DeltaDon
Veteran Member
A bunch of older Dell laptops were made by Compal. Some are same as generic models, but with custom plastics and keyboards. Might still be using them for one of their ODM's, don't know.
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MacDat Vintage Laptop Documentation Project - Main Thread
- Thread starter 3lectr1c
- Start date
Dell is totally still using Compal for manufacturing, I believe they handle a lot of the Inspirons, and have since the beginning.
Dell Latitude LM = Compal TS30G Series
Dell Inspiron 3000 and 3200 = Compal TS30H
Dell Inspiron 3500 = TS30T
The Inspiron 5000, 7000, and 7500 were also generic Compal-based but I don't have the specific model numbers on hand.
Dell Latitude LM = Compal TS30G Series
Dell Inspiron 3000 and 3200 = Compal TS30H
Dell Inspiron 3500 = TS30T
The Inspiron 5000, 7000, and 7500 were also generic Compal-based but I don't have the specific model numbers on hand.
Been a while since I've updated here! Site updates haven't stopped or anything - far from it. I just stopped listing out each new page here.
I'm giving an update today because I just got a big new site feature out a few days ago - PHP and SQL powered search functionality!
All laptop specs are now stored in a MySQL database, and there's a new page that lets you do searches to more easily find things. Each laptop links back to the dedicated page on said laptop for more info. This should make things a lot easier to develop, and to browse in the long-term.
As for new content - there's been a ton of it since the last list I gave. Here's what the brand list currently looks like:
For more info on the new back-end update, I did a writeup here: https://macdat.net/extras/sqlpr.html
More to come in the near future!
I'm giving an update today because I just got a big new site feature out a few days ago - PHP and SQL powered search functionality!
All laptop specs are now stored in a MySQL database, and there's a new page that lets you do searches to more easily find things. Each laptop links back to the dedicated page on said laptop for more info. This should make things a lot easier to develop, and to browse in the long-term.
As for new content - there's been a ton of it since the last list I gave. Here's what the brand list currently looks like:
For more info on the new back-end update, I did a writeup here: https://macdat.net/extras/sqlpr.html
More to come in the near future!
Big new update out today - lots and lots of new models documented.
Site Source Downloads, which have been temporarily unavailable since the November update are now restored. The caveat being that you now must set up local PHP and SQL servers in order to run the site offline.
macdat.net
Site Source DL - MacDat
macdat.net
I pushed out a new site update today. Here's the highlights:
Advanced Search
You can now perform custom searches of the laptop database using any combination of specifications.
Images in search results
Search results now display a 150px wide image of the laptop (unless I don't have a suitable photo)
New Content
Two new sections have been added, both for ODM brands - Arima Computer Corporation and Veridata. In addition to this, there's been a lot of new laptops documented in existing sections, including those for IBM (all ThinkPads from before the A/T/R/X series now have pages!), Dell, Dual, MiTAC, HP, Dell, Chicony, ECS, Compaq, Kapok, Compal, and more.
Brand List Filtering
On the Laptop Portal homepage, you can now select between displaying a list of all brands (default), or a list just showing ODMs, or a list just showing vendors/resellers.
ODM Brand List
Vendor/Reseller List (More to be added here soon)
Company Info Tables
I'm beginning to add wiki-style info tables to brand pages. Not all the pages have them yet, but they all should by the next update. Here's a few that are up now.
I'm pretty happy with the state of the site going into the new year! I can't wait to see where we'll be in 2026.
As always, a big thank you goes out to everyone that has contributed info and photos to help with the project.
3lectr1c
Advanced Search
You can now perform custom searches of the laptop database using any combination of specifications.
Images in search results
Search results now display a 150px wide image of the laptop (unless I don't have a suitable photo)
New Content
Two new sections have been added, both for ODM brands - Arima Computer Corporation and Veridata. In addition to this, there's been a lot of new laptops documented in existing sections, including those for IBM (all ThinkPads from before the A/T/R/X series now have pages!), Dell, Dual, MiTAC, HP, Dell, Chicony, ECS, Compaq, Kapok, Compal, and more.
