Olivetti Programma 101: At the Origins of the Personal Computer • Hacker News Board

Re: Olivetti Programma 101: At the Origins of the Personal Computer

#11

Post by NikkiA » Mon, Aug 26, 2024, 7:34 AM UTC

wenc wrote: post #2

I remember Olivetti PCs from the late 80s to 90s. They were beautifully designed -- not SGI or Sun beautiful -- but beautiful for PCs. I like the "grate" design. https://www.ebay.com/itm/325569104545 The IBM PS/2 Model 30 was also quite beautiful https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/userdata/images/large/56...

The IBM PS/1 was the machine I coveted for its beauty, but it was overpriced and underspecced when I could finally think about one; so a generic beige 386-40 it was.

Re: Olivetti Programma 101: At the Origins of the Personal Computer

#12

Post by AlexDragusin » Mon, Aug 26, 2024, 7:47 AM UTC

wenc wrote: post #2

I remember Olivetti PCs from the late 80s to 90s. They were beautifully designed -- not SGI or Sun beautiful -- but beautiful for PCs. I like the "grate" design. https://www.ebay.com/itm/325569104545 The IBM PS/2 Model 30 was also quite beautiful https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/userdata/images/large/56...

Started on an AT&T 6300 (Olivetti M24) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivetti_M24#/media/File:Vinta...

Oh, the memories! Great thing was the keyboard, gave the user certain assurance and stability, not sure how would I explain it but those of you who used these, would instantly know what I mean.

Re: Olivetti Programma 101: At the Origins of the Personal Computer

#13

Post by mattkevan » Mon, Aug 26, 2024, 8:57 AM UTC

Olivetti also owned Acorn Computer, inventor of the ARM processor, although Dave began a good few years before they bought it. Apparently the project was so secret that Olivetti didn’t know about it until the purchase was complete.

Re: Olivetti Programma 101: At the Origins of the Personal Computer

#14

Post by lnxg33k1 » Mon, Aug 26, 2024, 9:18 AM UTC

The best thing I know about Olivetti, is that nearby my city, there is a small village, where there are houses, schools, nurseries, etc. and Olivetti production centers, where Olivetti's employees were living, it is a great concept to be an innovative company, but also really think about the wellbeing of your employees, that is now lost, now they maybe give you a pizza, some ping pong, and as soon as you're not useful, you're just discarded, the american system is a disgrace

Re: Olivetti Programma 101: At the Origins of the Personal Computer

#15

Post by 082349872349872 » Mon, Aug 26, 2024, 9:42 AM UTC

fortran77 wrote: post #5

wenc wrote: post #2

I remember Olivetti PCs from the late 80s to 90s. They were beautifully designed -- not SGI or Sun beautiful -- but beautiful for PCs. I like the "grate" design. https://www.ebay.com/itm/325569104545 The IBM PS/2 Model 30 was also quite beautiful https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/userdata/images/large/56...

I worked at Olivetti's Advanced Technology Labs in Cupertino until 1989. We were really making some wonderful stuff then, but the company itself was having trouble, and some scandals. The executive staff were always being arrested for one thing or another (see https://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/03/world/accused-olivetti-ch... for example). We paid more attention to cases, fasteners, and design than most other clone vend…

Did you edit with `jet` by any chance?

Lagniappe: https://www.scaruffi.com/history/long.html

Re: Olivetti Programma 101: At the Origins of the Personal Computer

#16

Post by begueradj » Mon, Aug 26, 2024, 9:47 AM UTC

At least Italy is still interesting when it comes to software development. Unlike Japan which had a good start but it is not that good anymore (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky1nGQhHTso)

Re: Olivetti Programma 101: At the Origins of the Personal Computer

#17

Post by 2dvisio » Mon, Aug 26, 2024, 10:31 AM UTC

Still have one of those tucked away at my father’s place. He used to use it at the beginning of his career to run calculations for engineering structural computations before Acca and other similar softwares (in Italy due to very active seismic activity you need to run these sorts of calculations also for very small structures).

Re: Olivetti Programma 101: At the Origins of the Personal Computer

#18

Post by alfiopuglisi » Mon, Aug 26, 2024, 10:51 AM UTC

begueradj wrote: post #16

At least Italy is still interesting when it comes to software development. Unlike Japan which had a good start but it is not that good anymore ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky1nGQhHTso )

Depends. For example cupy (https://github.com/cupy/cupy) is developed by a Japanese company and I find it extremely effective.

Re: Olivetti Programma 101: At the Origins of the Personal Computer

#19

Post by rbanffy » Mon, Aug 26, 2024, 10:56 AM UTC

alfiopuglisi wrote: post #18

begueradj wrote: post #16

At least Italy is still interesting when it comes to software development. Unlike Japan which had a good start but it is not that good anymore ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky1nGQhHTso )

Depends. For example cupy ( https://github.com/cupy/cupy ) is developed by a Japanese company and I find it extremely effective.

There's also a language called Ruby. I wonder if people have heard about it.

Re: Olivetti Programma 101: At the Origins of the Personal Computer

#20

Post by reidrac » Mon, Aug 26, 2024, 11:08 AM UTC

wenc wrote: post #2

I remember Olivetti PCs from the late 80s to 90s. They were beautifully designed -- not SGI or Sun beautiful -- but beautiful for PCs. I like the "grate" design. https://www.ebay.com/itm/325569104545 The IBM PS/2 Model 30 was also quite beautiful https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/userdata/images/large/56...

My first PC was an Olivetti Prodest PC1, and it felt a natural design back then coming from the "wedge" design of the 8 and 16 bit machines of the time, as in "the computer is the keyboard".

http://www.seasip.info/VintagePC/prodestpc1.html

I appreciate now how different the design was!