Olivetti

Information about Olivetti

Olivetti Lettera 22, 1950

Ing. C. Olivetti & Co., SpA. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, printers and other business machines.

History

The company was founded as a typewriter manufacturer in 1908 in Ivrea, near Turin, by Camillo Olivetti. The firm was mainly developed by his son Adriano Olivetti, who is also famous for developing a new management system. It opened its first overseas manufacturing plant in 1930. Olivetti's Divisumma electric calculator was launched in 1948. Olivetti produced Italy's first electronic computer, the transistorised Elea 9003, in 1959. They also purchased the US typewriter company Underwood that year. In 1964 the company sold its electronics division to the USA company General Electric, although it continued to develop new computing products.

Olivetti was famous for the attention it gave to design: "[a] preoccupation with design developed into a comprehensive corporate philosophy, which embraced everything from the shape of a space bar to the color scheme for an advertising poster".^[1] In 1952, the New York Museum of Modern Art put on the show Olivetti: Design in Industry and many Olivetti products remain part of the museum's permanent collection. Another major show, mounted by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1969, toured five other cities.^[2] Olivetti was also well-known for the caliber of the architects it engaged to design its factories and offices, including Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn, Gae Aulenti, and many others.^[3]

From the 1940s to the 60s, Olivetti industrial design was led by Marcello Nizzoli, responsible for the Lexicon 80 (1948) and the iconic portable Lettera 22 (1950). Later, Mario Bellini and Ettore Sottsass directed design. Bellini designed the Programma 101 (1965), Divisumma 18 (1973) and Logos 68 (1973) calculators and the TCV-250 video display terminal (1966), among others. Sottsass designed the Tekne 3 typewriter (1958), Elea 9003 computer (1959), the Praxis 48 typewriter (1964), the very famous Valentine portable typewriter (1969), and others. Michele De Lucchi designed the Art Jet 10 ink-jet printer (1999) (winner of the Compasso d'Oro) and the Gioconda calculator (2001).^[4]

Olivetti's first personal computer, the M20 with Zilog Z8000 CPU, was released in 1982. In 1985 it acquired a controlling share in the British computer manufacturer Acorn Computers Ltd; a third partner was Thomson SA, and indeed Olivetti was selling the Thomson MO6 and Acorn BBC Master Compact with brand names "Olivetti Prodest" PC128 and PC128s respectively. The company continued to develop personal computers until it sold its PC business in 1997.

Olivetti also manufactured for AT&T as an OEM the Model 6300 [1] PC (actually a re-badged Olivetti M24).

The Luxembourg-based company Bell S.A. acquired a controlling stake in Olivetti in 1999, but sold it to a consortium including the Pirelli and Benetton groups two years later. In 2003 Olivetti was absorbed into the Telecom Italia group, maintaining a separate identity as Olivetti Tecnost.

Operations

Olivetti today operates in two countries (Italy and Switzerland) and sales associates in 83 countries.

Research and development are located in:

Agliè (Province of Turin), Italy
Arnad (Valle d'Aosta), Italy
Carsoli (Province of L'Aquila), Italy
Scarmagno (Province of Turin), Italy
Yverdon, Switzerland

Total employees in 2003 was 1,755.

Famous Olivetti users

Fashion Writer Anna Piaggi (Since 1969, has been using a bright red Olivetti typewriter in her work.)
Author Cormac McCarthy
Author Stephen King (his first published novel Carrie)
Travel Writer Patrick Leigh Fermor
Screenwriter Joe Eszterhas
Author Günter Grass

