4 ms·

As an Italian, it's so sad to see how the second PC (and possibly first commercially-viable PC?) was Italian and it all went downhill from there :-/

agumonkey 9y ago
Do you know about https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Société_générale_de_Belgique https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Société_générale_de_Belgique ? apparently a failed venture on SGB caused De Benedetti to lose money impeding Olivetti to develop new computers in the 80s boom.
- nkkollaw 9y ago
  I wasn't aware of that, but for sure it's a shame. We kind of got a small revenge on the hardware side with Arduino, although ruined by the trademark dispute in the US.
pmarreck 9y ago
Past performance will not necessarily reflect (and should not dictate) future returns :) Also, the Arab world is arguably worse off... Invented much of math, and is now dominated by ascientific theocracies
- nkkollaw 9y ago
  > Past performance will not necessarily reflect (and should not dictate) future returns :) Not but you know--Bell, Microsoft, IBM and others are doing pretty well. > Also, the Arab world is arguably worse off... Invented much of math, and is now dominated by ascientific theocracies Hardly comparable. You're talking about stuff that happened thousands (5000? no idea) ago, Olivetti had a PC a handful of years before it took off and made many billionaires.
- yakitori 9y ago
  > Also, the Arab world is arguably worse off... Invented much of math This is historically not true. Sure we get terms like "algebra", "algorithm", etc from the arab world, but the arab world didn't invent these mathematics ideas/fields. These ideas/fields go back to the mesopotamia and ancient greece. Also, the mathematical concepts developed throughout china, india, etc also. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_algebra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_algebra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm Certainly the arab world made contributions to math but they certainly didn't invent most of math. > and is now dominated by ascientific theocracies Even during the islamic golden age, it was dominated by "ascientific" theocracies. One doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the other.
  - pmarreck 9y ago
    Fair enough!

agumonkey 9y ago

Do you know about https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Société_générale_de_Belgique https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Société_générale_de_Belgique ? apparently a failed venture on SGB caused De Benedetti to lose money impeding Olivetti to develop new computers in the 80s boom.

nkkollaw 9y ago
I wasn't aware of that, but for sure it's a shame. We kind of got a small revenge on the hardware side with Arduino, although ruined by the trademark dispute in the US.

pmarreck 9y ago

Past performance will not necessarily reflect (and should not dictate) future returns :) Also, the Arab world is arguably worse off... Invented much of math, and is now dominated by ascientific theocracies

nkkollaw 9y ago
> Past performance will not necessarily reflect (and should not dictate) future returns :) Not but you know--Bell, Microsoft, IBM and others are doing pretty well. > Also, the Arab world is arguably worse off... Invented much of math, and is now dominated by ascientific theocracies Hardly comparable. You're talking about stuff that happened thousands (5000? no idea) ago, Olivetti had a PC a handful of years before it took off and made many billionaires.
yakitori 9y ago
> Also, the Arab world is arguably worse off... Invented much of math This is historically not true. Sure we get terms like "algebra", "algorithm", etc from the arab world, but the arab world didn't invent these mathematics ideas/fields. These ideas/fields go back to the mesopotamia and ancient greece. Also, the mathematical concepts developed throughout china, india, etc also. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_algebra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_algebra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm Certainly the arab world made contributions to math but they certainly didn't invent most of math. > and is now dominated by ascientific theocracies Even during the islamic golden age, it was dominated by "ascientific" theocracies. One doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the other.
- pmarreck 9y ago
  Fair enough!