Olivetti

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Olivetti SpA

logo
legal form Società per azioni
founding 1908
Seat Ivrea , ItalyItalyItaly 
management
  • Ettore Spigno, CEO
Number of employees 563
sales EUR 277 million
Branch Information technology
Website www.olivetti.com
As of December 31, 2017

Olivetti is an Italian company based in Ivrea that manufactures computers , office equipment and machines, and application software . It was founded in 1908 by Camillo Olivetti . It received a lot of attention with the high design level of its products, many of which are considered milestones in industrial design . Olivetti merged with Telecom Italia in 2003 .

The factory and residential complex of the Olivetti Works in Ivrea has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since July 1, 2018 .

history

Beginnings

The early Olivetti factory in Ivrea
Advertisement for the M1 typewriter
M40 typewriter from 1930

Camillo Olivetti, son of a wealthy Jewish family, founded a workshop in a small brick building on the outskirts of Ivrea, where he and a few technicians spent three years developing the typewriter "M1", which he presented in 1911 at the Turin industrial exhibition. The M1 was a success: in 1920 Olivetti employed 200 workers, in 1933 around 800 and in 1940, 6000 in the war year. In 1930 he opened his first assembly factory overseas. Two years later, Olivetti was converted into a public company .

Right from the start, Olivetti was characterized by a social commitment that was unusual for the times. In 1909 a company health insurance fund was founded; As a result, a social system was developed that ranged from kindergarten and maternal care to gifted children and holiday homes to cultural support for employees. Workers were specifically recruited from the Ivrea region and made up 90% of the workforce. Olivetti hoped that this would help them identify more strongly with the company. In order to avoid expropriation by the anti-Semitic fascists, Camillo Olivetti signed the company over to his Christian son Adriano Olivetti . This introduced a new management system and defined the design as an essential identification feature of the company. In 1938 he had the company relocated from the old brick factory to a new building with a glass facade, which he had commissioned from the young architects Luigi Figini and Gino Pollini.

From 1931 office furniture of the “Synthesis” product line, which had been designed by Alexander “Xanti” Schawinsky and Marcello Nizzoli, was produced. Olivetti entered the portable typewriter market in 1932 with the MP1 "Ico" typewriter. The poster for the product launch was designed by Schawinksy, the device itself by Aldo Magnielli. Although the machine was available in five colors (black, red, blue, gray, green), most copies were ordered in black. After the success of the “Ico”, the Studio 42 followed in 1935 as a semi-professional machine. Schawinsky designed the device, but also consulted the architects Figini and Pollini, who were in charge of the construction of the new main building at the time. The M20 designed by Camillo Olivetti was no longer delivered in black high-gloss, but in a dark gray textured paint.

In 1948 Olivetti released its Divisumma electric calculator . In the 1950s the company had its own branches in 21 countries and two thirds of the production was sold outside of Italy.

Adriano Olivetti founded the magazine “Comunità” in 1946 and “united the best thinkers and theories on the state and politics, on art and literature”. The unconventional company policy included an unusual workforce. The head of the social department was the socially critical poet Paolo Volponi , but also a graduate of a Catholic boarding school in France.

Mainframe computer Elea 9003 from 1957

The first electronic computer with transistors produced in Italy was introduced by Olivetti in 1959 under the name Elea 9003 . In the same year Olivetti took over the American typewriter manufacturer Underwood . Adriano Olivetti died of a stroke on the express train between Montreux and Lausanne in 1960; the company he had previously run became the bone of contention for the seven heirs. Shortly afterwards, the Olivetti President Giuseppe Pero, who had been appointed by Adriano Olivetti, died. In 1964, the company ran into financial difficulties for the first time after the takeover of Underwood did not bring in any significant sales and exports to South America fell short of expectations. The previous corporate strategy was a "socialism without Marx" with above-average wages and social benefits for the workforce; now it was forced to make major layoffs and wage cuts.

Development as an electronics manufacturer

Programma 101 from 1965

Bruno Visentini , a friend and lawyer of the deceased, took over the running of the company. In 1964, he outsourced machine tool and mainframe production ( electronics division ) to the US company General Electric , pushed the development and production of microcomputers and expanded the design department (product design, advertising, architecture) to 100 people. In 1968 Olivetti delivered a complete factory for calculating and accounting machines to the Soviet Union ; The value of the order was 320 million DM. For the first time CNC controls for machine tools were offered and local terminals instead of mainframes. The computer Olivetti Programma 101 (unit price: 16,428 DM) became a success in the 1960s, especially in the USA, where NASA used it to calculate the moon landing. With the introduction of value added tax in Germany , the P 203 office computer became a bestseller and fivefold Olivetti's sales in the country. The BASIC computer P6060 was successful. With the TC 800 from 1974 and the L1-MOS line, Olivetti was also in business with multi-user-based minicomputers .

The P6060 computer from 1976 with an integrated thermal printer
M10 from 1983

In the early 1970s, Olivetti was making only 20% of sales directly from computers; by 1977 this proportion rose to 43%. A great success - because a symbol of a non-hierarchical counterculture to the classic office - was the design icon Olivetti Valentine in 1969 .

Olivetti in Germany

The Olivetti Towers in Frankfurt, designed by Egon Eiermann

From the 1950s to 1972, Deutsche Olivetti GmbH was located at various locations in the Offenbach district, including a service workshop in Offenbach am Main (Bieber), administration in Neu-Isenburg and a warehouse in Dietzenbach (Waldstrasse).