Products

Linea - Multifunctional office printer/scanner
Any Way - Multifunctional print scanner
My Way - Portable printers
Fax Lab 95
Fax Lab 100
Fax Lab 101 and 101S
Fax Lab 120
Fax Lab 121, 220, 450, 470, 270
OFX 180, 9000, 9100, 9200
IN series cartiages
ON series paper
L817 calculators
T1210 Solar calculators
J1210 Solar calculators
Summa 120, 20,
Logos 662, 664T, 694T
PR2 plus passbook printers
PR2 Enhanced passbook printers
PR2 passbook printers
PR4 SL (Slip)
PR4 DR
PR4 SR
PRJ 12
Immagina - Cheque reader and scanner
Slip Printers
PRJ 200
PRT100
PR40 passbook printers
PR30 passbook printers
TC485 terminal computer
TC800 terminal computer
P 602, 603, 6040, 6060, 6066
Audit 4, 5, 6, 7
Tekne and Editor series electric typewriters
Lexicon series golf ball typewriters
d-Copia Copiers
d-Copia colour, B/W printer/scanner (A3 and A4 series)
d-Color P160
d-Color P24
PG L22 colour printer
Fax Lab 100
Linea 198 typerwriters
CRF 4050 cash registers
ECR 5100, 5300, 5700, 5900
Gallery, Logic
Nettuna 200, 400
ORS 6600 Planet
Explor@ 100, 200, 300 200M 300M - POS
Explor@ 120D, 150D and Gold
D-Files
Document Management
TP Label - franking system
PR6 and PR2 family - Counter Printing Peripherals
MAAF - secure value stamps issuer
M2T, M3m M5C, TE1000, TE1000R, AX/T - ticket validation
HD3, NT, XP, COMBO - validator
Echo, H2 onboard terminals
Software - management of appliances, integrated systems, ticketing, etc...

Research

In 1994, Olivetti & Oracle Research Laboratory (Cambridge, England) developed the VNC. VNC stands for Virtual Network Computing. Originally running on an ATM-connected thin client device, it was ported to other platforms, including Win32, Unix, GNU/Linux, and Mac OS. It is a remote display system which allows a thin client to remotely access a desktop GUI environment on another computer over the network.

Since it is platform independent, you can remotely run an Apple desktop from a Windows client, or a Unix desktop from an Apple client, and so on. The thin client (called the VNC viewer) is small enough to fit on a floppy or run from a Java-enabled web browser. Other features include the ability to share a desktop session with more than one client, and the "stateless" nature of the VNC viewer.

Associated companies

Maadiran Group

Notes

1. ^ International Directory of Company Histories s.v. Olivetti, available at answers.com.
2. ^ Jonathan M. Woodham, Twentieth Century Design, Oxford, 1997. ISBN 0192842048. p. 160 and passim
3. ^ Nathan H. Shapira, Renzo Zorzi, Design Process: Olivetti 1908-1978, catalogue of a show at the Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery of UCLA, 1979.
4. ^ See picture gallery at [2]

External links

Anthem
Il Canto degli Italiani
(also known as Fratelli d'Italia)

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computer is a machine which manipulates data according to a list of instructions.

Computers take numerous physical forms. The first devices that resemble modern computers date to the mid-20th century (around 1940 - 1941), although the computer concept and various machines
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A computer printer, or more commonly a printer, produces a hard copy (permanent human-readable text and/or graphics) of documents stored in electronic form, usually on physical print media such as paper transparencies.
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typewriter is a mechanical, electromechanical, or electronic device with a set of "keys" that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a document, usually paper.
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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1870s 1880s 1890s - 1900s - 1910s 1920s 1930s
1905 1906 1907 - 1908 - 1909 1910 1911

Year 1908 (MCMVIII
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Country Italy
Region Piedmont
Province Turin (TO)
Mayor Fiorenzo Grijuela
Elected: May 25, 2003
Party: centre-left

Area km
Population
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City of Turin
Città di Torino

Seal
Nickname: "Automobile Capital"

Coordinates:
Region Piedmont
Province
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Camillo Olivetti (born August 1868 in Ivrea - died December 1943 in Biella) was an Italian electrical engineer and founder of Olivetti & Co., SpA., the Italian manufacturer of computers, printers and other business machines.
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Adriano Olivetti (b. 11 April 1901, Ivrea - d. 27 February 1960, on a train from Milan to Lausanne) was an Italian entrepreneur, the son of the founder of Olivetti, Camillo Olivetti.
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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1900s 1910s 1920s - 1930s - 1940s 1950s 1960s
1927 1928 1929 - 1930 - 1931 1932 1933

