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I've got to admit that this week the passing of Adam Osborne made me feel just a little older and more mortal.

Who was Adam Osborne?

Well just over 20 years ago when Ozzie Osbourne (note the spelling) was still young and neither Jack nor Kelly Osbourne had even been conceived, Adam Osborne began selling a product which changed the face of personal computing.

I refer to the Osborne Portable microcomputer.

Although it only had two 100KB floppy drives, a tiny monochrome screen, a wimpy 8-bit processor, just 64KB of RAM and the clunky CP/M operating system, the Osborne had two very compelling features:

First, it was cheap -- dead cheap.

At a time when similar CP/M computer systems were selling for around $5,000 the Osborne hit the market at less than $2,000. That meant it was the first really affordable disk-based microcomputer.

Secondly, it came with a whole heap of bundled software including what was at the time the world's leading word-processor: WordStar.

Readers Say (updated irregularly) The Osborne Computer... - Steve Osbornes... - Ian Ultimate Geek Toy... - Barry Thanks for that... - Kane From Yesterday... Geek stuff... - Vincent geek toys... - Don geek toys... - azza Geek stuff... - Ian Have Your Say

Now, instead of struggling to cobble together various bits of disparate hardware and navigate your way through often very complex software installation procedures, all you had to do was plug in the Osborne and start working.

What's more, when you were finished you just clipped the keyboard over the front of the screen and disk drives then stashed your Osborne under the desk or in a wardrobe.

This was one incredibly revolutionary machine -- even more revolutionary than the IBM PC which came out not long after.

Unfortunately, Adam Osborne was more of an enthusiast than a businessman.

Let's face it -- no real businessman would have taken such a bold risk as to produce a sewing-machine sized "toy" computer at that time. After all, even IBM considered that its PC would be nothing more than a distraction and account for very little in the way of revenue.

Alas, it was Osborne's enthusiasm that eventually killed his machine.

Having seen the Osborne sell like hotcakes, other players began to swamp the market. Names such as Kaypro and Bondwell appeared, offering larger screens, more disk storage and other cool things. The Bondwell even had a built-in speech synthesizer (wow, yawn).

It was then that Osborne made a fatal mistake -- he announced that his company was about to release a better, faster, stronger Osborne machine that would trounce the competition. Unfortunately he made this announcement before the new Osborne was ready so people simply stopped buying the "old and tired" Osborne I and waited.

Sales of the Osborne portable dried up overnight but manufacturing continued. Within a very short space of time, all of Osborne's money was tied up in warehouses filled with the original Osborne computer -- a computer that nobody wanted to buy.

Although he did continue his involvement in the computer industry and the company did finally make a better machine dubbed the "Osborne Executive," it was too little, too late. By that time everyone was shifting to 16-bit processors and Compaq had launched its very successful assault on the PC marketplace by way of its own PC-compatible portable.

Those early days of the personal computer industry were an amazing time, driven by amazing people. The late 1990's and the rapid rise of the Internet were a very similar period where personalities and technologies meshed to provide constant change and excitement.

By comparison, 2003 seems positively leisurely and boring.

Osborne won't be missed by many of today's generation of computer enthusiasts or professionals but those of us who do remember him and his product will sigh just a little at his passing.

Do you have an opinion on today's column or want to add something? Have your say

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