In 1972 all areas except the warehouse moved to the architecturally distinctive Olivetti Towers in Frankfurt-Niederrad (Lyoner Strasse 34), in which various small companies have rented today. The left tower above the main entrance of the building was mainly a training hotel with very futuristic rooms. Management, administration, sales and marketing were located in the right tower. In the pavilions below the towers, the canteen was located above the main entrance, in the right, larger pavilion on the ground floor there was a showroom with a product exhibition, technical customer service (Teku) and on the first floor the electronics workshops and numerous training rooms. There were also other training rooms in a complex rented by Hertie on Rhonestrasse. The central warehouse with the “Application” department for customer-specific adaptations and installations was in the Osthafen in a warehouse in Schmickstrasse until 1992, when this area moved to a larger building in Flörsheim (Böttgerstrasse). There were other Teku branches in Hamburg , Berlin , Düsseldorf , Stuttgart and Munich .

The office machines were mainly sold through specialist dealers; Olivetti only served larger customers such as the major Frankfurt banks directly and concluded regular maintenance contracts with their own technicians with these customers. Around 1987 the company changed its name to "TA-Olivetti GmbH" and in 1989 to "Olivetti Systems & Networks GmbH". In 1998 the head office was relocated from Frankfurt to Munich.

Further development of the group

In 1986 Olivetti took over the badly loss-making office machine and computer manufacturer Triumph-Adler from the Volkswagen Group . Although the company was considered backward, it still had a well-developed distribution network. At Triumph-Adler, unprofitable production lines were given up and departments downsized; a total of 4,000 jobs were cut. The German headquarters moved from Frankfurt to Nuremberg on the company's premises. After the integration of the company, Triumph-Adler's service division and the brand name were sold again in 1994.

When Olivetti's general manager Carlo de Benedetti , known as L'ingegnere , announced his intention to increase the stake until a blocking minority was acquired in 1988 after acquiring 18% of the share capital of Société Générale de Belgique , the Belgian establishment tried to prevent him from doing so, as the largest Belgian commercial bank, thanks to its industrial holding, had widespread holdings in Belgian industry and was considered a national institution.

Change in the core areas

In the 1980s, Olivetti was the second largest PC supplier in Europe after IBM , according to other sources, the second largest computer manufacturer in the world. 71% of sales in 1982 came from computers. At the same time, Olivetti was the market leader in Europe for office machines, especially with electronic typewriters; in Germany, however, the German manufacturers Olympia and Triumph-Adler were somewhat more widespread. From the late 1980s, prices began to fall in the PC business, and the typewriter business also slowly declined.

Olivetti was forced to source more and more components from Japan and Korea, where they were cheaper to manufacture. The company was heavily exposed to product piracy: A high-quality electronic household typewriter, for example, which was offered in 18,000 to 20,000 units for 499 DM, was soon available as a copy from the Far East for 298 DM. De Benedetti divided the company into three new business divisions: Systems and Networks , Software and office .

The company increasingly shifted its capacities to the telecommunications sector. The decline in prices and quality in the end customer market even forced Olivetti to stop developing personal computers in 1995 and, from 1997, to withdraw completely from this area. Until 2010 the company limited itself to business customers.

Entry into the mobile communications market and takeover of Telecom Italia

In 1995 Olivetti founded a jointly operated mobile communications company called Omnitel with the German Mannesmann AG , in which Mannesmann held 31.4% and Olivetti 23.4%. When Olivetti applied for a share in Telecom Italia in 1999, the two groups agreed to sell the Olivetti shares in the largest Italian wireless operator Omnitel to Mannesmann, which is now owned by Vodafone . Mannesmann and Olivetti also founded and operated a joint landline telecommunications company under the name Infostrada , in which both held a 50% stake until Olivetti joined Telecom Italia. After the takeover of Mannesmann by Vodafone, Infostrada was sold to the Italian company ENEL .

In 1999, Bell SA from Luxembourg acquired a majority stake in Olivetti, but sold it two years later to a consortium in which Pirelli held 60% and Edizioni Holding, a subsidiary of the Italian clothing group Benetton , held 40%. In a long takeover battle, Olivetti then acquired the majority of Telecom Italia . In 2003 Telecom Italia became the new umbrella group and Olivetti Tecnost the brand of the technology division. Since then, the areas of the new group have been telecommunications and information technology .

The re-entry into the computer field

In March 2010, Olivetti surprised the public by re-entering the computer market with the Olibook S1300 notebook, which had been marketed in Italy since March 16, 2010.

Since spring 2011 tablet computers have been sold under the name Olivetti OliPad . The OliPad 110 was sold in Germany and Austria via Aldi and Hofer in December 2011 as the Medion LifeTab 9514.

Architecture and design

The main building from 1938 in Ivrea
Promenade at the former Olivetti factory in Ivrea

Camillo Olivetti already showed a great affinity for design and, in the context of the new objectivity, dispensed with high-gloss lacquering and gold-plated frames on the typewriters in favor of a gray powder coating. With the Ico , a typewriter was developed for the first time together with designers. In 1936, Xanti Schawinsky , a Bauhaus graduate , was hired as a graphic artist. From 1936 industrial designer and architect Marcello Nizzoli was responsible for product design and architecture . Ettore Sottsass followed in this position in the late 1960s and Mario Bellini in the 1980s .

