4 ms·
Programma 101, the first commercial “desktop computer”
- tr352 11y ago"It is usually called a printing programmable calculator or desktop calculator [...] in order to be able to overcome the fears of computers." We still do the same, but now we call it a smartphone.
- listic 11y agoInterestingly, Nintendo did similar things for US launch: called theirs an "Entertainment System" and designed it to have a technically not necessary loading mechanism similar to a VCR, to dissociate it from the game consoles of the day.
- agumonkey 11y agoAnd cancelled the AVS https://www.google.com/search?q=nintendo+avs https://www.google.com/search?q=nintendo+avs project because of that too. So stylish but so not the Nintendo history got to remember.
- antirez 11y agoIt's terrible that modern Italians no longer understand that our "design" culture can be applied to computers as much it is applied to shoes, food, clothes. It's the same process as the Programma 101 shows, and the engineering background is still here.
- stefantalpalaru 11y agoThe real problems start with production costs. See how overpriced the locally assembled Arduino boards are, compared to their chinese clones.
- agumonkey 11y agoIt's astonishing to find Olivetti's products in the 60s. They had the aesthetic appeal Apple put into their lines decades later, and seemed like good engineering underneath the style too. Also, they advertised the same value, making the work easier, leaner, but with fancy desks geometry, cute drawers and typewriters. Progress never change. ps: I read in a book that Olivetti's effort to get into the digital computers market died because of a bad bet from their latest owner (De Benedetti failed attempt at taking over https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soci%C3%A9t%C3%A9_G%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale_de_Belgique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soci%C3%A9t%C3%A9_G%C3%A9n%C3%... in 1980).
- baldfat 11y agoAs someone who had the awesome pleasure of a Uncle who started in System Admin in the 1960s and a dad who bought a Sol 20 in 1976 I have to say it doesn't seem very computery. I loved programming that Sol 20 in basic and spend hours fixing it or customizing the programs. Heck a count of 1 to 1,000,000 took over 2 days to finish.