Actually, the first monitor I used (7") presented amber on black. We used a Canadian "luggable" called Hyperion (15 lbs?) which was highly regarded. The "best" program then was Framework which had little file cabinet icons and "put away" documents. Documents could have spreadsheets or other documents in them as "frames" long before Windows appeared. I think Framework was a product of the d-Base folks but I could be wrong. And it ran on all machines, even those not totally IBM compatible. The software came in thin cardboard boxes but had 3 ring manuals in slip-cases which told everything about the software. I still keep portions of them because much of the info can still be used eg. ascii symbol numbers (alt+), inline commands (run.....), etc. which are not available unless you've got copies of old Dummies books or want to probe the internet.
Later, when we got AutoCAD (primitive) we found out there was a special version for Olivetti M64 machines which ran a special version of DOS. I could be wrong on any of these ideas as it was a long, long time ago (1987?).
By the way, my first 386 machine was also an Olivetti had 1MB of memory which came on 4 boards the size of today's AT motherboard. This was to run Win286 for AutoCAD and some space-planning software from Australia. The memory cost over $1000. The machine cost $7000 and a monster 19" color monitor with BNC connections cost $3000. What a rad setup!!! The cooling sounded like a vacuum cleaner. Times change but under the hood, the OS still seems to have ports available for ancient input.
