha-Top in 2001 and continued their product lines, also had laptops prior due to a purchase of another company. | ODM | Poor - You can find working links in there if you dig hard, put a lot of their pages are riddled with broken Javascript code that doesn't work on the wayback machine. |
| Enpower Innovation | www.enpower.com | House brand of now defunct PC Club. Sold some Chicony stuff, and seemingly other laptops too. | OEM | It's there. |
| EPS Technologies | www.epstech.com | EPS sold a huge laundry list of laptops from Chicony, Clevo/Nan Tan/Kapok, and maybe others. I haven't looked into them at all yet. | OEM | It's there. |
| Eurocom Corporation | www.eurocom.ca | I haven't looked into this one yet. Sold Nan Tan/Kapok stuff | ? | It's there. |
| Everex Systems, Inc. | www.everex.com | Sold the Step Note line. The early Step Notes were FIC systems. | OEM? | It's there. |
| Ergo/Brick |
www.ergo-computing.com www.brickcomputers.com |
Ergo site was their old name, use the brick site for the newer stuff. | OEM | Seemingly good. |
| First Computer Systems | www.fcsnet.com | Kapok vendor | ? | It's there. |
| First International Computer | pcg.fic.com.tw | Taiwanese ODM, made laptops for a number of brands. | ODM | Some broken/missing pages and images but a good amount of info there still. |
| FOSA Computers | www.fosa.com The site's 1998 capture is a little broken - found this link to their product page in the source code: www.fosa.com/frindex.htm |
I don't know anything about FOSA at the moment. | OEM? | Captures I looked at are a bit broken, some source code digging required to navigate around. |
| Fujitsu | www.fujitsu-pc.com | Made the Lifebook series. I haven't looked into them yet. | ? | It's there. |
| FutureTech Systems, Inc. | www.futuretec.com | They sold from a whole bunch of ODMs, including Kapok/Clevo/NanTan, Mitac, Compal, and Dual | OEM | It's there. |
| Gateway/Gateway2000 |
www.gw2k.com www.gateway.com |
Gateway mostly made their own laptops (I think), but went through some different manufacturing partners. The Solo 2100 and 2200 were made by Quanta and bear a resemblance to other Quanta laptops from that time, although they're not just a re-badge. The Colorbook was made by Citizen, but again, wasn't sold by any other company. They also apparently partnered by Sanyo, Sotek, and Toshiba. | MFG | It's there but I remember having some trouble with re-directs. |
| GETAC | http://www.uq.net.au/pacificdata/getac/index.html | Rugged notebooks. Apparently they're a joint venture between GE's Aerospace division, which was bought out by Lockheed Martin, and Mitac. | ? | It's there. |
| Hewlett-Packard | www.hp.com | HP made most of their own stuff but apparently a few of their laptops were made by Twinhead. | MFG & OEM | It's there. |
| Hitachi PC Corporation | www.hitachipc.com | I think they made their own stuff? | ? | It's there. |
| Hyperdata | www.sunrex.com.tw | Hyperdata was one of several brand names that Sunrex used. Some Hyperdata laptops were made in-house by Sunrex, while others were made by other ODMs. I'm not currently sure whether or not Sunrex actually let any other companies distribute their own laptops. | OEM & MFG | Seems like it was archived decently but I haven't looked at it much yet. |
| IBM | www.ibm.com | Nearly all of the ThinkPads were designed and manufactured by IBM, but a few went through manufacturing and design partners. The ThinkPad 310 Series were customized Acer laptops, and the i1200, i1300, i1400, and i1500 series were also made for IBM by Acer. | MFG | Very poorly archived - they used a ton of redirect links and other crap that really confused the early wayback machine. Lots of missing redirects and pages. |
| IPC Technologies Inc. | www.goaustin.com | Also known as Austin. | OEM | The first capture of their website was when they were already out of business - all they have up is a warranty notice. |
| Jetta Computers/Jetta International | www.jetta.com www.jettaus.com |
Jetta was on OEM for most of their life but did make some laptops in the early-mid 1990s. The first site was their website through to around 2007, when they switched to jettaus.com for unknown reasons. | ODM, OEM | Well archived. Drivers were on an FTP, but said FTP was mirrored to archive.org in 2015! |