Brand List Filtering
On the Laptop Portal homepage, you can now select between displaying a list of all brands (default), or a list just showing ODMs, or a list just showing vendors/resellers.
ODM Brand List
Vendor/Reseller List (More to be added here soon)
Company Info Tables
I'm beginning to add wiki-style info tables to brand pages. Not all the pages have them yet, but they all should by the next update. Here's a few that are up now.
I'm pretty happy with the state of the site going into the new year! I can't wait to see where we'll be in 2026.
As always, a big thank you goes out to everyone that has contributed info and photos to help with the project.
3lectr1c
Attachments
I just got the February monthly site update live, here's what's new!
Vintage Laptop Print Ad Database
I search through a lot of archived computer magazines to look for information for the site, and have been saving a lot of print advertisements along the way - over 500 of them as of right now. So, I decided that the best way to sort through them all is to put them all in a searchable database. Here's what it looks like:
You can choose to list all print ads from a brand, or you can search by the name of a laptop. You can see that it will also list the original/ODM model of a laptop if the one in the ad is a rebadge - and the search checks both fields, so you can search by an ODM brand or model to get a list of all print ads that show it, from all the brands that sold it. I think it's pretty neat!
Right now the database has around 150 print ads in it. I will continue adding more in future site updates.
Here's the link: https://www.macdat.net/database/search_printads.php
Oh, and another thing - the database accepts GET commands in the URL. So for example, https://www.macdat.net/database/search_printads.php?search=Nan Tan 9200 will return all print ads featuring the Nan Tan 9200. This means that now instead of hard-coding image URLs of print ads onto laptop pages, I can just put on link instead that will pull up each print ad from the database that shows that model!
Laptop pages with multi-model tables can now pull from the database
This was one of the features that I didn't have ready yet when I got the initial SQL update out last year. Laptop pages that covered one single model pulled their specifications from the database, but pages on multiple models (for example, the Compaq LTE Elite Series page) did not, as automatically assembling a multi-model table was a lot trickier, so I left it for later. Well, I finally wrote the code to do that, so I've been updating those remaining pages to php. Yes, this means the old links for those pages will break as they have been changed from .html to .php. Unfortunate, but there's really no way around this. It needed to be done, as now when I update a specification in the database, the laptop's page will automatically update with it, whereas before I'd have to change it both in the database and on the page.
Not all of these multi-model pages have been updated yet, but they will be within the next couple months.
I've also done a bunch of other back-end stuff to make the site and code easier to update in the future (moving the spec table generating code into a template file, database restructuring, etc).
The above table was auto-generated from the database.
TONS of new documentation on Dual Technology Corporation
Dual was one of the 90s-era Taiwan ODMs, and one with exceedingly little online documentation prior to now. I'm actually really proud of how much info I have been able to dig up on them after many hours of research. The vast majority of what's in the Dual section now was nowhere to be found on the surface web before. A good amount of info was found on Dual's main taiwan website on the Wayback machine, but a ton of it came from dual.com.au, the website of their Australian branch. I almost completely missed this information because their homepage was broken on the wayback machine capture. I almost passed it up before deciding to dig through the source code to find a link to a functioning page, which revealed the rest of the site had been archived. The support pages there had a treasure trove of information on their SKD and PMD/PentiMedia series laptops.
I'd totally recommend checking the Dual section out - they made a ton of really interesting laptops. A laptop from 1993 with an option bay that could fit everything from a trackball to an ethernet card? Check! A laptop from 1998 with a built-in webcam? Check! And it goes on really. I'm still missing a ton of info on Dual's laptops mind you, but I've also found way more on them then I thought I would, so hey, glass half full.
More ODM Laptop Documentation
This update also brings a new section on Modern Computer Corp, an extremely obscure ODM from the early 90s. They're behind the NoteStar and Walkom "NP" series laptops, are likely the basis behind Sager still starting all their model numbers with "NP" to this day, and are frequently confused for being MSI, even though they aren't. They *did* change their name to Microstar Computer Corp at some point, but they were completely unrelated to MicroStar International, despite both being computer companies from Taiwan.
