[1] Launched in 1981 by London-based Rainbow Software (now Showcase Presentations Ltd) and running on Apple II computers with just 16k of RAM it was the first commercial computer-based presentation system displaying directly onto RGB monitors or projectors.
[2] Showcase used programmable duotone colouring to maintain ‘hi res’ mode; and a range of proportionally spaced, properly designed fonts (in 1983, two years later, Steve Jobs was still trying to persuade his embryonic Mac development team that such fonts were important).
[3][4] The IBM PC didn't make much impact until the mid-1980s; Rainbow lacked the resources to redevelop the system from scratch on to this new format with poor graphic capabilities.
[5] By 1987, a product from General Parametrics called VideoShow allowed better quality presentations from a PC,[6] and Showcase adopted this and started to develop into a broader consultancy business.
In 1990, Windows 3 appeared and combined with a Compaq Portable 386 and the first version of a new program called PowerPoint, the route to the future seemed clear.