Comments on: The incredible story of the first PC, from 1965

By: Pawel Piejko

Pawel Piejko — Tue, 17 Sep 2019 07:04:20 +0000

In reply to Jack. Ah, looks like the domain changed its owner -- thanks for the hint!

By: Jack

Jack — Thu, 12 Sep 2019 20:16:44 +0000

There is a porn link in your data source!! excellent documentary

By: Anthony Calleja

Anthony Calleja — Wed, 11 Sep 2019 09:23:54 +0000

I was the only technician of the olivetti programma 101 in Malta in 1969.
I took the course 50 years ago, September / October 1969 with British Olivetti in London.
That makes me the first PC technician in Malta.

By: Ralf Lippold

Ralf Lippold — Thu, 11 Apr 2019 09:03:31 +0000

What an amazing story!

Some heretics, including the CEO, making the impossible reality.

However, the reactions of others, and goals of new management (not the original founder family), countered what looked like a “hit”.

Would knowing about exponential growth and system dynamics made a difference in management’s decision to sell the division to GE?

Seems like we see managers run in the same trap to undervalue today’s innovations in the mid- and long-run.

@RalfLippold

By: Carl Mikkelsen

Carl Mikkelsen — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 14:45:40 +0000

My high school had a P101. I learned a lot about computing by using it, programming it, and probing the insides with an oscilloscope. Years later I worked for a startup where one of the founders had also learned to program on a P101 — no wonder we were so compatible.
My thanks to the P101 team — every single engineer, designer, programmer, machinist, writer, technician, accountant, clerk, stock room attendant, and all other. You built a machine that led the world toward change, and certainly changed me.

By: Steve Marquis

Steve Marquis — Sun, 29 Mar 2015 16:33:25 +0000

While reading your article I was taken back to an earlier time in my life. My first job after discharge from the United States Navy as an Electronics Technician serving on a Polaris submarine, was as a factory technician repairing the Programma 101 boards that were DOA as they came off of the assembly line at the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania assembly plant. After 18 months as a technician, I became a line foreman, first supervising the final assembly, test and shipping groups and than supervising the micro-module assembly. Olivetti built this plant in 1966-67 to build the Programma and their latest electric typewriter. At our peak we built 22 machines a day. The case and memory were shipped to us from Italy and we built the micro-modules and assembled and tested the boards. In final assembly we assembled, tested and shipped the machines. This assembly line was also one of the first to use the flow soldering technique. This was a wonderful time of my life and It would have been nice to see a reference, in your article, to the plant in Harrisburg and it’s history. Thanks for the memories. Steve

By: CharlesLasner

CharlesLasner — Sun, 13 Apr 2014 22:31:28 +0000

Fenman I started on the 101 and then went into a school situation with IBM 360 and punch-cards. The “politics” was horrible, but then i discovered the PDP-8, the machine i am most known for being associated with. [I personally created alt.sys.pdp8 on usenet].

cjl

By: Fenman

Fenman — Sun, 13 Apr 2014 21:46:22 +0000

Wilst the 101 was amazing the 203 was stunning . Why this development of the 101 seems to get little mention is a mystery to me? It had a larger number of instruction steps and had full control of the integrated Tecne electric typewriter. Properly laid out and easy to read reports could thus be generated. With Olivettis co-operation we developed an interface to the 101 and 203 for our scientific instruments and used them for automativ data processing. The 203 was more popular with our customers as it was more powerful and the laid out typed reports were infinitely more preferable than the “bog-roll” presentation of the 101.

We also srarted to use PDP8’s around 1968 These were as I recall considerably more expensive than even the 203. We sold the PDP to Research institute etc. type customers whereas the 203 was adequate for many routine process control applications.

I wrote a multivariate least squares regression programme for the 203 wheras a simple least squares regression was all I could fit on a 101 (both with previous entry error recovery!)

By: patbin

patbin — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 09:46:12 +0000

talsip1 patbin

Hi Tanya

Last year 2 machines passed on Ebay, but Ebay Europe, for one I bid 1600€ and gone 1601 to a german guy!
May be in the US the value is higher and you can try to fix your price at the level you vish.
Last year I bought a P203 (electronic same as P101) for 200€ in France (but I had 250€ high way toll and gas to get it, 650 km from home and more than 100 kg!)
the HP 9100 is a beautiful machine, don’t think I will have one but hope!
I bought a lot of 12 HP9825 and one HP85 for almost nothing and will try to restaure also after the P101.
Regards
Patrick

By: talsip1

talsip1 — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 22:08:42 +0000

patbin I haven’t seen any on ebay and have been looking for about 1 year because we don’t know what it’s worth. I think it’s worth more than you do though because we sold an HP 9100 for $8,000 last year and the Programma 101 seems to be more rare. I do understand the “sentimental value” aspect. My partner found this machine back in the early 80s when he was working at HP, about 30 years ago, and has been holding it in his collection. He loves it and raves about how beautiful it is! What an engineering marvel! Good luck with getting your unit restored!

Tanya