This thread is so much fun, it's making me dizzy! There's so much to think
about, and yet it's almost all speculation! Anyway, onwards!
Yes, thanks for clearing up my assumptions regarding PS/2 and OS/2.
However, I don't think many would like to run OS/2 on a 286, even if it is
technically possible.
The scenario you've described sounds plausible, provided the Royal fonts
are cheap. I think most of the current HP users couldn't give two hoots
about type and type manipulation. They mainly want to bang out memos,
graphs and pie charts quickly and cleanly. They don't want to be making all
sorts of fancy type and design decisions. Which means that I don't think
they're that large a market for type. Most seem quite happy with their
bit-mapped Times. The only incentive I can see for them would be price.
And, once again, we're talking about a low-end, low-res market. Which,
admittedly, is quite large. Interestingly, I think the poor reception Royal
is getting from most of us is precisely because high-res users can't see
any advantage in it.