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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 SecrestThe 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.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Bot on Tuesday November 12 2019, @04:18PM (3 children)
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
>store pieces
Stole, even
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Informative) by driverless on Wednesday November 13 2019, @12:49AM (1 child)
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
But, but, this is Runaway grade "conspiracy-theory nonsense," Olivetti style. Wait till he gets on Seth Reich and that Foster Dulles mysterious death.