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DELIGHTED to say that my latest tech history column is live on Every and they've made this one free-to-read.
Because it covers one of the most overlooked founders of the golden age of computing: Lore Harp McGovern, founder of Vector Graphic who pioneered small/medium business computing.
She deserves to be better known. Certainly deserves more than a single paragraph on Wikipedia. Read and spread the word #computing #history https://every.to/the-crazy-ones/the-woman-that-tech-history-forgot
@garius thanks for writing this! Great story.
@garius Thanks for sharing this! It's great to get rid of one more blind spot. 
@garius great story, brilliant and insightful.
I'm inclined to differ on your description as Jobs as one of the winners of the era - Apple in the late 80s was pretty much crippled, only saved by a tiny minority of obsessive users and enough finance to limp through the 90s and make it to the iPod boom, which IMO was what made Apple the company it is now.
@Geoff survival was a win in that era.
But I agree that the margins were so thin once IBM rolled into town.
There are definitely timelines out there where it was Apple that went under and Osborne or Vector who survived.
And it's why i get annoyed when people cast Apple's survival as inevitable. it really wasn't.
@garius brilliant! Also I harvested a bit of karma from this on HN 
@adrianhon I don't even want to know what the HN comments are like
@garius @adrianhon pretty civil so far for the orange site.
@cricalix @adrianhon i am pleasantly surprised!
Cool story!
Of course, even if Vector Graphic had made all the correct decisions, that still wouldn't have necessarily led to success. It was a tough business.
In particular, MS-DOS compatibility was a whole different ball game than CP/M compatibility. With CP/M, partial compatibility was standard.
But that's not something most business customers were eager to wade into. So, MS-DOS compatibility wasn't enough - full IBM PC compatibility was needed ... that was non-trivial ...
@isaackuo yeah. it's why i don't think their decision to stick with CP/M was necessarily the wrong one AT THE TIME.
Hindsight is 20/20
I think a lot of people don't realise just how TOTAL IBM's blitz of the business computing - and then home computing markets was.
The path to survivability for Vector was very small once IBM showed up, but they definitely shot themselves in the foot a couple of times to make their chances of survival even worse.
Well people sure remember how badly their home computing blitz went. It was truly ironic how the PCjr was doomed by partial PC compatibility.
Of course, LOTS of computer makers shot themselves in the foot crippling a lower price product to avoid undercutting their own higher priced product.