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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday November 12 2019, @03:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the not-sure-whodunnit dept.

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

Hitting the Books: Did the advent of the first desktop computer lead to murder?

Welcome to Hitting the Books. With less than one in five Americans reading just for fun these days, we've done the hard work for you by scouring the internet for the most interesting, thought provoking books on science and technology we can find and delivering an easily digestible nugget of their stories.

The Mysterious Affair at Olivetti: IBM, the CIA, and the Cold War Conspiracy to Shut Down Production of the World's First Desktop Computer
by Meryle Secrest

The world's first desktop computer didn't take shape in a Menlo Park garage or the bowels of a corporate production facility. It was created in a workshop in Northwest Italy owned and operated by the Olivetti family. Already renowned for their mechanical typewriters, the Olivetti pioneered electronic calculation a decade before Apple or IBM, which (as you'll read below) debuted at the New York World's Fair in 1964. The first of its kind, the P101, became an instant smash hit -- everyone from NASA to the US military was clamoring for these highly sought after "super-calculators."

But was the Olivetti family's fortune actually a curse? Shortly after the P101's debut, Adriano Olivetti, the head of the family suffered a mysterious and fatal heart attack at the age of 58, just 18 months before the company's talented engineer, Mario Tchou, died in an equally suspicious car accident. In The Mysterious Affair at Olivetti, author Meryle Secrest reveals the incredible behind-the-scenes story of the first desktop computer.


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by martyb on Tuesday November 12 2019, @04:06PM (4 children)

    by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 12 2019, @04:06PM (#919429) Journal

    It was in the early 1970s that I first gained access to a computer. It was a PDP-8 constructed with discrete components, was the size of three refrigerators, and had a whopping total of 24k words (12-bits each) of memory. Access was via a dialup modem (about 10 characters per second) on a genuine Teletype, complete with a paper tape punch/reader for storing programs. Availability to the PDP-8 was extremely limited due to the high demand for access.

    I know not from where, but a few months after that, someone from the school administration brought over an Olivetti Programma 101 and placed it on the table next to the Teletype. Eager to learn anything I could about computers, I tore into its documentation and taught myself how to program it. Compared to the PDP-8 it was extremely limited, but it was programmable! I quickly found myself bumping up against its small memory and limited instruction set which could be best described as a tiny (by today's standards) machine language. It introduced me to registers, memory locations, and (conditional) branch instructions. Though I always preferred access to the PDP-8, I am grateful for my early exposure to this programmable calculator/computer.

    And, yes, it was elegantly designed — full of gentle curves and lines. Very much in sharp contrast to the mainframes and even the early personal computers that were to follow.

    Given its very limited production run, I'd not run into another one since then. And to learn that these little desktop computers were used to help with Apollo effort is just icing on the cake. I'm utterly astonished at seeing a story written about this relic appearing today and happy to learn more about its design, construction, and marketing. It was, truly, a ground-breaking device.

    --
    Wit is intellect, dancing.
    • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday November 12 2019, @05:00PM (3 children)

      by Gaaark (41) on Tuesday November 12 2019, @05:00PM (#919460) Journal

      My first computer was the Acorn Atom: 8k of ram and you saved to a cassette tape. Or rather, you tried to.

      No matter what I tried, it wouldn't let me save my programs.

      I didn't know about BBS, didn't know about REAL tape drives, didn't think there were others out there with computers: figured I was alone in my city and in my interest.......

      --
      --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 12 2019, @06:37PM (2 children)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday November 12 2019, @06:37PM (#919494)

        Atari 800, 1982, $800 with standard 16K of RAM and BASIC programming language.

        Useless cassette data storage unit $60 extra. When it worked, it transferred data at about 3 characters per second, just a little faster than typing speed. After three failed attempts to load a program from cassette tape, you might as well go to the paper backup and type it in yourself.

        Just don't type too fast, the early BASIC text entry system would lock up about once every 4 hours or so of "fast typing use" - if you paced your character entry with at least 100ms between keypresses it never failed, but if two keystrokes came in during the same 1/60th of a second period, there was a slight chance for system lockup that only a complete memory dump reset would cure.

        Great machines, for their time.

        --
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        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by jelizondo on Wednesday November 13 2019, @01:53AM (1 child)

          by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 13 2019, @01:53AM (#919661) Journal

          My boss bought an Atari 800 too and the damn cassette player wasn’t working properly. Turns out that as it began to record it emitted a tone that trashed the start of the recording, rendering it useless.

          The trick was to wait a moment (three seconds comes to mind, maybe I’m wrong) and then record. Voilá! Worked like a charm.

