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AlphaTop/ECS Green Laptop documentation thread.

Removing the cover over the status LCD on a Green 753 (and 753+) is one thing that will normally cause the cover's two small ears to be damaged. The one "safe" way I've found to get around this issue is some creative destruction. The upper main case holds the ears in place and if you are willing to break away some plastic on this case part you can with care remove the cover without damage to the ears. Photo 3 below shows the breaking of the plastic that allows the ear to slide out without breaking off on the right side of the case. Do the same for the left side. Look at photo #2 to see a close up of the two ears.
 

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New site update out today:
Includes pages on the Green751, Green755, Green753+, and the Green735.

As well as that, Green740 info on the main Alpha-Top page has been expanded, and I was also able to track down the drivers for it on Maxtech's archived website. Maxtech had some other Alpha-Top drivers that I'll be putting up the site in the near future.

I believe this is the first time that the CPU speed switch block configs for the Green751 have ever been documented online. I've also imaged all the driver disks that came with the Green751, although those aren't yet up on the site. I'll be uploading those to archive.org as well as on my site. I also did find what is likely the latest Green751 BIOS update on Maxtech's site so I'll put that up soon as well.

Green Series Home - MacDat

macdat.net macdat.net
 
3lectric, FYI the Green 753+ looks exactly like the Green 753. It differs from the outside only with having a barrel jack for input. Same plastics, same drives, same everything else with the case. Same photo can be used.

The Green 756 was sold as the Micron VLX+ with socket 7 CPU's and I think (must pull out and check) as the Micron Trek with AMD K6 CPUs.

The Micron Trek 2 was also from Alpha-Top and had spec's updated during production from PII CPU's to PIII's. Various Micron SKU numbers ID which Trek 2 version is what. I needed to do more research on what Green model number(s) or even P/N's that might be found on the various PCB's, but never got time to do so before shutting down my business. I do know that Micron sold huge numbers of Trek 2's, possibly to government. Trek 2 hard drive caddies were pulled out of most sold on the secondary resale market (ebay etc) and are quite rare. I was offered 15,000 of the caddies at one point be a person/company claiming to have them, but they wanted to sell all or none. There was no way I could recover my costs trying to sell that many. It also smelled somewhat like BS that they'd have than many caddies. Who knows?

After the Trek 2 Micron switched to mostly selling Samsung made laptops such as the LT, SX GX and etc. They also sold a 15" LCD Chicony MP989 as their Transport NX. That machine was a beast - it could have several batteries, several hard drives, CD/DVD plus various other drives like ZIP drives. All swapping into three drive bays or internal.
 
I've got some extremely basic Micron info up here: https://macdat.net/pc/micron_home.html
No dedicated pages yet though. Will get to that when I get to that.

DeltaDon said:
3lectric, FYI the Green 753+ looks exactly like the Green 753. It differs from the outside only with having a barrel jack for input. Same plastics, same drives, same everything else with the case. Same photo can be used.
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I'm usually a huge stickler about using 100% correct images, even in cases where two laptops look the same. I should probably just get over that here and put the regular Green753 photo up until I get one of a 753+. I've seen both on eBay, they really are identical.

DeltaDon said:
The Green 756 was sold as the Micron VLX+ with socket 7 CPU's and I think (must pull out and check) as the Micron Trek with AMD K6 CPUs.
Click to expand...
Is that the only difference between the VLX+ and the Trek? I was confused on why Micron seemingly sold the same laptop under two names. I knew both were G756s and that the VLX non-plus was a 755, but not the difference between the VLX+ and Trek. Micron had very little info up about the Trek 1.

DeltaDon said:
The Micron Trek 2 was also from Alpha-Top and had spec's updated during production from PII CPU's to PIII's. Various Micron SKU numbers ID which Trek 2 version is what. I needed to do more research on what Green model number(s) or even P/N's that might be found on the various PCB's, but never got time to do so before shutting down my business.
Click to expand...
Orphanlaptops says Green760 and Green790, definitely unclear right now though. I'm also trying to get the documentation for the Ready 400T pulled from archived NEC sites, but it seems the Versa and Ready laptops were done by two different divisions so I've got to find a different section on the site. I have the Versa documentation all bookmarked...