In 1961, the Zurich Museum of Applied Arts organized an exhibition called “Stile Olivetti”. Olivetti equipment was shown at Documenta III . In the 1960s, the company's products were added to the Museum of Modern Art's collection and awarded prizes, including the TCV-250 video terminal designed by Mario Bellini in 1966 . Olivetti was the first foreign company in the US to gain such recognition during production times. In Germany, the company cooperated with the Ulm School of Design . A former student of this university, Hans von Klier, revised the company's corporate design from 1971 to 1978 and established the “red books” as design guidelines.

In 1983 the company's 75th anniversary was celebrated under the motto Design Process Olivetti . Der Spiegel wrote of the “most elegant products of the machine age” and named the typewriters Lexicon 80 (1948) and Lettera 22 (1950) designed by Nizzoli as examples.

The growth of the company led to a large number of architecturally sophisticated new buildings. Olivetti is considered a pioneer of corporate architecture . The town of Ivrea grew through Olivetti to a town of 30,000 inhabitants, only to drop below 24,000 after the end of production in the town. The Colonia Olivetti and the former factories have been the "Open-Air Museum of Olivetti Buildings" Archivio Olivetti since 2001 . The most important building is the main building with a glass facade designed by Figini and Pollini in 1938.

The design and construction department of the “Showrooms” was located in Florence and also had its own training center. The company's best-known showroom is probably in Venice at 101 Piazza San Marco, it was designed by Carlo Scarpa in 1957–58 . In 2006 this shop was restored by the company and, together with the exhibited products, was set back as a museum in the 1950s after it had previously been rented out as a souvenir shop.

A well-known architect in the respective area was always entrusted with the architecture of the regional branches and training centers; the elaborate construction was part of the corporate culture . Egon Eiermann was elected for Germany, James Stirling for Great Britain , who built an award-winning training center from 1968–72. Kenzo Tange designed the Japan branch in 1969. In the United States, Louis I. Kahn designed a factory in 1966 , Richard Meier the local sales offices and in 1971 the dormitory of the Olivetti Training Center in Tarrytown, New York. Even Leon Krier worked for Olivetti.

Olivetti is sometimes seen as the spiritual forerunner of the Apple design philosophy because of its appealing product design.

Products

Olivetti ATM
A virtual network computing session in its own window
Olivetti daVinci PDA with accessories

Olivetti produced or produces typewriters , calculating machines , accounting machines , mainframes, personal computers, notebooks, PDAs , printers, tablets, pocket calculators, telephones, bank terminals, photocopiers, ticket validators, computer-controlled production machines. In addition to the core business areas, office furniture and desk accessories were also produced for own use and for reference objects.

At the Olivetti Research Laboratory (ORL) in Cambridge which was Virtual Network Computing developed. In 1999 the laboratory was bought by AT&T and closed in 2002.

Olivetti typewriters

The era of the typewriter is roughly divided into three areas: purely mechanical models in which the operator has to use force to create the letter imprint, electromechanical models in which the operator only triggers the function and an electric drive provides the force for the function provides, and electronic models in which the function triggering no longer necessarily causes an action on the document, but data processing and storage can take place between these two links in the function chain. This development history is also reflected in the Olivetti typewriters; Olivetti is one of the major pioneers in the field of electronic type wheel typewriters in particular.

Olivetti's mechanical typewriters

Founded in 1908, Olivetti began manufacturing many types of typewriters. The very first typewriter was the M1 , which was introduced at the Turin World Exhibition in 1911. “Special emphasis is placed on the design of the machine. A typewriter must not be a showpiece for the salon that is overloaded with bad taste. It should look sober and elegant at the same time ”- it sounds like a program that explains the history of Olivetti design, a principle that Olivetti maintained until the end of the typewriter era. The M40 series, manufactured from 1938 onwards , achieved widespread international distribution, which is evident in the fact that many machines of this type have been preserved to this day. The Bauhaus student Xanti Schawinski designed the poster for the MP1 Ico from 1936 and later the semi-professional Studio 42 typewriter . These were replaced by the Lettera series, the devices of which were mostly designed by Marcello Nizzoli. The most famous design is the Lettera 22, so Günter Grass liked to use his Lettera 22 until the end . The 1969 Olivetti Valentine, designed by Ettore Sottsass , followed as a mechanical typewriter .

Electric typewriters of the Tekne, Editor and Lexicon series by Olivetti

With the Tekne / Editor series, Olivetti presented its first electromechanical type lever typewriters in the mid-1960s. Top model of this series was the Editor 5 , with carbon ribbon and excellent print quality mechanically realized proportional font , and the possibility of a mechanical counter to pretty elaborate way even justified to write. An Editor 3 was also built into the early Olivetti TCV 203 computer as a printing unit. Editor typewriters specially designed by the manufacturer have long been used for high-speed typing competitions; the type lever drive system used by Olivetti with a swinging “drive flag” and “hammer levers” instead of the friction and toothed rollers preferred by competitors was very suitable for this. Later, the Lettera 36, an electromechanical portable typewriter, was introduced. In 1964, the Praxis 48 came out, a compact semi-professional machine designed by Sottsass and Hans von Klier as a “house with a balcony”, which is now sought after by collectors because of its design.

