
The Last Working Olivetti Mainframe Sits In a Tuscan High School - gscott
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/tech-history/silicon-revolution/when-the-history-of-computing-comes-alive
======
RugnirViking
This reminds me of the beautiful WITCH a.k.a the Harwell Dekatron which sits
in the national museum of computing in the UK. It's sadly overshadowed by the
much larger bletchley park museum that is just next door but it contains the
original working COLOSSUS and other really early computing efforts. But the
reason I love the WITCH is that all of it's memory is stored in decimal using
dekatron memory, and it glows with numbers, allowing you to see the memory and
registers being shifted around as it operated. Combining this with the awesome
debug stepper that is literally a physical button to move onto the next cpu
instruction or sub-instruction, and you can really get a sense for the early
computer architecture and how ideas for CPU design came about.

~~~
a-dub
I don't think the collosus at Bletchley is actually original. IIRC, most of
the working big machines at Bletchley were reproduced from memory (story goes
that all the machines and plans were destroyed after the war because it was
"too dangerous" to have them fall into the wrong hands) by the retired
telephony engineers who worked on the originals as a sort of hobby club for
retirees.

There was a full time guy named Tony Sale who I think organized these efforts
who would be there hacking away on stuff and was happy to talk about all of
it...

~~~
rst
It is a reconstruction -- built from components similar to those of the
original machines, but probably varying from the originals in minor detail
because the original plans were also destroyed. The rebuild project and the
fate of the original machines is summarized briefly in
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer#Influence_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer#Influence_and_fate)

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LargoLasskhyfv
Interesting. Some technological firsts. Nice design aesthetics. Good corporate
culture. Then double whammy bus factor.

[https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivetti_Elea](https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivetti_Elea)

~~~
lou1306
Olivetti, in general, is such a tragic story for any Italian tech enthusiast.
In many ways they were the original Apple: focusing on aesthetics, design and
usability; turning a pretty unsexy commodity such as the typewriter into a
luxury good; opening sophisticated "Olivetti stores" in high-end shopping
venues such as Manhattan or Paris; and so on.

But by the end of the 80s the writing was on the wall: the Italian system
could not support a world-class tech player.

~~~
mahesh_rm
"But by the end of the 80s the writing was on the wall: the Italian system
could not support a world-class tech player."

There are many that believe - including Olivetti employees back then,
according to documented sources - that the US system did in fact "un-support"
it to favor IBM, considering the demise of Olivetti is to be mainly attributed
to the sudden death of the Italo-Chinese (CEO and CTO) heads of the Olivetti
electronics division, in less than clear circumstances.

From:
[https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Tchou](https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Tchou)

"Nel 2013 Carlo De Benedetti dichiarò a un programma radiofonico: "In Olivetti
c'era la convinzione che fosse stato ucciso dai servizi segreti americani"[6],
ipotizzando che l'incidente di Tchou fosse stato in qualche modo provocato per
favorire l'IBM[7]."

Consider that in these years, Italy was a Cold War playground where secret
services of US/Nato on one side and Russia/China on the other, were actively
taking part in multiple underground large scale operations.

~~~
davidw
There's nothing Italy loves more than a good conspiracy theory.

~~~
coldtea
Probably because for those familiar with Italy's history, conspiracies have
been proven again and again, including in courts.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_Due#Criminal_organi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_Due#Criminal_organization)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piazza_Fontana_bombing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piazza_Fontana_bombing)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Pinelli#Suspicious_ci...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Pinelli#Suspicious_circumstances_surrounding_his_death)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giulio_Andreotti#Trial_for_Maf...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giulio_Andreotti#Trial_for_Mafia_association)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giulio_Andreotti#Trial_for_mur...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giulio_Andreotti#Trial_for_murder)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_leaks_scandal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_leaks_scandal)

And that's not even getting into mafia itself, its ties with judges, state and
municipal governments and so on (a whole book on its own), church scandals,
and so on...

Americans, who naively believe in the innocence of states and big corporate
interests and disbelieve in political conspiracies and cover ups (despite some
of their own elite's shit having been exposed time and again, from Hoover's
blakmails and politician surveillance to the Watergate, and from Iran-Contra
to Abu Ghraib on to Snowden), should probably refrain from commenting on
places like Italy...

~~~
davidw
I think the difference is that a lot of people in Italy will go straight for
the conspiracy theory. Maybe that's why the anti-vax movement (and chemtrails
and a lot of other nonsense) is so strong there.

I mean... 'dietrologia' is a thing there:
[https://www.economist.com/johnson/2011/03/15/dietrologia](https://www.economist.com/johnson/2011/03/15/dietrologia)

Just because some things really were plots doesn't mean everything is.

Another nice piece on conspiracy theories:
[https://www.economist.com/christmas-
specials/2002/12/19/that...](https://www.economist.com/christmas-
specials/2002/12/19/thats-what-they-want-you-to-believe)

~~~
coldtea
> _Just because some things really were plots doesn 't mean everything is._

No, but it does make one "Once bitten twice shy" so to speak!