DeltaDon said:
After the Trek 2 Micron switched to mostly selling Samsung made laptops such as the LT, SX GX and etc.
Click to expand...
I haven't confirmed this yet, but I think most of the later Transport laptops were Samsungs, which is GREAT news as Samsung themselves didn't sell their laptops in the US during that time, and they made some cool stuff. I think I'd like to pick up some of those Samsung MPC laptops at some point, they're pretty neat looking.
Here's a quick infodump on Micron ODMs:
original Millenia Transport and the Transport XPE were made by Sanyo, and I think the XKE was too. The VLX, VLX+/enhanced, Trek, Trek II were all Alpha-Top. The NX as you've said was a Chicony, then most of their later ones were Samsung. I saw at least one photo of one that was clearly a Mitac MiNote 8080 (same laptop as the WinBook C100 Series) so they sold from more than just Samsung at the time.
Last laptops MPC "made" were Gateways. Specifically, the ones that have model numbers starting in "E-xxx" and "M-xxx". These confuse me a LOT. They're literally Gateway laptops, with Gateway branding, that ALSO have the MPC logo on the top. That was then they were months from bankruptcy so I guess it was an attempt made in desperation more than anything else.

DeltaDon said:
They also sold a 15" LCD Chicony MP989 as their Transport NX. That machine was a beast - it could have several batteries, several hard drives, CD/DVD plus various other drives like ZIP drives. All swapping into three drive bays or internal.
Click to expand...
I think that one's going to have to go on "the list" then... sounds pretty sweet.
 
I don't know who made the NEC Ready 120T. I never saw any of them back then.

The Micron LT, ZX GX and others all had the Samsung center pin coaxial adapter jacks. I have several ZX and LT's in my stack. I will need to dig them out and see if I can find signs of Samsung logo's on the PCB's or other parts.

The Micron Tansport NX was a MP989 with black paint, all had 15" LCD's plus they had a special keyboard with a pointer embedded into it like found on IBM's and others. So the PCB was special. The generic MP989 was an updated MMC2 CPU model of the earlier MP979 (MMC1 PII) and which in turn was a sister model to the Socket 7 MP978. All 3 MP's share the same plug-in drive modules and batteries. There was reportly a MP999 (P3) sold in Europe, but I never got my hands on one. I don't know if it was just a BIOS change or a new PCB again. Note: when new keyboards for the NX ran out I found that the MP978/979 keyboard (no pointer) keyboards could be used, but the MP989 generic keyboards would not work. The generic MP978-989's came with LCD's from 12"s to 15"s.

I have boxes of parts for the Chicony MP993 and MP995's which didn't sell for long in the USA and I have only seen one or two ever in my hands. Flops or just too little too late? Chicony ended production of all laptops about this time. They sold huge quantities of their earrlier MP973 and MP983's, but seem to have less success with the later models.

I had had the MP983 BIOS modified to use the AMD K6-2+ (and 3+) CPU's (limited to 400 MHz) and tweaked the FSB from 66MHz to 72MHz (435 MHz CPU) on a couple of them too. The AMD K6-2+/3+ was a ODM only CPU that was found on the gray market and that pushed the boundaries of the Socket 7 to PII levels plus was a speed step low power mobile CPU. Battery life of the MP983 was maybe up to 6 hours vs. 2 with Intel or AMD "normal" Socket 7 CPU's. They ran DVD's with ease, but needed Margi Cards.

Note: the Kapok 8500P BIOS also could be updated to use 66MHZ P3 CPU's from the MMC2 PII's found in many 8500P's. So maybe the MP999 was just a BIOS flashed MP989? Not so, with the earlier 8500C's or M's. The 8500V's all had P3's, I believe. The Kapok 8500's were huge in case you've never seen one. Keyboards with numeral keypads on the right hand side.

Winbook sold several Mitac laptops after the J4's. Mitac (Getac) was one ODM that I could buy parts from, but they never made it easy.

Twinhead was even harder to deal with and I had a competitor/friend that was able to buy Twinhead parts and we would help each other out when I could get Clevo parts he needed and he'd get me Twinhead parts. Most ODM's didn't want to do business with independant repair people and limited their dealings to just a few of us. It took developing a relationship over time to get a foot in the door.