In 1972 Olivetti presented Lexikon 90, its first ball-head typewriter based on its own solution, in competition with the IBM Selectric . The lexicon was equipped with a mechanical read-only memory that converted the translation of the national keyboards into rotating and swiveling movements of the ball head, which was also nationally adapted. In contrast to the Selectrix , the Lexicon ball-head typewriters did not have a moving print head, but, like the Editor series, a carriage that moved the platen back and forth so that the print position always remained in the same place on the machine. As a novelty for Olivetti, the lexicon was equipped with ribbon cassettes; the user could alternatively use nylon or carbon ribbons. The top model Lexicon 94C had proportional font and like the Editor 5 support for justification and, depending on the ribbon used, had lift-off or cover-up character correction; After pressing the delete key, the user only had to type the letter to be corrected in order to delete it from the sheet. A short time later, Lexicon 82 was a compact, portable version.

Olivetti ET series electronic typewriters

In 1978 Olivetti presented its first electronic typewriter TES 501 with a type wheel printer, 8-inch floppy disk drive and a single-line plasma display for text processing. In the same year, the TES 401 was followed by a somewhat smaller version of this text automaton, which was already referred to as a "memory typewriter" in the operating instructions and which was able to store a text of around 2 kB on a "mini disk" with a diameter of around 5 cm.

At the same time, Olivetti introduced the ET 101, the world's first electronic type wheel typewriter, only equipped with a single-line correction memory, which was only sold in Italy. In the following year, the ET 201 and ET 221 replaced this first model again. The 201 only had a two-digit display, which showed the remaining characters up to the right edge, the 221 was the first type wheel typewriter to be equipped with a green, glowing plasma text display, which enabled a visual check of the text entered before it was printed on paper . The 221 was followed by the more powerful ET 231 . The 231 differed from the 221, among other things, by the programs that can be stored in the empty phrase memory for the recurring filling out of forms. The 201 was replaced in 1981 by the ET 121 , again without a display , the 231 replaced by the ET 225 with an LC display, which could be retrofitted with a "Procard 101" module. Like later display-based models, this had hyphenation, text correction functions and other programs. The ET 225 could be upgraded to 64 kB battery-buffered phrase memory. From the ET 201 onwards , various serial interface modules (LCU, Line Communication Unit) could be retrofitted, which prepared the machines for connection to ETV or ETS systems or to the external DU 251 disk drive ; an optional parallel interface enabled printer operation, and dial-up applications were opened up with an RS-422 interface. The top model of this generation from 1982 onwards was the ET 351 with one or two integrated 5.25-inch floppy disk drives and an optional teletext receiver unit. As a special feature, the office typewriters of this first generation by Olivetti were equipped with a printing mechanism that did not use a stepper motor for the type wheel character selection and the print head movement like the competition , but with DC motors with encoders. This was more complex in terms of software, but faster and could be produced more cheaply, but these motors had to be compared with their respective base board.

The second generation of typewheel typewriters for office use from 1984 onwards were the ET 110 , ET 111 and ET 115 (the latter with display), which were equipped with stepper motors like their competitors , and the somewhat more compact ET 109, which was added in 1986 . Compared to the previous models, the printing unit was built much flatter, which emphasized the wedge shape of the Olivetti ET series of office typewriters. The ribbon cassettes had a significantly higher capacity due to a three-line use. The ET 112 and ET 116 represented a further development from 1986 onwards , which again worked with further developed DC motors with encoders, this time without the need for adjustment, and achieved a printing speed of up to 25 characters per second. These two machines had a correction memory of 500 characters; you could use it to automatically correct text in the last six lines of printed paper. The ET 116 had a display and supported multi-column printing.

The last generation of Olivetti office typewriters was the ET 2000 series from 1989 , consisting of ET 2200 , ET 2300 , ET 2400 , ET 2500 and as a further development ET 2250 MD and ET 2450 MD , the last four each with an LCD display. Some of these machines had special "Olivetti Italia" models in their home country, but they did not differ in terms of performance from the international models. Compared to its predecessors, this generation was much simpler, used stepper motors again, and required very little maintenance; there were hardly any mechanical or electronic setting options.

The top models of the ET series from the ET 225 could be equipped with an intelligent (i.e. equipped with its own microprocessor) floppy disk drive via a retrofittable interface, which, in addition to a document archive, enabled documents to be exchanged with other models of the ET and ETV series. In addition, most ETs could be upgraded with an interface for dial-up or as a printer. Special interface kits enabled connection to an ETV or ETS word processor.

Screen typewriters of the Olivetti ETV series

The ETV series (Electronic Typewriter with Video) can be seen as an upgrade option and intermediate step to the PC . These screen typewriters were relevant under labor law, as working with them was not classified as a PC workstation, but continued to be classified as a typewriter workstation, which resulted in lower labor costs, although the word processing systems were as powerful as contemporary word processing programs for PCs.

In the form of the ETV 300 , ETV 350 , ETV 500 and ETV 2900 , these were each available as an external box with a monitor, which could be connected to a typewriter from the ET series of the same generation equipped with an optional interface . Disk drives in 3.5 or 5.25 inch format ( ETV 300 ) were used as mass storage devices . The connected typewriter served these ETV systems as a keyboard and printer.