Year 1930 (MCMXXX
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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
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1945 1946 1947 - 1948 - 1949 1950 1951

Year 1948 (MCMXLVIII
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20th century - 21st century
1920s 1930s 1940s - 1950s - 1960s 1970s 1980s
1956 1957 1958 - 1959 - 1960 1961 1962

Year 1959 (MCMLIX
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Underwood established itself as a major player in the typewriter industry with the introduction of the first Visible typewriter. Visible means it allowed the typist to see what they were typing as they were typing. By 1939 Underwood had produced five million machines.
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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1930s 1940s 1950s - 1960s - 1970s 1980s 1990s
1961 1962 1963 - 1964 - 1965 1966 1967

Also Nintendo emulator: 1964 (emulator).

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Electronics is the study of the flow of charge through various materials and devices such as, semiconductors, resistors, inductors, capacitors, nano-structures, and vacuum tubes. All applications of electronics involve the transmission of power and possibly information.
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General Electric Co.

Public (NYSE: GE )
Founded 1878 in Menlo Park, New Jersey
Founder Thomas Alva Edison
Headquarters Fairfield, Connecticut,^[1] USA

Key people Jeff Immelt, Chairman & CEO
Keith Sherin, Vice Chairman, CFO
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Museum of Modern Art

Established November 7, 1929
Location 11 West 53rd Street, Manhattan, New York, USA
Visitor figures 2.5 million/year
Director Glenn D. Lowry
Website www.moma.
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Musée des Arts Décoratifs, a museum of the decorative arts and design, 107 rue de Rivoli, Paris 1er, France. It is part of Les Arts Décoratifs.

Located in the Louvre museum's western wing, known as the Pavillon de Marsan, the museum was founded in 1905 by members of the
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Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris

Portrait on Swiss ten francs banknote
Personal information
Name Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris
Nationality Swiss / French
Birth date September 6 1887
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Louis I. Kahn

Personal information
Name Louis I. Kahn
Nationality American, Estonian
Birth date January 20 1901
Birth place Kuressaare, Estonia
Date of death March 17 1974 (aged 73)
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Gae Aulenti (Gaetana Aulenti, 1927 – ), Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI^[1] is an Italian architect, lighting and interior designer, and industrial designer.
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Industrial design is an applied art whereby the aesthetics and usability of products may be improved for marketability and production. The role of an Industrial Designer is to create and execute design solutions towards problems of engineering, marketing, brand development and
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Marcello Nizzoli (1887 - 1969) was an Italian artist and industrial designer. He was the chief designer for Olivetti for many years and was responable notably for the iconic Lettera 22 portable typewriter (1950).
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Mario Bellini (February 1 1935) is a world renowned Italian designer and architect

Biography

Mario Bellini graduated from the Politecnico di Milano - Faculty of architecture in Milan in 1959 and began working as an architect himself in the early Sixties.
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The Architect & Designer

Ettore Sottsass (14. September 1917 in Innsbruck) is an Italian architect and designer of the late 20th century. He founded the Memphis Group.
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The Divisumma 18 was an electronic printing business calculator manufactured by Olivetti in 1973 and designed by Mario Bellini.
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Compasso d'Oro is the name of an Industrial Design award originated in Italy in 1954 by the La Rinascente company from an original idea of Gio Ponti and Alberto Rosselli.
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Z8000 was a 16-bit microprocessor introduced by ZiLOG in 1979. It was architected by Bernard Peuto and designed by Masatoshi Shima. It was one of the last computer systems designed by a single person.
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central processing unit (CPU), or sometimes simply processor, is the component in a digital computer capable of executing a program.(Knott 1974) It interprets computer program instructions and processes data.
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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1950s 1960s 1970s - 1980s - 1990s 2000s 2010s
1979 1980 1981 - 1982 - 1983 1984 1985

Year 1982 (MCMLXXXII
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