          Of course, you should have asked me at the time :-)

          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 13 2019, @02:54AM

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday November 13 2019, @02:54AM (#919684)

            The trick was

            I'm sure they all had their own personalities. Mine tended to "burp" in the middle of big files. You could clean the heads and it would work a little better. You could use brand new high quality cassettes and it would work a little better. But, for anything with 8K+ of code, it was nearly pointless, would always screw up at some point.

            After a year+ of screwing around with that, I managed to scrape together $400+ for a floppy disk drive, they were just about stone cold 99% reliable 99% of the time. You had to abuse the 5.25" floppy disks pretty hard to get them to screw up. 88K per disk, and I recall blank disks varied from around $1 to $3 a piece, but the expensive ones really didn't do anything the cheap ones couldn't.

            After I got the floppy drive, I never looked back at cassettes.

            --
            🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Mojibake Tengu on Tuesday November 12 2019, @04:17PM (1 child)

    by Mojibake Tengu (8598) on Tuesday November 12 2019, @04:17PM (#919438) Journal

    https://johnwolff.id.au/calculators/Olivetti/Olivetti.htm [johnwolff.id.au]

    When I was a boy, I bought one of those heavy mechanical machines in a pawn shop. The price was so ridiculous and I realized if it's electric, I'll get a motor for that price. It was a must have. My peers, of course, did laughed at me. Soon, I decided to take the contraption apart to see how it works. It was a fascinating enjoyment of engineering, providing insight of how complex thinking those engineers had to do to make it work. I still keep the motor module somewhere here, to remind me about perfect ancient technology which was lost and forgotten.

    --
    Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 12 2019, @06:39PM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday November 12 2019, @06:39PM (#919496)

      My grandmother owned / worked in a beauty shop. In the 1960s she bought one of those mechanical adding machines for checkout work - motor whirred all the time and the keypresses would setup for the calculation to clack through and print out on the receipt. It saw daily use for 10+ years.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Bot on Tuesday November 12 2019, @04:18PM (3 children)

    by Bot (3902) on Tuesday November 12 2019, @04:18PM (#919439) Journal

    The story, I don't recall the sources but likely online articles in Italian, goes like this: Olivetti was in the business of typewriters and mechanical calculators. The management was alerted of strange behaviors by one worker who store pieces and stuff. They talk with him, he was experimenting with his own way of building a better calculator. He also had good ideas so he ended up in the engineering area and consolidated Olivetti leadership in the calculators area until electronics took over.

    --
    Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday November 12 2019, @04:29PM

      by Bot (3902) on Tuesday November 12 2019, @04:29PM (#919442) Journal

      >store pieces
      Stole, even

      --
      Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by driverless on Wednesday November 13 2019, @12:49AM (1 child)

      by driverless (4770) on Wednesday November 13 2019, @12:49AM (#919627)

      For the real story of Olivetti computers, not this conspiracy-theory nonsense, read the excellent IEEE article [ieee.org], as well as the story of the last working model [ieee.org] in a high school in Italy.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 13 2019, @10:14AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 13 2019, @10:14AM (#919778)

        But, but, this is Runaway grade "conspiracy-theory nonsense," Olivetti style. Wait till he gets on Seth Reich and that Foster Dulles mysterious death.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by crunchy_one on Tuesday November 12 2019, @05:00PM (2 children)

    by crunchy_one (7884) on Tuesday November 12 2019, @05:00PM (#919459)

    Already renowned for their mechanical typewriters, the Olivetti pioneered electronic calculation a decade before Apple or IBM, which (as you'll read below) debuted at the New York World's Fair in 1964.

    Apple didn't exist in 1964 and IBM ruled the roost when it came to electronic computation. The IBM pavilion at the 1964-65 New York World's Fair showed off an amazing amount of IBM computer hardware, already well into its third generation.

    As far as early personal computers go, the prize goes to the Bendix G-15, a general purpose electronic computer that sold for about $50K in 1956.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 12 2019, @06:56PM (1 child)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday November 12 2019, @06:56PM (#919504)

      A new house for an average family in 1956 might have run around $18K, so $50K doesn't quite qualify as "personal" for the time.

      When the IBM PCs came around in the mid 1980s, they ran around $5K while average houses were more in the $80-100K range. My job in 1991 paid $30K per year, and put a $5K 386 PC with 15" color monitor on my desk. I didn't buy my own IBM compatible PC until several years later, after I bought an $80K house, and I think my PC was about $1500 for a 486DX2.

      Today, median home prices are pushing $300K, and you can buy an 1.7GHz Octacore cellphone with 4GB of RAM, 128GB of flash, 1080p+ touchscreen and quad HD cameras for ~$150. Inflation adjusted that cellphone would have cost less than $16, or 16 hours of 1956 minimum wage, whereas the Bendix G-15 would cost about 25 years of full time minimum wage.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by crunchy_one on Tuesday November 12 2019, @11:27PM

        by crunchy_one (7884) on Tuesday November 12 2019, @11:27PM (#919605)

        You make a valid point that the G-15's price made it not very personal for the home user of 1956, but that was never its market. The G-15 was a personal computer in the sense that it and its software was designed to be used by one programmer at a time. A programmer sat down at the G-15's typewriter to write and debug interactively. Harry D. Huskey, the G-15's architect, was awarded his own G-15 in recognition of its popularity. He installed it in his garage.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 12 2019, @06:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 12 2019, @06:00PM (#919484)

    Next question?