I've also got more documentation up on laptops from Arima, MiTAC, Compal, Clevo, FIC, and more. There's also now a (very empty) section on Chaplet Systems which I will be expanding in the near future.
As always, you can see a full changelog at https://www.macdat.net/extras/revhistory.html
More to come! Stay tuned.
Vintage Laptop Print Ad Database
I search through a lot of archived computer magazines to look for information for the site, and have been saving a lot of print advertisements along the way - over 500 of them as of right now. So, I decided that the best way to sort through them all is to put them all in a searchable database. Here's what it looks like:
You can choose to list all print ads from a brand, or you can search by the name of a laptop. You can see that it will also list the original/ODM model of a laptop if the one in the ad is a rebadge - and the search checks both fields, so you can search by an ODM brand or model to get a list of all print ads that show it, from all the brands that sold it. I think it's pretty neat!
Right now the database has around 150 print ads in it. I will continue adding more in future site updates.
Here's the link: https://www.macdat.net/database/search_printads.php
Oh, and another thing - the database accepts GET commands in the URL. So for example, https://www.macdat.net/database/search_printads.php?search=Nan Tan 9200 will return all print ads featuring the Nan Tan 9200. This means that now instead of hard-coding image URLs of print ads onto laptop pages, I can just put on link instead that will pull up each print ad from the database that shows that model!
Laptop pages with multi-model tables can now pull from the database
This was one of the features that I didn't have ready yet when I got the initial SQL update out last year. Laptop pages that covered one single model pulled their specifications from the database, but pages on multiple models (for example, the Compaq LTE Elite Series page) did not, as automatically assembling a multi-model table was a lot trickier, so I left it for later. Well, I finally wrote the code to do that, so I've been updating those remaining pages to php. Yes, this means the old links for those pages will break as they have been changed from .html to .php. Unfortunate, but there's really no way around this. It needed to be done, as now when I update a specification in the database, the laptop's page will automatically update with it, whereas before I'd have to change it both in the database and on the page.
Not all of these multi-model pages have been updated yet, but they will be within the next couple months.
I've also done a bunch of other back-end stuff to make the site and code easier to update in the future (moving the spec table generating code into a template file, database restructuring, etc).
The above table was auto-generated from the database.
TONS of new documentation on Dual Technology Corporation
Dual was one of the 90s-era Taiwan ODMs, and one with exceedingly little online documentation prior to now. I'm actually really proud of how much info I have been able to dig up on them after many hours of research. The vast majority of what's in the Dual section now was nowhere to be found on the surface web before. A good amount of info was found on Dual's main taiwan website on the Wayback machine, but a ton of it came from dual.com.au, the website of their Australian branch. I almost completely missed this information because their homepage was broken on the wayback machine capture. I almost passed it up before deciding to dig through the source code to find a link to a functioning page, which revealed the rest of the site had been archived. The support pages there had a treasure trove of information on their SKD and PMD/PentiMedia series laptops.
I'd totally recommend checking the Dual section out - they made a ton of really interesting laptops. A laptop from 1993 with an option bay that could fit everything from a trackball to an ethernet card? Check! A laptop from 1998 with a built-in webcam? Check! And it goes on really. I'm still missing a ton of info on Dual's laptops mind you, but I've also found way more on them then I thought I would, so hey, glass half full.
More ODM Laptop Documentation
This update also brings a new section on Modern Computer Corp, an extremely obscure ODM from the early 90s. They're behind the NoteStar and Walkom "NP" series laptops, are likely the basis behind Sager still starting all their model numbers with "NP" to this day, and are frequently confused for being MSI, even though they aren't. They *did* change their name to Microstar Computer Corp at some point, but they were completely unrelated to MicroStar International, despite both being computer companies from Taiwan.
I've also got more documentation up on laptops from Arima, MiTAC, Compal, Clevo, FIC, and more. There's also now a (very empty) section on Chaplet Systems which I will be expanding in the near future.
As always, you can see a full changelog at https://www.macdat.net/extras/revhistory.html
More to come! Stay tuned.
