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I think the article misses that the HP 9100A was developed after HP acquired the patent of Olivetti Programma 101 and its italian r&d electronics laboratory. Pr

I think the article misses that the HP 9100A was developed after HP acquired the patent of Olivetti Programma 101 and its italian r&d electronics laboratory. Programma 101 was the first personal computer ever made and the first to actually fit on a desktop. It was also the first to use the magnetic card that was able to read and save programs, the precursor of cassettes and floppy disks or the first memory format based on "magnetic paint". The patents and the laboratory sold to HP were fundamental to fuel the revolution of the following years and to make the HP 9100A. Italians won that race at the time, more than a decade before Gates and Jobs. I had the luck to become friend of one of the engineers of the machine, Gastone Garziera, his funniest quote when he finishes to describe his masterpiece is "Very very easy, as americans say".

kensai 6y ago
Is it known why was it sold? Why couldn't the Olivetti team capitalize on such a formidable invention itself?
- kqr 6y ago
  This is repeatedly the case: Xerox and the graphical computer environment, Kodak and the digital camera, and other exemples Aaron Brown has that I forget. Often because "that's not the business we're in". Kodak was a photographic film company, not a photography company.
- MichaelZuo 6y ago
  https://www.npr.org/2019/11/07/776834206/the-mysterious-affair-at-olivetti-attempts-to-find-a-cold-war-conspiracy https://www.npr.org/2019/11/07/776834206/the-mysterious-affa...
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
Magnetic cards appeared in later HP calculators - starting with the HP-65 - and were copied by TI. These calculators look a bit clunky and retro today compared to modern phones, but they were unbelievably futuristic in the mid-70s. The idea that you could have a programmable microcomputer in your pocket which could load applications from plastic cards was jaw-dropping.
ChickeNES 6y ago
> Programma 101 was the first personal computer ever made and the first to actually fit on a desktop. It's not, the Mathatronics Mathatron was sold nearly a year before the Programma 101: https://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/c-math8-48m.html https://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/c-math8-48m.html
pinewurst 6y ago
That’s not at all true. The 9100A was a descendant of a prototype developed by Tom Osborne in 1964. There was a later lawsuit from Olivetti that certain features (especially the mag card) overlapped their 1965 P101 patents, which was settled for ~$900K. No insult to Olivetti’s great achievements but this was hardly cause and effect.

kensai 6y ago

Is it known why was it sold? Why couldn't the Olivetti team capitalize on such a formidable invention itself?

kqr 6y ago
This is repeatedly the case: Xerox and the graphical computer environment, Kodak and the digital camera, and other exemples Aaron Brown has that I forget. Often because "that's not the business we're in". Kodak was a photographic film company, not a photography company.
MichaelZuo 6y ago
https://www.npr.org/2019/11/07/776834206/the-mysterious-affair-at-olivetti-attempts-to-find-a-cold-war-conspiracy https://www.npr.org/2019/11/07/776834206/the-mysterious-affa...

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago

Magnetic cards appeared in later HP calculators - starting with the HP-65 - and were copied by TI. These calculators look a bit clunky and retro today compared to modern phones, but they were unbelievably futuristic in the mid-70s. The idea that you could have a programmable microcomputer in your pocket which could load applications from plastic cards was jaw-dropping.

ChickeNES 6y ago

> Programma 101 was the first personal computer ever made and the first to actually fit on a desktop. It's not, the Mathatronics Mathatron was sold nearly a year before the Programma 101: https://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/c-math8-48m.html https://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/c-math8-48m.html

pinewurst 6y ago

That’s not at all true. The 9100A was a descendant of a prototype developed by Tom Osborne in 1964. There was a later lawsuit from Olivetti that certain features (especially the mag card) overlapped their 1965 P101 patents, which was settled for ~$900K. No insult to Olivetti’s great achievements but this was hardly cause and effect.