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Hm, if I remember correctly, Adam Osborne was involved in some experimental computer project right before Osborne-1. This project was in some way backed by Swedish research money, but not much spoken about. The project didn't work out into a commercial product, but it was assumed that Adam took benefit from it when making "his" computer, thus it was said that Swedish grants partly paid Osborne-1. I have an article at home about this, so I could give more exact details unless it is known and on Internet since before.
 
If you could dig that aritcle up, it would be interesting to compare it to the article i found in that magazine, and see if mr. osborne minimized or even mentions his time in sweden
 
Ok, I had the magazine on my desk, so here comes a translated version:

ANOTHER SWEDISH COMPUTER?!

In 1981, the new Swedish computer "Expander" was introduced and caused great excitement in places. Swedish technicians had yet again produced a computer for qualified business use.

Obviously it was not only Luxor and their head technician Lasse Karlsson who knew how to make computers. It soon was obvious that this was a very useful computer - adopted to "industrial standards" like S-100 and CP/M. Apparently it was a computer meant for qualified business use.

But then some confusion set, exactly how Swedish was it? What was really going on? It showed that a couple of young gentlemen had gotten STU (Swedish national board for Technical Development) to invest 795000 SEK (thus more than $100000) on designing a new computer - in the USA!

The computer was developed by Lee Felsenstein - a well-known micro computer developer. The same Felsenstein had at the same time developed the first "portable" computer Osborne 1 - partly according the same principles as the Expander computer. Was it really Swedish STU money that paid the development of Osborne 1?
Click to expand...

So I was wrong about Adam Osborne himself was involved, but his developing engineer. Maybe this Felsenstein was independent enough to keep different designs apart, but both machines were ready within a short time span in 1981 and Osborne 1 is at least CP/M based (which may not be so difficult to do). There was no picture of the Expander, and I yet haven't Googled the net for one.
 
when i get the mag. back from dave, i will read the article over again.

i just want to see if he ever mentions the swedish connection
 
Lee was involved in many other computer designs as well. He had at the center of all of his designs something he called the 'Tom Swift Terminal', or basically what we have today with the Internet. A terminal to a large repository of information that would give the average person a great deal more knowledge than they could expect at the time.

If you read some of the books about the early stages of the microcomputer revolution, you'll find Lee involved if not the driving force behaind many of them.

tachyon
 
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