Did clone maker Vertegri Research ever ship?

[Dt990]

On reddit someone brought up an old internet mystery, Vertegri Research. I recall years ago on some likely now defunct forum, perhaps XLR8yourmac or elsewhere that someone stated that Vertegri Research never made it beyond prototype or demo units and folded before actually shipping units.

Has anyone here even seen any model in person, let alone touch them? Did they even exist?

EveryMac Listing.

CNET on their luggable laptops.

Paul Gossen profile on Amazon, founder of Vertegri Research and linkedin. Earliest resume for the dude, mentions a first production run which confirms said post.


Archive.org site

Vertegri Research Home Page

Later archive

Untitled Document

Vertegri ImediaEngine

web.archive.org

Mention of Vertegri in MacUser June 1997

MacUser June 1997 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

MacUser June 1997

archive.org

I couldn't find any reviews or anything about anyone actually owning one.

 

[AlumaMac]

Hmm, I do not remember this company at all but nice design (except for the no battery in the laptop, maybe if Apple had gone that route they might of actually shipped a Powerbook G5 😂)

You might also try tracking down Dan Jackson (Senior Industrial Design) and Paul Preto (Senior Hardware Engineer) to see if they can shed any light.

ETA:

There are also mentioned in Macworld December 1997 in the article "Motorola, IBM Drop Mac Clones, the licensing experiment is officially over". Just mentions that Vertegri would still be receiving hardware from Motorola while supplies lasted.

 

[Dt990]

Hmm, I do not remember this company at all

Me either, family had a PowerComputing PowerCenter thus was pretty interested in clones. I wasn't aware of them until long after they were dead, and even then it was only because someone asked about their laptop and someone else said it never shipped. I promptly forgot about them probably for a decade and change until it came up on Reddit and I had a "memory unlocked" a PNW Canadian company that supposedly made clones that never shipped.

Not sure I'm invested enough to ping the people involved or not. It'd be fun to do a short YouTube documentary, and fitting for my small channel but would require more effort than my usual fair of messing with hardware.