[8][9] Ontel was a struggling video terminal company founded in 1968 that had been acquired by Caesars World, a multifaceted hotel and casino operator, in 1976.

[3]: 42 In November 1983, Visual Technology acquired Custom Computer Software of Wayland, Massachusetts, founded by Harlan La Vigne,[11] a business associate of Foley.

[1] By mid-1984, Visual Technology had failed to secure major third-party distributors of the Commuter, and its poor sales caused the company to post its first significant quarterly losses in fall 1984.

[16][17] Lee Data ultimately acquired the patents and designs for Visual Technology's unrealized "supermicrocomputer" based on the Intel 80286.

[15][13] By this point, Wyse Technology had taken over a significant percentage of the company's market share in the data terminal segment.

[21] In August 1989, Hambrecht & Quist poured another $5 million into Visual Technology, contingent of the company ditching the remnants of their legacy DEC and IBM-compatible terminal lines.

In October 1989, Visual Technology filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy amid H&Q's reorganization of the company—meanwhile, the company continued to sell models in the X Display Station range.

[15] The pivot to X Terminals was a success for Visual Technology, the company able to carve a niche in this segment alongside competitors such as HP and Network Computing Devices.

In September 1993, Visual Technology was acquired by White Pine Software of Nashua, New Hampshire, for an undisclosed amount.