| Kapok | www.kapok.com.tw | Large ODM. Also known as Clevo and Nan Tan Computer, scroll up to find the Clevo site. They had no website under the Nan Tan name that I could find. | ODM | Seemingly well archived but I haven't looked through it much yet. |
| Kiwi Computer Inc. | www.kiwicom.com | I know nothing about them right now. | ? | It's there. |
| Kontron Elektronik | www.kontron.com | They made some rugged laptops | ? | It's there |
| LEK Technologies | www.lektech.com | Sold the Green753 among others | ? | It's there. |
| Maxtech Corporation | www.maxcorp.com www.maxtech.com |
GVC/Alpha-Top's main US distributor. | OEM | All there. |
| MegaImage, Inc. | www.megai.com | Sold Samsung laptops. | ? | It's there. |
| Micro Express | www.microexpress.com | Appears to have been a vendor for Jetta/Jetbook laptops, which themselves were sourced from other ODMs | ? | It's there but very empty. |
| Micron Electronics/MicronPC/micronpc.com/MPC |
www.micronpc.com ww.mpccorp.com www.buympc.com |
Yes, they did in fact at one point brand themselves AS their website. Micron sold laptops made by Sanyo, Alpha-Top, Samsung, Mitac, ASUS, Chicony, and others I'm sure. Websites are listed in order of which they used them. |
OEM | Ok - some images are missing, but there's a lot of saved info. |
| Micon Computers | www.micon.com | I don't know anything about them yet. | ? | It's there. |
| NEC | www.nec.com | Large company, takes a bit of browsing through their site to get to their laptops. The Versa and Ready laptops were also seemingly done by different divisions so you have to go to two different places to find them - I've done it though, it's all there. | All three. | Well archived. |
| Prostar Computer | www.pro-star.com | I don't know anything about them yet. I think they sold Clevo stuff? | ? | It's there. |
| Revered Technology | www.revered.com | Made the Cruiser notebook with a detachable LCD that can be used as a projection screen. | MFG | It's there. |
| Rix Technology, Inc. | www.rixbook.com | Another Clevo/Kapok vendor. | ? | It's there. |
| Royal Computer | www.royalcomp.com www.goroyal.com |
Sold Sunrex systems, other stuff. | OEM | Royalcomp.com is there, the second one was not archived whatsoever, but the link was theirs circa 1998. |
| Samsung Electronics America | www.sosimple.com | -- | MFG, ODM | It's there. |
| Sceptre | www.sceptretech.com | The one thumbnail they had on their product page showed a Compal laptop, don't know yet about the rest. | OEM | It's there. |
| Sharp | www.sharp-usa.com | Don't know much about their laptops but I THINK they may have been their own, not an ODM. | ? | It's there. |
| SunRace | www.sunrex.com.tw | See below, this is one of the names that Sunrex went as. | OEM & MFG | Seems like it was archived decently but I haven't looked at it much yet. |
| Sunrex | www.sunrex.com.tw | Sunrex was both an ODM and an OEM, and they went under a lot of different names. Sunrex is actually the name of the company, but they also went as Hyperdata, SunRace, and InnovACE. I'm not currently sure whether or not Sunrex actually let any other companies distribute their own laptops. | OEM & MFG | Seems like it was archived decently but I haven't looked at it much yet. |
| Techmedia | www.techmedia.net | Haven't looked much yet. | ? | It's there. |
| Texas Instruments | www.ti.com | Haven't looked much yet. Makers of the TravelMates. | OEM and MFG | It's there. |
| Toshiba | www.toshiba.com | Made the Satellite, Tecra, Portege, Libretto. | MFG | A brief check showed that it was missing images. |
| Transmonde | www.transmonde.com | Haven't looked much yet. | ? | It's there. |
| Trogon | www.trogoncomputer.com | Sold Alpha-Top and Chicony stuff. | OEM | It's there. |
| Twinhead | www.twinhead.com | Manufacturer and ODM behind a bunch of stuff. Made the Slimnote and some others. | MFG, ODM | It's there. |
| WinBook Computer Corporation |
www.winbook.com www.winbookcorp.com |
Both sites were identical in 1996 captures, later on winbook.com became the sales site and winbookcorp.com became the support site. | OEM | Good - MANY captures are missing images, but information and drivers are otherwise saved. |
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