  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday November 12 2019, @06:41PM (6 children)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Tuesday November 12 2019, @06:41PM (#919497) Journal

    So, the deaths of Olivetti's leader and top engineer 18 months apart might have been murders orchestrated by the CIA? Yeah, and maybe they murdered President Kennedy too.

    I've seen how people drive in Italy. It's crazy. Lane markings are often ignored, and you can get an extreme license to drive as fast as you want. Wouldn't surprise me if cosmetic damage from a fender bender was no reason to stop, just keep going. Combine that with how unsafe cars were back then, and the odds would seem to favor the supposition that the engineer's death was a genuine accident.

    • (Score: 4, Touché) by Debvgger on Tuesday November 12 2019, @06:53PM (1 child)

      by Debvgger (545) on Tuesday November 12 2019, @06:53PM (#919502)

      Well, to be fair, from the perspective of 2019, "conspiracy theories" are the bread and butter of computers.

      Makes you wonder what would be of the world without the intervention of any of the "intelligence" agencies. Maybe we would be rocking Amiga computers everywhere.

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by deimtee on Tuesday November 12 2019, @09:44PM

        by deimtee (3272) on Tuesday November 12 2019, @09:44PM (#919559) Journal

        You'll pry my Amiga from my cold dead fingers you insensitive clo

        ~$%!@%# Guru Meditation Error

        --
        If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
    • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday November 13 2019, @12:47AM (3 children)

      by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday November 13 2019, @12:47AM (#919626) Journal
      So the guy died "mysteriously " at 58. Not really - we forget that the average age of death for men who were born when he was was 50 - so he lived longer than most.Same as we forget that retirement was set at 75 because almost nobody would live long enough to collect a pension. The writer lacks a sense of historical perspective and is not worthy of considering in any reading list.
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      • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday November 13 2019, @12:49AM (1 child)

        by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday November 13 2019, @12:49AM (#919628) Journal
        65, damn. Sorry about that, chief.
        --
        SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
        • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @05:46PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @05:46PM (#920434)

          Barbara (tom) Hudson CHEMICALLY CASTRATED itself with estrogen since you failed as a man lol! You also FAIL as a "woman" you NEUTERED delusional freakazoid! What is is like knowing you are a living mockery? A parody of both a 'woman' or a man! You know that. Everyone knows it about you "TraNsTeSticLe" hohohohoho. Barbara Hudson is a twistoid mental case deluding itself it is a REAL woman. Clue: You will never EVER be able to pass a DNA test due to the fact you do not, nor did you ever, possess female mitochondrial material you crackpot weirdo. It isn't logical to attempt to "fix" bodyparts that work with no issues. You had a working (extremely small) penis and balls you sawed off with estrogen hahahaha!

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @05:49PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @05:49PM (#920435)

        Barbara (tom) Hudson CHEMICALLY CASTRATED itself with estrogen since you failed as a man lol! You also FAIL as a "woman" you NEUTERED delusional freakazoid! What is is like knowing you are a living mockery? A parody of both a 'woman' or a man! You know that. Everyone knows it about you "TraNsTeSticLe" hohohohoho. Barbara Hudson is a twistoid mental case deluding itself it is a REAL woman. Clue: You will never EVER be able to pass a DNA test due to the fact you do not, nor did you ever, possess female mitochondrial material you crackpot weirdo. It isn't logical to attempt to "fix" bodyparts that work with no issues. You had a working (extremely small) penis and balls you sawed off with estrogen hahahaha! Barbara Hudson breaks laws by possessing a SAWED OFF SHOTGUN, rotflmao!

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Tuesday November 12 2019, @07:46PM (4 children)

    by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Tuesday November 12 2019, @07:46PM (#919525) Journal
    Claiming that only 1 in 5 people read for entertainment ignores everyone on the internet, especially social media and news sites. The summary implies if it's not a book, it can't be entertaining.
    --
    SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
    • (Score: 3, Funny) by martyb on Tuesday November 12 2019, @08:04PM (2 children)

      by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 12 2019, @08:04PM (#919529) Journal
      I, for one, found your comment to be entertaining.