This month's update went live tonight. Here's what's new:
This year's goal: Add as many models as possible to the database
I want it to be the case that you can search any laptop model name that you find into the database, and it will at least show up - even if there's no specsheet yet. This update added a total of 408 new laptop models to the database. Many of these are just the model name, release year, and maybe a photo - no specs yet, but 143 new specsheets were also added with this update. This brings us to a total of 1810 laptops in the database, with 1208 of those having specsheets!
Large expansion of the MiTAC section
I found that there was one schematics/manuals site who had the missing MiTAC laptop service manuals up - they were on MiTAC's FTP site in the 2000s, but that's long gone. The catch is that they were charging money for each manual - I took the hit so they can be preserved. Beyond preserving the documentation itself, this was also the only available source of specifications on many obscure MiTAC models. Most of what was on that site is now archived both on MacDat and on archive.org as a second source. I can now say that the MiTAC model list on the site is now basically complete up through 2004 or so.
macdat.net
Info on increasingly tiny ODMs
If you thought Dual or Featron was obscure, then buckle in! Ever heard of Spica? Seritech? K.S. Brotherbox? Probably not - but I've managed to dig up info on their laptops, which I'm now working on adding to the database. Spica has a dedicated section on the site now: https://macdat.net/laptops/spica_home.html
The other two don't have sections yet, but their laptops have been added to the database. You can find their specs using the search page.
There are still more ODMs to be documented - the smaller you get, the more of them there seem to be.
Dell documentation is now "complete"
This is a big feat that I'm very proud of - every single Dell laptop released between 1990 and 2007 now has a page on the site, with specifications, photos, and other info included. All of them! Of course, there are "unknowns" left in some specsheets, and nothing is ever truly complete, but it's darn near close.
More documentation on other big brands
Every single Gateway laptop from the Nomad to the last Gateway Solo has been documented now. That's all their models from 1992 through 2001!
I'm also continuing work on HP - this update includes specs on a lot more of the OmniBooks, with more to come soon.
Every single Pre-Pentium Toshiba laptop except for the T6400 now has specs in the database as well! I've also got new documentation on Pentium and newer models up, with much more to come.
New sections on AMS Tech, AT&T
AMS Tech, a vendor/reseller that sold a large number of ODM laptops, now has a dedicated section on the site. Building a model list for them took hours due to how many laptops they sold. It still isn't complete, but it's the most complete (and only) list of their laptops that you'll be able to find online.
macdat.net
AT&T, who sold some rebranded Panasonic, NEC, and Samsung laptops, also now has its own section: https://macdat.net/laptops/at&t_home.html
Those are the highlights for this month. Of course, there were little updates and new models added to just about every brand, but what's above are all the major changes.
A big thank you goes out to all of those who have sent me information, photos, and otherwise helped to document laptops! And as always, more to come soon.
- Starlite/3lectr1c
This year's goal: Add as many models as possible to the database
I want it to be the case that you can search any laptop model name that you find into the database, and it will at least show up - even if there's no specsheet yet. This update added a total of 408 new laptop models to the database. Many of these are just the model name, release year, and maybe a photo - no specs yet, but 143 new specsheets were also added with this update. This brings us to a total of 1810 laptops in the database, with 1208 of those having specsheets!
Large expansion of the MiTAC section
I found that there was one schematics/manuals site who had the missing MiTAC laptop service manuals up - they were on MiTAC's FTP site in the 2000s, but that's long gone. The catch is that they were charging money for each manual - I took the hit so they can be preserved. Beyond preserving the documentation itself, this was also the only available source of specifications on many obscure MiTAC models. Most of what was on that site is now archived both on MacDat and on archive.org as a second source. I can now say that the MiTAC model list on the site is now basically complete up through 2004 or so.
MiTAC Laptop Database - MacDat
MacDat's information repository for laptops manufactured by MiTAC. Documentation, specifications, and more!
macdat.net
Info on increasingly tiny ODMs
If you thought Dual or Featron was obscure, then buckle in! Ever heard of Spica? Seritech? K.S. Brotherbox? Probably not - but I've managed to dig up info on their laptops, which I'm now working on adding to the database. Spica has a dedicated section on the site now: https://macdat.net/laptops/spica_home.html
The other two don't have sections yet, but their laptops have been added to the database. You can find their specs using the search page.