I believe the Gateway laptops were made by Packard Bell or used the ODM that P.B. used too. I don't know which Taiwanese ODM was used. Packard Bell ended up buying Gateway at some point. I have a couple Gateways and IMHO many were well built machines. There's was a person/company in Escondido, CA that had control of parts for Gateway laptops. He had just about anything either new or pulls, but again was hard to pin down with getting knowledge and or more than a hands off relationship with.

I do know Dell and Gateway used ODM's to make their laptops. As I said above I don't know Gateway's ODM. Quanta made Dell laptops for decades. Quanta sold the same or generic versions of the Dell laptops to several small local OEM's such as Brick Computers in the Boston area. I could get Quanta parts from Brick and they had a great FTP database of manuals & drivers before they shutdown. Not saved on the wayback machine, it seems.
 
DeltaDon said:
I don't know who made the NEC Ready 120T. I never saw any of them back then.
Click to expand...
120T I'm pretty sure is that weird tiny micro-notebook. They may have made that one themselves, not sure. There's no FCC ID on the bottom so i can't find that out. You had wrote on orphanlaptops that the 400T was the same Alpha-Top ODM laptop as the Trek 2 which is why I'm curious about that one.
DeltaDon said:
Winbook sold several Mitac laptops after the J4's. Mitac (Getac) was one ODM that I could buy parts from, but they never made it easy.
Click to expand...
And after Mitac the last ones they sold were made by ASUS. Those and the Mitac ones both have the Mitac/ASUS model number on them so they're easy to ID.
DeltaDon said:
I believe the Gateway laptops were made by Packard Bell or used the ODM that P.B. used too. I don't know which Taiwanese ODM was used. Packard Bell ended up buying Gateway at some point. I have a couple Gateways and IMHO many were well built machines. There's was a person/company in Escondido, CA that had control of parts for Gateway laptops. He had just about anything either new or pulls, but again was hard to pin down with getting knowledge and or more than a hands off relationship with.
Click to expand...
Packard Bell got bought out by NEC, and then eventually was sold to Acer, who also bought Gateway, so that's where the connection lies there. I believe most Gateway laptops were 100% custom, although some were made through ODMs. The Solo 2100 was a Quanta machine and resembles the WinBook FX, XP5 Pro, AST Ascentia P, and other Quanta laptops from around that time. The Gateway Colorbooks were made for Gateway by Citizen, who also made the LTE Lites for Compaq. Not sure about any of the other Gateway laptops.
Packard Bell sold the Green753 just as the Green753, not with any rebadging or anything, and they also sold one of the Zenith laptops as the Statesman back in the earlier half of the 90s. Haven't done any other research into them yet, but I'll bet all their laptops were ODM'd.
DeltaDon said:
I do know Dell and Gateway used ODM's to make their laptops. As I said above I don't know Gateway's ODM. Quanta made Dell laptops for decades. Quanta sold the same or generic versions of the Dell laptops to several small local OEM's such as Brick Computers in the Boston area. I could get Quanta parts from Brick and they had a great FTP database of manuals & drivers before they shutdown. Not saved on the wayback machine, it seems.
Click to expand...
The WinBook N4 was based off the same laptop that Dell used for the Inspiron 2600 and a couple others. I'm pretty sure Compal made that one but I'm not positive. Of course there's also the Latitude LM/WinBook LM which were both the same Compal machine (TS30G).
 
You just unintentionally solved a mystery!
1706648921442.jpeg
I've been trying to ID this super generic laptop that the admin on BetaArchive had back in 2006, he didn't remember what it was either.
Best he had of a logo was this:
1706648960516.jpeg
I had managed to find that AMS sold the same laptop as the Travelpro 1900, but not which company sold this one.


ergo.PNG
And won't you look at that. Also, somewhat surprising to see they were still using an image of what looks to be a Green753 in 2004 still right on their homepage...
Now to ID which one this was.

Also, I swear that Brick had the worst model names of any computer company. Who on earth hears a name like "NoteBrick" and then wants to buy one. Maybe in the mid 90s when everything was brick-sized then that would be ok, but by the 2000s when thin became the game, I can't imagine their brand did them much good. That also probably led to the somewhat humorous "ThinBrick" laptop (which was a Green755). No wonder they went defunct. They should have stuck with Ergo instead.

In any case, they're another one for the list of OEMs to process through and document.
 
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And, found it. Ergo Triathalon. Not a bad name actually, should have dropped the "brick" thing.

