Pen-based computing pioneer says Microsoft conspired to 'kill' his company

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The inventor of one of the precursors to handheld devices - an operating system that enabled computer users to write with a pen instead of a keyboard - long suspected Microsoft Corp. of crushing his business. 

Now, Jerrold Kaplan says he has the evidence - documents that surfaced during a class-action suit filed in Minnesota indicating that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates set out in the early 1990s to discourage other companies from doing business with Kaplan's startup, Go Computer Inc.