There are still more ODMs to be documented - the smaller you get, the more of them there seem to be.
Dell documentation is now "complete"
This is a big feat that I'm very proud of - every single Dell laptop released between 1990 and 2007 now has a page on the site, with specifications, photos, and other info included. All of them! Of course, there are "unknowns" left in some specsheets, and nothing is ever truly complete, but it's darn near close.
More documentation on other big brands
Every single Gateway laptop from the Nomad to the last Gateway Solo has been documented now. That's all their models from 1992 through 2001!
I'm also continuing work on HP - this update includes specs on a lot more of the OmniBooks, with more to come soon.
Every single Pre-Pentium Toshiba laptop except for the T6400 now has specs in the database as well! I've also got new documentation on Pentium and newer models up, with much more to come.
New sections on AMS Tech, AT&T
AMS Tech, a vendor/reseller that sold a large number of ODM laptops, now has a dedicated section on the site. Building a model list for them took hours due to how many laptops they sold. It still isn't complete, but it's the most complete (and only) list of their laptops that you'll be able to find online.
AMS Tech - MacDat
MacDat's information repository for laptops sold by AMS Tech. Documentation, specifications, and more!
macdat.net
AT&T, who sold some rebranded Panasonic, NEC, and Samsung laptops, also now has its own section: https://macdat.net/laptops/at&t_home.html
Those are the highlights for this month. Of course, there were little updates and new models added to just about every brand, but what's above are all the major changes.
A big thank you goes out to all of those who have sent me information, photos, and otherwise helped to document laptops! And as always, more to come soon.
- Starlite/3lectr1c
The June site update is now live! May got skipped as I was busy with half a dozen other things, but rest assured, there's still a lot of new stuff in this update.
Laptop Database Updates:
279 new laptop models have been added to the database, along with 189 new laptop specsheets! This brings the total number of models to 2089, and the total with specsheets to 1397. The number of PDFs available has also broken the 1000 mark!
Uniwill and Sager now have dedicated sections on the site. The largest content additions of this update were to the Clevo and IBM sections. Most of Clevo's laptops through 2001 now have specsheets in the database, and the IBM section is nearly complete. The only missing specs are for some of the several dozen i Series models, and a few of the Japan-exclusive PS/55 note models.
New Features:
Search version 1.4 adds company overviews when viewing all laptops from a brand:
Around half the brands have them right now.
The advanced search page now lets you pick between a range for release years and maximum RAM. I hope to eventually get the same working for the display size, but that will be trickier.
Finally, the comparison page now shows the thumbnail image of each laptop, just like the search pages do.
Driver Database:
I am beginning early work on a driver database. The basic viewer is already fully usable, there just aren't very many drivers available for download yet. Most download links will go through archive.org.
The viewer page takes brand and model parameters via the URL, so the drivers for a laptop can be directly linked from other pages on MacDat, or elsewhere.
That's all for this month! More to come in July.
Laptop Database Updates:
279 new laptop models have been added to the database, along with 189 new laptop specsheets! This brings the total number of models to 2089, and the total with specsheets to 1397. The number of PDFs available has also broken the 1000 mark!
Uniwill and Sager now have dedicated sections on the site. The largest content additions of this update were to the Clevo and IBM sections. Most of Clevo's laptops through 2001 now have specsheets in the database, and the IBM section is nearly complete. The only missing specs are for some of the several dozen i Series models, and a few of the Japan-exclusive PS/55 note models.
New Features:
Search version 1.4 adds company overviews when viewing all laptops from a brand:
Around half the brands have them right now.
The advanced search page now lets you pick between a range for release years and maximum RAM. I hope to eventually get the same working for the display size, but that will be trickier.
Finally, the comparison page now shows the thumbnail image of each laptop, just like the search pages do.
Driver Database:
I am beginning early work on a driver database. The basic viewer is already fully usable, there just aren't very many drivers available for download yet. Most download links will go through archive.org.
The viewer page takes brand and model parameters via the URL, so the drivers for a laptop can be directly linked from other pages on MacDat, or elsewhere.
That's all for this month! More to come in July.