Ergo Evolution

web.archive.org

Likely match for the ODM is Flextronics International, one I know nothing about. I do feel like I've heard the name pop up before.
1706650085591.png
 
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DeltaDon said:
No pictures, but lots of data: https://www.computer-specifications.com/Specs.html
Click to expand...
I’ve seen that site before. I highly suspect a lot of it is auto-generated and may be full of errors. At the very least, I don’t really trust it to be accurate.

In other news, this happened to my Green753 the other day.
IMG_6854.jpeg
And oh the plastic crumbles. I’ll have to see what I can do to reinforce this. It happened suddenly - it wasn’t there, then it was, after one hinge actuation. Next time I open it, it’s gonna have to stay open until I work up the nerve to take it apart.
 
Work very slowly and gently at removing the bezel. there's a screw behind each of the rubber plugs near the hinges, none under the top two - so they don't need pulling. Then GENTLY, as in defusing a bomb gently, pry up the bezel from the LCD side and work a spudger in if necessary to pop the bezel from what ever area seems to loosen up first. Most likely many of the locating tabs/ears will crack. Can't do anything to prevent that. Support the lid assembly by putting it down and the laptop body facing up (90 degs) so the lid has as little as possible strain on the hinge areas. Hopefully the two hidden screws that hold the two hinges to the lid are still holding and the plastic standoffs haven't broken free. In any case sand the area on the inner side of the lid and epoxy the heck out of the area. If you can add fiberglass mess or even left over window screen to the epoxy that will help in reinforcing the lid and/or bezel. Spare parts are not available so treat as carefully as possible. You can use a wrench on the hinge nut to reduce the force necessary to move the LCD assembly in the future. Lots of epoxy is the only hope to save the plastics. I've tied MEK and recently tried polycarbonate cement and none have melted (welded) the plastics well enough to solve the cracking issue.
 
That's the plan - I'm doubtful it will actually work though. I haven't had great luck with epoxy reinforcing in the past. In my experience it can slow down the rate of progression in the cracking but doesn't eliminate it. I pooled a load of plastic epoxy in the housing on my WinBook XL, infamous for doing this same failure, and it HAS slowed down the rate of cracking, but cracks are still forming. I wish I had been able to catch the crack when it just started to improve my chances, but I think it went from perfect to the state it is now with just one hinge cycle. It may end up requiring an "ugly" fix, that is, epoxy on the outside too. Will probably work much better, but won't look nice. I'm fine with doing that, but it is a bit of shame to do it to something in NOS condition. That's just how it goes though, I knew what I was signing up for :)
 
Site update out today adds new Alpha-Top content.

- Dedicated pages for the Green740 with additional info
- Green751 drivers and latest BIOS
- Additional Green753 drivers and BIOS updates

More Alpha-Top drivers to follow.
 
Here's a video I just finished chronicling the Green751 repair saga I went through. I still don't have the darn thing working reliably, BUT I did notice there's a second through hole clock crystal on the other side of the motherboard, hidden under the PCMCIA controller card. Next step is going to be swapping that crystal between boards.
 
I looked a bit into Maxtech (GVC's US distributor) and found a few old reviews in magazines, including one for the Green740 and one for the Green751. This uncovered a couple pieces of new info that I'll be adding in the next site update.

- Both the 740 and the 751 had a TrackPoint option available
- The Green740's sound card actually isn't built-in, it was a module that went in place of the floppy drive. The sound module included a connector to attach the floppy drive externally. This is kind of a bummer as that sound module is likely unobtainium ($189 option), which puts a bit of a damper on the Green740's ability to be a great DOS-gaming laptop.
- The Green740 modular bay can also hold a second battery.

You can also add HyperData to the list of companies that sold the Green740, found it on their old website.
There is also a small chance that it could have released in 1994 outside of the US. It didn't pass FCC until 1995, and actually after the Green751 released, so it wasn't for sale before that in America, but I do think there's a chance it could have been an older design than the Green751 given its design and may have been sold elsewhere in the world prior (like in Eastern Europe). There's a high chance this is incorrect though.

Alphatop's archived website does say (translated): "In October 1983, cash capital was increased to NT$60 million in capital.Launched the first 486 notebook computer."
The date conversion is wrong, as it goes by Taiwan's calendar. When converted properly, that is October 1994.
 
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