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Animats
It's amazing that it's still working. Transistors in 1959 had a high reject
rate. But, apparently, a long life if they worked.

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fortran77
My first job in Silicon Valley was at Olivetti Advanced Technology in
Cupertino, CA way back in 1988 (after I moved from Long Island aerospace
work). They were quite a company in their day, known for their aesthetic
design, too. They _could_ have been Apple if their management didn't all end
up in jail.

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michaelmior
> To forestall that eventuality, a local group called the Associazione Amici
> dell’Olivetti ELEA 9003 is raising funds

While I can understand how the nostalgia factor elicits this kind of
behaviour, I can't help but think there are many better causes.

~~~
crispyambulance
Yeah, but there aren't _that_ many working installations of historic
mainframes in the world. By a consequence of serendipity, that school now is
now the custodian of a piece of computer history. They probably can't keep it
indefinitely, and will likely pass it on to someplace like a museum that will
continue to maintain it in some form.

I am glad that there are people willing to keep a decent representative sample
of big-iron machines in working order.

~~~
michaelmior
This is a fair point. I agree that I certainly wouldn't want this machine to
just go into the scrap heap :)

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keepitrunning
I have to ask this - while it is super cool to see such an old computer able
to be up and running, isn't this a waste of the school's money? Doesn't just
running it take an enormous amount of electricity? Wouldn't a $300 PC have
about a million times the processing power, and be easier to service and
easier for modern users to use? And doesn't it use about 1/1,000th the
electricity?

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they still keep this thing running for history's
sake, but am a little surprised it's worth the time for a high school to do
it.

~~~
rasz
On one hand it is wasting enormous amount of space and electricity, on the
other its one in a lifetime learning prop.

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rasz
For those asking 'why should I care about ancient Olivetti' I can point you at
the
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STMicroelectronics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STMicroelectronics),
grandchild of original Olivetti SGS silicon fab established in 1957 in order
to supply transistors/diodes for ELEA 9003 mainframe.

Nerds will know ST for excellent STM32 ARM microcontrollers. Back in the day
you could spot their logo on clone 486 CPUs and NVIDIA RIVA 128 chip.

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slumber86
I'm italian. It would be a nice weekend trip going to tuscany to see it!

~~~
abraae
There is a great Italian history in making cool machines, including computers.

My colleague is living in Milan and I told him about the Computer Museum in
Pisa. He's on a mission to get there now.

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King-Aaron
The advert which was served on the page completely broke Chrome for me and
made my cpu usage skyrocket :-/

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tempodox
Wow, 60 years old now. Is there any older computer still working, outside a
museum?

~~~
cptnapalm
Yes, as least as of 2012, in Texas a small business was using an IBM 402
(circa 1948) to do accounting. [https://www.pcworld.com/article/249951/if-it-
aint-broke-dont...](https://www.pcworld.com/article/249951/if-it-aint-broke-
dont-fix-it-ancient-computers-in-use-today.html)

------
craz8
I hate stories written this way! I feel like I’m about 1/3 of the way through
and it just stops. Someone had to write 800 words and, gosh darn it, exactly
800 words were written

I’d love to have learned more in this story

I know people that collect PDPs, and I used to have a small collection of 80s
personal computers myself.

This stuff is interesting in many ways - what word size is used? I/O, storage,
core memory, valves, mercury delay lines, anything else?

These were the wild-west days of computers, and there was little in the way of
standard components. But this article barely scratched the surface of what
this computer has

Gives me something to do tomorrow I guess

~~~
sohkamyung
Maybe it feels like it ends half way because that article is mainly about the
computer historian Elisabetta Mori.

See this [1] for the article she wrote on the ELEA 9003. It was also linked to
in the original article.

[1] [https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/silicon-
revolution/th...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/silicon-
revolution/the-italian-computer-olivettis-elea-9003-was-a-study-in-elegant-
ergonomic-design)

~~~
davidgould
This is a much better article.

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Thermolabile
A working computer from 1959.... astonishingly cool.