Combined with the ETV 240 , ETV 250 , ETV 260 , ETV 2700 and ETV 4000s, there were integrated systems that were sold as a unit with a word processor, keyboard and print wheel. The ETV 260 and 2700 were optionally available with a 20 MB hard disk instead of a second floppy disk drive. The ETV 240 and 250 , like the ETV 300 and ETV 350, ran under the CP / M operating system and the Olitext MWP word processing system and were based on the stepper motor printing unit of the ET 111/115 . The ETV 260 and ETV 2700 ran under MS-DOS and the MWP downward compatible word processing system Olitext SWS ( ETV 260 ) or SWP ( ETV 2700 ), the ETV 4000s under Windows 3.0 and a WYSIWYG version of Olitext. The integrated printers could also be controlled from other CP / M or MS-DOS and Windows applications.

The ETV 260 from 1987 had an optimized printing mechanism of the ET 116 , achieved a very fast 30 characters per second as a type wheel printer and had a paper sensor in the print head that could measure the left edge of the paper and the width of the paper inserted, the print head corresponding to the left edge of the paper and prevented further printing when the right edge of the paper was reached. Olitext SWS / SWP on the ETV 260 , ETV 2700 (from 1989) and the combination of ETV 500 and ET 112/116 or ETV 2700 and ET 2x00 could print tables and simple line graphics on the respective type wheel printer. The ETV 500 is essentially the same as the Olivetti M19 personal computer to which a typewriter is connected; the same main board is in the ETV 260 .

The ETV 4000s from 1991 used a thermal transfer printer licensed by IBM instead of a print wheel . The ETV 4000s also came with a handheld scanner so that sketches and photos could be integrated into the documents.

The CRT monitor of the integrated ETV systems could be ergonomically attached to the desk at eye level using the swivel arm supplied. The image display was always monochrome in green on black or from the ETV 2700 in even more ergonomic white on black or black on white (inverse display) similar to the monitor SM-124 from ATARI , each with brightness gradations. The MS-DOS devices ETV 260 , ETV 500 , ETV 2700 and ETV 2900 had a CGA- compatible graphics card, the ETV 4000s had a VGA .

The systems of the ETV series were able to import the documents of their respective predecessor models as well as documents stored in some cases from floppy disk drives of the ET series; It was also possible to export from SWS and SWP in ASCII text, so that even ET 351 documents could be processed on modern PCs via a device chain . For example, you could import documents from the ET 351 with the ETV 300 and save them in your own format, read ETV 300 or DU 251 disks with ETV 240 , ETV 250 , ETV 350 and an additional 5.25-inch DU 251 drive and then read them again Save your own format, import the ETV 2xx documents again with the ETV 260 or ETV 2700 and save them as ".TXT". A text conversion "backwards" from the more modern system to the predecessor was not planned.

A curiosity of this series is the less successful ETV 210s from 1989, equipped with a thermal transfer printing unit ( IBM Quietwriter ) licensed by IBM , which, as with the type wheel machines , enables lift-off correction, but without additional correction tape, and a two-line 80- Character display and floppy disk drive that saves in the CP / M format of the ETV 240 , 250 and 350 . It was touted as "the future of the typewriter" because of the replacement of the type wheel by the thermal transfer printer, but unsuccessfully. Due to the LCD, it actually didn't fit into the ETV series. There was little competition from competitors to the Olivetti ETV series; Most similar were the IBM Wheelwriter 50/70 Series I and II. Telenorma sold the ETV 250 under its own name in a light brown case.

Around 1989/90, the 9-pin printer-based screen typewriter Olivetti CWP 1 (Compact Word Processor), which cost around DM 1,700 and was still equipped with an 8-bit Z-80 processor derivative from Hitachi and the outdated operating system, was designed for home users CP / M was equipped. At that time, however, you could already buy a powerful 16/32-bit home computer (from Commodore , ATARI , Personal Computer ) with 9 or 24-pin printers and a much more powerful word processor (e.g. Signum! ) For the money you couldn't just process texts. But at least the use of CP / M 2.2 in the ROM enabled data exchange via floppy disks to the CP / M-based ETV models and the import into SWP on the MS-DOS-based ETV 2700. What is remarkable, however, is the excellent print quality of the CWP- 1 because of the use of a carbon ribbon in a dot matrix printer. The CWP-1 and its even stranger successor, Editor 100 , which is a mixture of CWP-1 with an Olivetti Prodest PC 1, were not a success.

Electronic typewriters for private users

In 1982 Olivetti introduced the world's first electronic portable typewriter, the Praxis 30/35 . This and the somewhat larger practice 40 introduced a little later only had a correction memory of one line. The Praxis 41 and Praxis 45D had an LCD for editing the input line and, like the large office typewriters with display, could also write justified and centered text. The Praxis 45D could be expanded with a battery-backed constant text memory via a module that could be attached to the side and thus functionally almost connected to the large ET 221 . In the early 1980s, practice 35 and 40 were often equipped by external companies with simple serial or parallel interfaces for control by computers via the keyboard matrix. This was followed by the inexpensive Praxis 20 or later ET Personal 50 machine and, as the successor to Praxis 41, the ET Compact 60 and the slightly larger ET Compact 70 , which offered the option of connecting a serial or parallel interface offered by the manufacturer to use the machine as a Printer to use. Up to the ET Compact 70 , Olivetti used again DC motors with encoder (strobe disk) for the type wheel rotation ("selection motor ") with the exception of Praxis 20 / ETP 50 , which in Praxis 35 were still as fault-prone sliding contacts, then optoelectronic as with office typewriters were; all models thereafter used stepper motors that were easier to implement. With the ET Personal 55/56 and ET Compact 65/66 , the last generation of electronic portable typewriters from Olivetti appeared, which were sold in an almost incalculable number of variations under a wide variety of product names through a wide variety of sales channels up to supermarket chains: Praxis 100 , Praxis 200 , Lettera 504 , Lettera 540 , PT 505 , ET Personal 1000 , ET Personal 1250 , etc. These machines differ from the four original versions only in their housing shapes. The Top 100 was a late top model in this series with a 3.5-inch floppy disk drive and 16-line display.

