
Programma 101, the first commercial “desktop computer” - tilt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programma_101
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antirez
It'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.

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stefantalpalaru
The real problems start with production costs. See how overpriced the locally
assembled Arduino boards are, compared to their chinese clones.

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tr352
"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.

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listic
Interestingly, 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.

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agumonkey
And 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.

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agumonkey
It'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%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soci%C3%A9t%C3%A9_G%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale_de_Belgique)
in 1980).

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rbrtdrmpc
Sadly De Benedetti is still around after a whole life of bad
industrial/fiscal/political behaviours, he faced law so many times i can't
even remember

~~~
agumonkey
Ah, I thought Alain Minc was the bad influence in his choices ...

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baldfat
As 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.