      =)
      --
      Wit is intellect, dancing.
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Tuesday November 12 2019, @11:50PM (1 child)

        by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Tuesday November 12 2019, @11:50PM (#919607) Journal
        And I find your reply a relief that all is going better for you. And I know I am not alone.
        --
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        • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @05:53PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @05:53PM (#920438)

          Barbara (tom) Hudson CHEMICALLY CASTRATED itself with estrogen since you failed as a man lol! You also FAIL as a "woman" you NEUTERED delusional freakazoid! What is is like knowing you are a living mockery? A parody of both a 'woman' or a man! You know that. Everyone knows it about you "TraNsTeSticLe" hohohohoho. Barbara Hudson is a twistoid mental case deluding itself it is a REAL woman. Clue: You will never EVER be able to pass a DNA test due to the fact you do not, nor did you ever, possess female mitochondrial material you crackpot weirdo. It isn't logical to attempt to "fix" bodyparts that work with no issues. You had a working (extremely small) penis and balls you sawed off with estrogen hahahaha! Barbara Hudson breaks laws by possessing a SAWED OFF SHOTGUN, rotflmao!!!

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @05:55PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @05:55PM (#920439)

      Barbara (tom) Hudson CHEMICALLY CASTRATED itself with estrogen since you failed as a man lol! You also FAIL as a "woman" you NEUTERED delusional freakazoid! What is is like knowing you are a living mockery? A parody of both a 'woman' or a man! You know that. Everyone knows it about you "TraNsTeSticLe" hohohohoho. Barbara Hudson is a twistoid mental case deluding itself it is a REAL woman. Clue: You will never EVER be able to pass a DNA test due to the fact you do not, nor did you ever, possess female mitochondrial material you crackpot weirdo. It isn't logical to attempt to "fix" bodyparts that work with no issues. You had a working (extremely small) penis and balls you sawed off with estrogen hahahaha! Barbara Hudson breaks laws by possessing a SAWED OFF SHOTGUN, rotflmao!!!!!!

  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday November 12 2019, @08:35PM (3 children)

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 12 2019, @08:35PM (#919538) Journal

    I seem to recall the s100 computers far predating the Apple. They weren't as "user friendly", but they existed, and were a lot cheaper than the PDPs.

    OTOH, I don't know when the specs of the Apple 1 were published. (IIRC, it was a "build it yourself" computer.)

    FWIW, there were lots of "computer kits" available for a long time before any commercial action happened. But I don't know how many were scams, and certainly a lot were "analog computers" of really limited capability.

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    • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday November 13 2019, @12:18AM (2 children)

      by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday November 13 2019, @12:18AM (#919613) Journal
      Timex Sinclair, $99 circa 1981. Various Radio Shack programmable calculators with external cassette drives that ran BASIC, late 70s, Model 1, 1977; then Model 4 that ran xenix, 64k ram, 4 8" floppy 160k drives; Tandy 100 portable; Tandy colour computer, coco 2, coco 3, commodore PET 1977) Vic 20 - 1980 the first computer to ever sell 1 million units, C64, you name it, there was real competition in those days. Even Heathkit was selling a build-it-yourself computer (H8, 8080 cpu, running cp/m, 4K ram card was extra, as was everything else).m

      I don't remember anyone selling analog computers - tubes for cpu and mercury delay lines for serial (not random access) memory would have been much slower and more expensive to buy and to run by then, and way too bulky and power-hungry.

      --
      SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday November 13 2019, @05:29PM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 13 2019, @05:29PM (#919926) Journal

        The Timex Sinclair was a late entry, so that's not significant here. But the S100 bus computers were around before I ever heard of the Apple.

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @05:51PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 14 2019, @05:51PM (#920436)

        Barbara (tom) Hudson CHEMICALLY CASTRATED itself with estrogen since you failed as a man lol! You also FAIL as a "woman" you NEUTERED delusional freakazoid! What is is like knowing you are a living mockery? A parody of both a 'woman' or a man! You know that. Everyone knows it about you "TraNsTeSticLe" hohohohoho. Barbara Hudson is a twistoid mental case deluding itself it is a REAL woman. Clue: You will never EVER be able to pass a DNA test due to the fact you do not, nor did you ever, possess female mitochondrial material you crackpot weirdo. It isn't logical to attempt to "fix" bodyparts that work with no issues. You had a working (extremely small) penis and balls you sawed off with estrogen hahahaha! Barbara Hudson breaks laws by possessing a SAWED OFF SHOTGUN, rotflmao!!!!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 13 2019, @11:49AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 13 2019, @11:49AM (#919781)

    Epstein didn't kill himself.

  • (Score: 2) by DavePolaschek on Wednesday November 13 2019, @01:11PM

    by DavePolaschek (6129) on Wednesday November 13 2019, @01:11PM (#919812) Homepage Journal

    But the link in the article goes to a 404 at the publisher’s site, and searching for the author on isbn.nu gives me a dozen other books but not this one. Oh well. Saved me from impulse purchasing it this morning.

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