Common features of all Olivetti type wheel typewriters

From the last two generations, the ET 11x and ET 2000 series, there was a "wide wagon version" in addition to the normal version, in which DIN A3 horizontally or DIN A2 lengthways could be clamped and completely printed. The normal version managed 132 (10 CPI), 158 (12 CPI) or 198 (15 CPI) characters per line (A4 landscape and slightly wider), depending on the character spacing. The line spacing was 1, 1.5, 2 and 2.5. From the ET 112/116 onwards , characters could be placed in superscript and subscript and the paper could be moved up and down continuously using a new line feed drive. Automatic underlining, bold face, and bold underlined were the standard text attributes that these machines mastered. The ET 225 and later models partly also mastered inverse printing, in which the letter surface was first blackened with vertical lines "|" in micro-steps and the letter to be printed was then "highlighted" using correction tape in white. All type wheel machines from the manufacturer Olivetti from the TES 501 to the ET 2xxx series and the portable travel typewriters use the same type wheels, starting with the ET 11x and the ETV systems based on it, by means of an adapter that makes it much easier to insert the type wheel into the printing unit. From the ET 111 onwards , the professional office typewriters of the ET and ETV series were able to use a coding of reflective surfaces on the inner circle of the type wheel to set the switching step (10, 12, 15 or proportional font), the printing surface required from the letter size and the national character set coding of the type wheel read automatically.

All of these machines stood out due to their extraordinary design. Typical of the 1980s was the mostly very angular design with flat surfaces and a clearly visible wedge shape. From the ET 121 to the ET 116 and ETV 350 and from the Praxis 30 to the ET Compact 60 , the machines were kept in a very dark brown-gray, almost black, with white lettering. From the ET Compact 70 , the ET 109 and the ETV 260 , the office typewriters have been designed in a light gray-beige shade according to the latest ergonomic findings. The late portable typewriters came partly comparatively colorful therefore, the practice 100 there were such. B. in a light blue tone, the Staff 55/56/65/66 had pastel yellow roller knobs . The Italian star designer Mario Bellini was responsible for the design of all these machines, and he designed many products for Olivetti.

Olivetti stopped producing typewriters in 1994 at the latest. The PC had largely completed its triumphant advance over the typewriter.

Printer and copier

The early Olivetti computers of the Programma , Pxxxx and TCV series and booking and calculating machines have always had integrated printing units of various types for displaying the calculation results, since the technology of a display or screen display was initially still expensive. Various processes such as thermal printers , type lever drives , roller printers and dot matrix printers were used, all of which came from our own development and production. The Copia series has also been used in the field of photocopiers . When Olivetti began to offer his mini-computers of the L1 series and later his personal computers , this experience was able to fall back on and printers that matched the computer could be offered right away. Mostly these were needle printers of the older PR and the newer DM series, which consisted of different performance classes of 9- and 24-needle printers. The best known of the Epson FX-compatible likely DM-105 be -Farbnadeldrucker, the Commodore as MPS 1500 C was expelled. With the DY-800 , Olivetti had the fastest type wheel printer in the world in its range; Like the dot matrix printers common at the time, it managed 80 characters per second and was based on an extremely sophisticated printing mechanism from the ET 225 office typewriter . Olivetti's laser printers were all based on printing from other manufacturers, e.g. B. from Hewlett-Packard or TEC. Olivetti also played a role in the development of the inkjet printer , although the importance of HP, Canon and Epson was never achieved.

Calculating machines and booking machines

From the 1930s onwards, Olivetti developed various series of mechanical calculating machines that stood out for their compact design. The machines of the Summa series mastered the calculation types sum and difference. The electrical Divisumma devices from the mid-1950s onwards could also multiply and divide using roller calculators. The first electronic calculating machines appeared with the electronic Divisumma from 1972 and the Logos series from 1975; These include some unusually designed devices such as the Divisumma 28, known as the “whistle” because of its shape, and the printing calculator Logos 9 . In addition, Olivetti manufactured various mechanical, electromechanical and electronic booking machines such as the widely used A4 that were Datev certified.

Personal computer

Olivetti's first personal computer , the M20 with the Zilog Z8001 CPU , was released in 1982. In 1984 Olivetti took a 25% stake in AT&T in order to get a majority stake in 1989. This project failed. In 1985 Olivetti acquired an influential stake in the British computer manufacturer Acorn Computer Ltd. , in which Thomson SA was also involved. Olivetti then sold the Thomson MO6 and the Acorn BBC Master Compact under the brand names Olivetti Prodest PC128 and PC128s . While the customers of the acquired company (including universities and schools) turned out to be far less lucrative than hoped, Olivetti benefited from the research capacities that led to the establishment of the Olivetti Research Laboratory in Cambridge in 1986 , where virtual network computing was developed. In this way, Olivetti was at least financially involved in the development of the Acorn Risc Machine , the standard processor of most tablets and smartphones today .

The M24 personal computer , which is considered the second clone of the IBM PC , was the most compatible clone of all for a long time and, with its 8086 processor at 8 MHz, was about twice as fast as the IBM XT, is particularly worth mentioning . The M24 could be equipped with a Z8000 card, with which the M20 software could be executed. In addition to MS-DOS, CP / M-86 was offered for the M24 , and Olivetti also sold the GEM graphic system for the M24 . For a long time, the M24 was the standard PC for communication with the Datev . The M21 was a portable version of the M24 , the M19 a more compact version with an 8088 CPU. The M24SP clocked at 10 MHz and had a larger, special graphic resolution that was often used for CAD applications. The M28 with 80286 wasn't quite as successful as it was slower than the competition with a processor speed of just 8 MHz; late models were therefore delivered with a competitive 12 MHz again. With the M22 , Olivetti showed an LCD-based laptop with an 8088 processor very early on; A little later, the M15 with two floppy drives was sold relatively successfully .

Some Olivetti PCs were sold in the USA by AT&T and Xerox with their own names during this time; the AT&T 6300 and the Xerox 6060 correspond to the Olivetti M24 .

After that, the range of Olivetti PCs became unmanageable, especially the M380 with 80386 processor and the M300 with 80386SX processor, there were many variants that differed in graphics capability and clock frequency. With the CP486 ("Computing Platform"), Olivetti showed the first EISA bus-based 80486 workstation in 1989, which went into series production as the LSX-5010 (25 MHz) and LSX-5020 (33 MHz) in a large tower housing . A desktop computer based on this hardware was sold as the M486 . In addition to the 80486, the LSX 5010/5020 could be expanded by an arithmetic coprocessor from Weitek and an Intel i860 - Risc processor . Further models of the LSX and Netstrada series were sold with the operating systems Windows NT, OS / 2, Xenix, a specially licensed "Olivetti Unix" and Novell-Netware as high-end workstations or servers, partly under the label of the acquired manufacturer Triumph- Eagle. With the P500 and P800 , IBM PS / 2 -compatible systems with microchannel architecture were introduced in 1992 .

In cooperation with TA, the S / D series laptops were produced, called Walkstation at TA . So were z. B. the S20 with the Walkstation 386SX and the D33 with the Walkstation 386-33 are each identical. Later Olivetti notebooks such as the Philos and Echos series were mostly produced by contract manufacturers in the Far East. Late PC products that stood out from the crowd were the Quaderno mini laptop , which can be seen as the direct forerunner of netbooks . and the Olivetti Envision multimedia PC in hi-fi device format.

While sales to business customers had been quite successful from the introduction of the M24 to the first Pentium systems of the M4 Modulo series, Olivetti was hardly able to sell PCs in the private customer business, even though the PCS series offered entry-level devices. The Olivetti Prodest PC1 , which was supposed to compete with the Schneider Euro PC , was not even offered in Germany like the Prodest PC-128 taken over by Acorn .

Olivetti produced many components for the electronic typewriters and PCs itself. With OPE (Olivetti Peripherals), there was a subcontractor that manufactured floppy disk drives, hard drives, print heads and similar fine mechanical components for Olivetti. Around the middle of the 1990s, the development of own PCs was stopped, as one could no longer keep up with components bought cheaply in the Far East.

Design milestones

  • Olivetti MP1 Ico from 1932 (designer: Riccardo Levi; design: Aldo Magnelli)

  • Studio 42 from 1935, design: Xanti Schawinsky and the Figini & Pollini office

  • Calculating machine Summa 15 from 1949, designed by Marcello Nizzoli

  • MC 24 calculating machine from 1956, designed by Marcello Nizzoli

  • Lettera 22 from 1950, designed by Marcello Nizzoli

  • Computer programma 101

  • Summa 19 from 1969, designed by Ettore Sottsass and Hans von Klier

  • "Valentine" case typewriter, designed in 1969 by Ettore Sottsass

  • Adding machine Logos 58, designed in 1972 by Mario Bellini

  • Notebook Echos 44, designed by Michele De Lucchi in 1993

Trivia

  • In 1980 an embarrassing argument between the Olympics and Triumph-Adler was said to have broken out at an office machine exhibition, the question of which of the two had developed the first electronic typewriter. It wasn't until later that Olivetti had been on the market for almost two years with its ET 101 and ET 221 and was just introducing its second generation of electronic office typewriters and, with the Praxis 30/35, the first electronic case typewriter.
  • In the Olivetti headquarters in Frankfurt-Niederrad there were ashtrays set into the wall every 5 meters in the corridors.

Web links

Commons : Olivetti  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ olivetti.com - Management
  2. ↑ a b olivetti.com. Profile. Olivetti SpA, accessed April 3, 2019 .
  3. ↑ merger with Olivetti on n-tv.de; accessed: 23 August 2016.
  4. ↑ Olivetti-Werke and Kaliphstadt on the orf.at world heritage list , July 1, 2018, accessed July 1, 2018.
  5. ↑ The Olivetti style. In: The time. 21/1964.
  6. ↑ a b Don Camillo's heirs . In: Der Spiegel . No. 16 , 1964, pp. 100-103 ( Online - Apr. 15, 1964 ).
  7. ↑ Christine Wolter: The city of people. In: NZZ from February 22, 2010.
  8. ↑ a b Reinhart Baumgart: A fool in the factory. Paolo Volponi: “I, the undersigned” . In: Der Spiegel . No. 15 , 1965, p. 138-140 ( online - April 7, 1965 ).
  9. ↑ Manager: Working for Others . In: Der Spiegel . No. 25 , 1965, pp. 44-57 ( Online - June 16, 1965 ).
  10. ↑ a b Seriousness and Elegance . In: Der Spiegel . No. 44 , 1968, pp. 116-122 ( online - 28 October 1968 ).
  11. ↑ Olivetti minicomputer
  12. ^ A b c Klaus North: Knowledge-oriented corporate management: Value creation through knowledge, p. 103.
  13. ↑ Computer company Olivetti pushes into Germany . In: Der Spiegel . No. 16 , 1986, pp. 136 ( Online - Apr. 14, 1986 ).
  14. ↑ Lesson learned . In: Der Spiegel . No. 25 , 1989, pp. 91-92 ( online - 19 June 1989 ).
  15. ↑ Olivetti is returning to the PC market. ( Memento of November 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Milan, March 15, 2010
  16. ↑ Olivetti OliPad is Italy's first tablet
  17. ↑ Olivetti Olipad 110: was the Medion Lifetab P9514 exposed? ( Memento of the original from May 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.markensysteme.de
  18. ↑ Pressed by prosperity . In: Der Spiegel . No. 52 , 1963, pp. 68-77 ( Online - Dec. 25, 1963 ).
  19. ↑ Ulm: On the Kuhberg . In: Der Spiegel . No. 12 , 1963, pp. 72-75 ( Online - Mar. 20, 1963 ).
  20. ^ Exhibition on the “stile Olivetti” . In: Der Spiegel . No. 17 , 1983, pp. 241 ( Online - Apr. 25, 1983 ).
  21. ↑ The Myth of the Brand In: Manager Magazin , September 1, 2004.
  22. ↑ Design Process Olivetti 1908–1983. Brochure accompanying the traveling exhibition of the same name
  23. ↑ Irene Stock: Not only Günther Grass loves his typewriter . In: WAZ. July 28, 2010. See also About Writing and Grandpa's Lovers . In: G. Grass: Vonne Endlichkait. Göttingen 2015, p. 116f. Grass got an Olivetti as a wedding present.
  24. ↑ Training documents and technician's manual Tekne 3, Editor 4 and Editor 5, Chapter "Services and Features" from p. 4 ff.
  25. ↑ Olivetti Lexicon 90 Series Service Manual. 1972, “Services and Features” from page 26.02ff.
  26. ↑ Portable ball-head typewriter Lexicon 82
  27. ↑ Olivetti TES 501. Text editing system, original promotional video from 1978
  28. ↑ Olivetti minidisc (1977 - early 1980s)
  29. ↑ User manual Olivetti TES 401 memory typewriter, edition 1978.
  30. ↑ La Olivetti ET 101 e le macchine per scrivere elettroniche
  31. ↑ Design Process Olivetti 1908–1983. P. 30.
  32. ↑ Operating Manual ET 201, ET 231, Chapter "Features"
  33. ↑ Operating instructions and service manual Olivetti ET 225
  34. ↑ Operating instructions Olivetti ET 351, ET 351 TTX and associated service manuals, 1981, 1982.
  35. ↑ W. Köntopp, Ingo Schrader: The electronic typewriter. Verlag B. Köntopp, Leopoldshöhe 1986, and the technician manuals for the various ET 2xx, ET 121, ET 351.
  36. ↑ Operating manual and service manuals Olivetti ET 109, 110, 111, 115, each chapter "Features"
  37. ↑ Operating and service manuals Olivetti ET 112 and ET 116 Chapter "Features"
  38. ↑ Operating instructions and service manuals ET 2200 / ET2400, ET 2300 / ET2500, operating instructions ET 2250 MD / 22450 MD
  39. ↑ Service manuals Olivetti ET 225 to 2500, each chapter "Features"
  40. ↑ Operating instructions and technician manuals ETV 250, ETV 260, ETV 2700
  41. ↑ Technician's manual Olivetti ETV 260, ETV 500
  42. ↑ Brochure Olivetti ETV 4000s
  43. ↑ IBM Wheelwriter 50. ( Memento from March 13, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  44. ↑ Olivetti CWP 1
  45. ↑ Olivetti Editor 100, poor description with 2 photos ( memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.retrocomputing.net
  46. ↑ Olivetti Praxis 35, 1980
  47. ↑ Operating instructions and technician manuals Olivetti Praxis 30/35, Praxis 45D
  48. ↑ Operating instructions Olivetti ET Compact 60, LCU 60S
  49. ↑ Summary from the technician manuals of the ET series, ETV and practice models
  50. ↑ Development of inkjet printers at Olivetti
  51. ↑ New horizons . In: Der Spiegel . No. 30 , 1989, pp. 80-81 ( Online - July 24, 1989 ).
  52. ↑ Olivetti M21 / M24 - Theory of Operations
  53. ^ Brochure "Olivetti Personal Computer - Overview" from 1986.
  54. ↑ Computerwoche 1985: Olivetti also supplies Xerox with M24 microphones on an OEM basis
  55. ↑ Olivetti Service Pocket Guide - Personal Computers Edition 1992.
  56. ↑ Olivetti LSX 5010/5020 - Theory of Operations. Chapter “Specifications”.
  57. ↑ Olivetti Service Pocket Guide - Personal Computers Edition 1992.
  58. ↑ Olivetti Quaderno